Chapter 1

I was always a runner. From the day I took my first step, I was ready to run. Ready to leap and bound, and fall and get back up, only to run again. Running is the very thing that I do the best and the very thing I can never be the best at.







My body was always lean and small, too small for most sports since I only stood 4’11 but that never stopped me from wanting to compete. I was the fastest on my high school track team but I never really got better than that. I always wanted to run in the Olympics but knew even as a teenager that was not something that would happen for me.



I was good in school, not straight As but everyone generally knew I was a pretty smart kid and good to bum answers from if you were in dire need.







Only now I was headed to college, and boy did I not know what the fuck I signed up for by doing that. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college before me for at least 3 or 4 generations back on both sides and gee it would’ve been nice to have had someone to help me through that. Now I’m here and it’s almost impossible to navigate but I also know that I can’t throw away my shot, that more than just my future depends on me succeeding at this. There was no setback that would send me reeling until that first note came under my dorm room door.







I had been placed in a small cement colored dorm room with another girl named Rita. Rita was as easy going as they came, and tall enough to reach the few shelves I couldn’t, when she showed me that she played the guitar too we became quick friends. Rita was a runner too, just not at the same level as I was, and that’s what we were doing the day the note came in.







Rita was wearing her usual oversized men’s T-shirt and athletic pants white I wore my usual yoga pants and sweater and we looked as big as we could on the street. We stretched in the cool dark air before the sun rose and started off our run at our usual just-above-jog pace. Rita doesn’t ever talk much but I sure love to, and I do.







I started telling her about a crazy dream I had last night where my family dog was my new physics professor and maybe taught me more about physics than I learned in my last lecture. She giggles along with the story and keeps pace with me until I start panting from the exertion of running and talking at the same time. Then she smiles devilishly before deciding that our warmup is over and darts away quickly before I can tell her how it ends. I start after her, out of breath and a little bit surprised that she would kick off our morning race in this underhanded way. I quickly caught up to her and as she made her first turn, but I knew there was another mile and a half left in our run so I didn’t let on that I was close to passing her until the last half mile, which is downhill, when I knew I could outpace her for sure.







I feel my blood pumping harder and harder as my tennis shoes slap the pavement. I pass her, and I’m running at least twice her speed when I finally beat her home by 20 seconds. She ran the last few steps looking positively pink in the face. She had thought she was about to win for the first time, and she was not happy about losing after cheating. I started to do my victory dance as she ran up and told her that I would get to take the first shower in a loud sing-song voice. “How is someone so small so fast?” She questioned and I couldn’t help but smile at her sweaty face.







I felt energized by the run and took a very quick hot shower that pulled all of the morning chill out of my face. I went back to our dorm room and found that Rita was doing exactly what she had been before I left. She rolled out of her bed, phone still in hand, swiping occasionally, and grabbed her shower caddy without looking at it. I reach out my hand with our shared key to the showers that hang on a large wooden stick with the number 405 on it in pink paint. She said thank you and waved me goodbye for what I knew would be another one of her 45 minute showers.







She had only been gone a minute or two when I heard the sound of paper rustling by the door and I hopped off my tall bed to investigate.







It was a large pink post-it note that looked like it had been ripped and then folded in half, it was dirty like someone had stepped on it and it had my name written on it at the top in quick handwriting. Cassandra







I looked at it blankly, wondering who would leave me a note like this. For a second I considered that it could’ve come from the RA but I had seen her handwriting before and it was very nice and bubbly.



I opened the note to find that it has quite a bit written in it.







I have loved you from the moment I met you, but I cannot know if you love me back, as I think the knowledge will kill me with joy or sadness, whatever your reply might be. Know that you are special to me but do not seek to know my name as it will only lead to heartbreak.



Yours forever,



Your Secret Admirer