Run, Girl (If You Can)

Four months of Keeley's life passed in a haze of summer and fall classes, writing and rewriting her proposal, and getting very little sleep. She hardly had a minute to herself but when she did, she recharged by spending time with her friends.

Unfortunately she hadn't had much time to do that lately. She hadn't seen Ryan in weeks and even having more than five minutes of conversation with her roommates was difficult to pencil in.

They asked weeks in advance to set up plans for Halloween—a group of them was going to a costume party held at a roller rink for single people to meet each other and have fun.

The last thing Keeley wanted was to meet someone right now since she didn't even have time for herself and she was still dealing with a very perplexing Aaron problem. However, she didn't want to let her friends down yet again so she agreed.

It was the strangest thing.

Every day, like clockwork, he would text her around 3 PM. He usually started the conversation by sending a picture of Dinah and telling a funny story about something she did before asking her about her life.

How her research was going. What her cat was like. If she did anything fun with her friends. It was as if he actually cared about the small, insignificant details of her life, which was bizarre.

Aaron wasn't like that.

She responded initially because she thought it might satisfy him enough to stop badgering her in person and texting back a few times was a simple enough thing to do.

Her theory was proved correct when she didn't respond one day because her phone was off while she was cleaning lab equipment for several hours.

Aaron showed up at her lab with a cup of coffee and some pastries from White Leaf, saying he needed to check on her because he thought she might have been killed by falling lab equipment or something equally ridiculous.

Apparently he found her by wandering around the lab building asking where Keeley Hall was, claiming he was her boyfriend. She found that out later from one of her coworkers. What an idiot.

After that she tried her best to respond in a somewhat timely manner but wasn't always successful.

When she wasn't, Aaron would appear with some sort of treat asking about her well-being. It was unnerving.

He had never been this attentive before, even when they were dating. She was almost always the one to text him first. So why was he acting like a doting boyfriend now?

Yes, it was weird, but she couldn't deny it had its moments of convenience. Such as right now.

Keeley was working late doing some gene splicing at the beginning of her gene therapy trials and hadn't packed any food. If she didn't eat something soon, she might lose her grip strength and break a test tube. It had happened before.

She knew how to utilize her resources so she shot Aaron a text. 'You busy right now?'

'No. What's up?'

'I'm stuck in the lab with no dinner. Feed your famished friend?'

She had noticed that he tended to respond well when she called him 'friend' even though she didn't actually think of him that way. He was more like an oddly persistent errand boy whose presence she reluctantly accepted over time.

This version of Aaron wasn't completely terrible—he actually respected her desire to keep him at arm's length, to a point.

It was still baffling that he was doing this at all, even after so many months. Every once in a while she still experienced great bitterness that he was only doing this now after she couldn't care less but aside from that, she accepted her new normal.

'On my way. What do you want?'

'A meatball marinara sub and some Sprite. You're the best!'

He also responded well to random, generic praise. If she ignored the fact that he was her callous ex-husband, she was able to text him like he was any other friend and feel less awkward about the whole thing.

Pretending that this Aaron wasn't her Aaron was the only way she had been able to accept this strange new development.

It had been very difficult the first time he showed up in a suit and tie, straight from the office, with coffee. He looked just like he had as her husband except his expression was slightly less disdainful.

Pretending was easier over text because she didn't have his face there to remind her of what she lost. She really wouldn't have asked him to bring her a sandwich if she wasn't on the verge of expiring from hunger. Her roommates, unlike Aaron seemed to be, were busy people.

She didn't understand it. What happened to the workaholic she knew? He spent twelve plus hours a day at the office, including weekends sometimes, and was always working at home as well. These days he seemed available 24/7.

Keeley shook these thoughts free and got back to work until Aaron knocked on the lab door half an hour later.

Food wasn't allowed in the lab so she took off her goggles, lab coat, and gloves before joining him on the ground up against the wall outside.

"Thanks," she said gratefully as she took the bag and soda cup out of his hands.

"Any time. What were you working on? You looked like a real scientist in there for a minute."

She glared at him. "Excuse you, I am a real scientist. Almost."

"It's strange thinking of you as a scientist, that's all."

"Are you disrespecting my profession Mr. Future CEO?"

"No disrespect at all. You just don't look like a scientist at first glance," he explained as she chomped down on her sandwich.

Keeley sighed. She actually got this a lot. She was short, blonde, and cheerful. Everyone expected her to be their stereotypical idea of a nerd.

"Is this the set-up for a blonde joke? Because I've heard them all."

"I don't even know any blonde jokes."

Of course he didn't. He lacked a sense of humor. Well…not completely.

Surprisingly, he had learned to lighten up a little. But she still hadn't seen him genuinely laugh at anything in over a decade.

He used to laugh almost like a normal person when they were dating and in the first year or so of their marriage. Then he stopped caring about her so it made sense that he wouldn't find her amusing anymore.