Run, Girl (If You Can)

The ride was called the Twister and consisted of these pods meant for up to four people that spun around hanging from something that looked kind of like a crane. There was a disc in the middle that could be turned to spin faster.

Aaron really didn't want to ride it but Keeley looked so excited.

"Oh, we used to love this ride!" she gushed.

"We?" he asked grumpily. Did she seriously take him to a place she used to go with another man?

She raised her eyebrow at him. "Yeah, Kaleb and me."

Kaleb…her brother? She never talked about her brother. Why would she bring him up now? Did that mean she trusted him?

"He wasn't strong enough to spin the wheel but always wanted to go super-fast so I would spin it for him," she said matter-of-factly.

Apparently whatever trauma she had regarding talking about her brother wasn't there anymore. What had changed? He wanted to ask but didn't have a way to explain why he knew too much.

"Well I'm clearly stronger than you so I can spin the wheel even faster," Aaron bragged, not knowing what else to say.

"Is that so?"

They strapped themselves into the harnesses facing each other in one of the pods and once the ride started, Aaron turned the wheel with all his might.

Keeley's eyes lit up as they spun faster and faster and she grinned for all she was worth. Seeing that smile, he didn't even care that his arms were getting sore. The thing was harder to turn than he thought.

Afterwards, at the ticket counter, they got several dinky little prizes that Aaron let Keeley keep because he had zero interest in them. One of them was a little rubber popper that you turn inside out and let fly off of your finger and she accidentally nailed a little kid in the head.

The kid started crying and the look of intense panic on her face when she saw the kid's angry parent glaring at her was comical.

"Run!" she hissed, not caring about retrieving the popper.

Aaron took the initiative and grabbed her hand since he had longer legs and could run faster. They didn't stop running until they reached his car.

"Man," Keeley wheezed, out of breath. "I thought that kid's dad was going to kill me."

"I'm glad he didn't but I'm sorry you lost your popper in the process."

She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "You can buy those in bulk for like a dollar. No big deal."

Aaron didn't think he would enjoy himself when they arrived at this children's restaurant but it was surprisingly pleasant considering how much fun Keeley was having. It felt like the good old days. He really missed that.

"That was fun," he said truthfully. "This place was a good choice."

Keeley looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

===

A good choice?! She only picked this place because she thought it would annoy him, just like the way she dressed! Honestly, did nothing work on this guy? She couldn't understand it.

This was AARON HALE here. The killjoy who sucked all the life out of her over their miserable eight years of marriage. And he just used the words 'fun' and 'good choice' in a sentence about something silly and cheap.

Keeley knew that he wouldn't take no for an answer when he offered to buy her lunch so she chose the most obnoxious place she could think of on purpose. She was tired but wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine, getting dragged around against his will.

Clearly that backfired big time. Now she was even more tired from all the running.

The car's clock read 1:52 PM. She had been with Aaron for nearly five hours. This was the longest she had been stuck with him in this life.

It wasn't even completely horrible. She had fun with the kittens at the shelter and playing a few of the arcade games. The events themselves were nice but the company…

As time went on, she understood him less and less. It was like he was a completely different person than the one she had known. How was that possible?

They were both Aaron. They were raised the same way. Even if there were minor differences, they shouldn't be this much!

He wasn't supposed to be nice or like animals or do normal people things and enjoy them. That wasn't Aaron at all. Did an alien abduct him and give him a personality transplant?

No, he was still cocky and ice cold at times like usual…it was definitely Aaron. Why was he like this? What on earth had triggered the change?

It was horribly ironic. If he had been anything like this in her past life, she wouldn't have stopped loving him. But Keeley had no emotions left to spare for this man.

When he dropped her off at the fake apartment building, she knocked on the window after getting out so he would roll it down.

"Yes?"

"Hey, um…I'm actually really busy so please don't ask me for favors again, okay? I have to start working on my dissertation today and that's going to take over my life for the next year to year and a half."

She had to make things clear; she didn't have time to waste on him. Her life didn't revolve around his whims anymore. She couldn't let him walk all over her again.

"What if there's an emergency?" he asked blankly.

Keeley was exasperated. "I'm not your emergency contact! I don't even own a car; there's literally nothing I can do to help you in an emergency."

"Just being there would help me."

He's crazy! How would her being there make any degree of difference?! "I don't have the time. Really. Good luck with your cat…and thanks for lunch. Bye!"

She turned around and walked back to her true apartment building, running into Aiden in the lobby carrying what looked like a gigantic tank with tubes sticking out of it.

"What on earth is that?"

"Oh hey, Keeley! This is my hamster palace! I'm still working on building it completely…it's a work in progress. I'm going to get two or three hamsters and want them to have a bunch of tunnels."

She examined it more closely. "There are already eight, how many more do you need?!"

"However many it takes," he said dramatically. "Um…could you maybe grab the other end? It's slipping out of my grip a bit."

She chuckled slightly. There was always something, wasn't there? "Sure thing."