Two Three Two Three

Gabby is a runner.

Aug 18, 2025

Gabby is running. Gabby is a runner. She runs and runs and runs. That’s who she is.

Gabby was in a marathon back in 08 and came in with the respectable time of three hours and thirty-seven minutes. When she hit that first wall, she pushed through, and when she hit the second and third, she did the same. She loves the grind. The harder it gets, the more she feels tested—the more she gets out of it.

She beat her boyfriend Kyle’s time by over twenty minutes.

When Gabby was eight years old, her math teacher escorted her class out to the school yard for a special outdoor session on the grass. It was “too beautiful out to stay cooped up inside.” Under the big blue sky, they learned long division. Two older boys were kicking a soccer ball upfield from where Gabby and her class studied. She watched them run back and forth across the lawn. She wanted to run with them. One of the boys kicked the soccer ball into a cherry tree at the edge of the field. They shouted at Gabby and her class, but it was hard to hear what they were yelling. She thought they were saying, “Leaves!” She thought the ball had shaken the leaves from the tree, and then a gust of wind had blown a blizzard of leaves that, at any moment, would rush past her and the other children like a magical, autumnal storm. But they were shouting, “Bees!” The teacher commanded the students to duck. And they did. All but Gabby. She ran. Because Gabby is a runner.

Before that day, Gabby thought bees taking on the formation of an arrow was a cartoon gag, but there they were, an arrow of thrumming fury chasing her down.

Now Gabby is thirty. She’s never been stung by a bee.

Gabby is running. She runs and runs and runs—she’s a grinder.

Whoever snatched her from the trail underestimated the power in her thighs. She kicked the back doors of the van open and jumped out while it was still moving.

Her finger is broken. Her elbow, flayed from the pavement.

The van screeched to a halt, but Gabby is a runner. She’s running.

Gabby is a runner. Ask her dad, who never saw her again. Ask her dad, who, years after she ran away from home, ended up dead in the pen for being a creep.

Gabby is running through the forest, down the mountainside. If only she’d worn her cleats, but it’s a road-work day. Speed-work.

She’s sliding down the embankment, kicking up clouds of dirt-dust, but her friends call her Gabby the Goat. She bounds down the hillside. She doesn’t need cleats.

Gabby is running—someone is chasing her.

She hears the snapping sticks and the rustling leaves behind her. She feels a hot, mean breath on the back of her neck, but it’s not his breath—her pursuer can’t keep up—it’s the familiar breath of opposition; she won’t stop.

Gabby is running. She tells herself to focus on her breathing. She inhales for two, and exhales for three. Inhales for two, exhales for three. Inhales. Two. Exhales. Three. Two. Three. Two. Three. Two. Three. Two. Three.

Gabby is running. So is the man chasing her, but Gabby has grit—Gabby is a runner.

Gabby outran bees. And Gabby outran her dad. Gabby is a runner. Two. Three. Two. Three.

Gabby sees a woman standing in a yard at the bottom of the hill. Gabby yells at the woman to call the police.

The woman is waving her toward a door at the back of the house. 𝕊𝕒𝕗𝕖𝕥𝕪.

Gabby is sprinting. When she gets to the woman’s house, she runs inside. The woman doesn’t come in after her, slams the door shut.

Gabby is standing in a dark room with no windows, touching the walls, shaking her head; so much plastic.

The woman is outside speaking with the man. They’re laughing; he’s a lucky bastard, this time. He’s out of shape, and thank God she was in the garden harvesting the potatoes. The man asks the woman what she wants for dinner. A thigh, she says.

But Gabby loves the grind. Gabby loves hills. Gabby has grit. This is just another wall to break through. Gabby is a goddamn runner.