The Last Lap
I sat on the edge of my bed with a half-packed duffel bag at my feet, staring at the faded track shoes I’d worn all year. September was only a few weeks away. University in another city was suddenly very real. Mom and Dad were already talking about “the next chapter” — I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
I picked up one of the shoes and ran my thumb over the worn laces, feeling the faint grit of red clay still caught in the treads. So much had happened since that first frozen moment when Josh’s dirt bike almost took me out under the stars.
My mind drifted back to some of the lighter moments we’d shared that summer.
It was late July, one of those perfect hot days when the outdoor pool had finally reopened with reservations and strict lane rules. We had to book spots for lane swimming, and the lifeguards kept reminding everyone to stay in their own lane and keep six feet apart. Josh, of course, had other ideas.
We tried to behave for about thirty seconds. Then Josh climbed out, ran along the deck, and cannonballed right next to me, splashing water everywhere. I lunged for him as he surfaced, the water dragging heavy against my shoulders as I tried to haul him under.
Josh was slippery as hell, laughing as he hooked a leg behind my knee to trip me. Before I could get my footing back, he wrapped a firm headlock around me, dragging me into the chest-deep water. We thrashed in slow motion, the water making every shove feel twice as hard. An older man sitting on a lounge chair shook his head and glared at us. “Teen lovebirds,” he muttered loud enough for us to hear.
The lifeguard blew her whistle again, but she was smiling this time. “Come on, guys. One more warning and I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
We behaved for a while — sort of. Then Josh climbed up on the diving board and did a perfect back flip. When I tried to copy him I wiped out spectacularly, hitting the water flat on my stomach. Josh laughed so hard he almost fell off the board. “Ten out of ten,” he called down. “Perfect belly flop.” We spent the rest of the hour chasing each other around the deck, throwing one another in, and wrestling whenever the lifeguard wasn’t looking.
The whole afternoon was ridiculous and joyful and a little bit risky — the kind of thing that could only happen because it was still half-Covid and hardly anyone was there. When we finally left, dripping and sun-warmed, Josh bumped my shoulder and said, “We should get kicked out of more pools.”
I smiled the whole way home.
A few days later, we went to the trampoline park. It was another one of those sticky summer days when everything felt possible. The park had reopened with timed slots and strict rules — no double-bouncing, no wrestling, stay in your own square. Josh, of course, treated the rules like suggestions.
We started bouncing normally — that lasted about thirty seconds before Josh launched himself across the squares and crashed into me mid-air, sending us both tumbling in a tangle of limbs. We tried to wrestle each other while still bouncing, grabbing ankles, pushing shoulders, laughing as we fought for balance. Every time the spotter blew her whistle we’d separate for a few seconds, then go right back at it.
I couldn’t stop staring at him. I’ve always had a thing for socks and nice feet, and the way Josh looked bouncing in those white ankle socks was driving me crazy. They made him look boyish and hot at the same time — his bare calves flexing above the white fabric with every bounce. Every time he landed close to me, our bodies brushing, I felt a sharp surge of lust.
We kept going, bouncing higher to knock each other off balance. Suddenly Josh launched himself into a half-hearted flying dropkick — legs extended, feet together, aimed right at my stomach. I had just enough time to see the white soles of his socks flying toward me before he pulled back at the last second. His feet grazed my chest and knocked me backward in a wild bounce. Josh crashed down beside me, breathing hard, shirt sticking to his chest.
The whole afternoon had the same wild energy as the track, except we didn’t have to hold anything back. When we finally left, Josh hooked me into a headlock and gave me a noogie. “We should do that again,” he said.
The image of him bouncing in those white ankle socks stayed with me the whole drive home — the way they stretched over his arches, the way his legs flexed with every jump. I wanted to wrestle him right then and there — to feel those ankles locked around my neck in the old familiar way. I ached for it.
One warm Saturday afternoon we went to the big park by the lake. It was packed — families had driven up from Toronto, blankets spread across the grass, music coming from portable speakers, kids running everywhere, and the beach full of swimmers.
We were still walking along the seawall when Josh gave me a shove to the shoulder. I shoved him back, and before long we’d drifted off the path and onto the grass. He kept coming at me, grinning, so I grabbed for him, and before I knew it we were down on the grass, grappling and fighting for position. It stayed light at first — just pushing and laughing — but it quickly turned into proper wrestling.
A group of guys walking past slowed down. One of them spoke up, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. “Hey, look at these two — what the hell? That looks gay.”
His friend elbowed him. “Leave them alone, man. They’re just messing around.”
I caught the guy’s eye. He had a sharp, roguish face — the kind I tend to notice, even when I probably shouldn’t. But the second our eyes locked, his expression hardened and he shot back, “What? You gonna kiss me or something? Jesus.”
Still holding me in a loose headlock, Josh called after them in that dreamy voice, “Only if you ask nicely, bro… you offering?”
The guy muttered something under his breath, but his friend grabbed his arm and pulled him away before he could say anything else. They kept walking, the tension fading behind them.
Josh looked down at me with that familiar grin and gave the back of my neck a light squeeze.
Back when things finally opened up at school, I got a chance to see the freaky kid in the hallways. We shared an English class, doing a unit on Shakespeare. Late one afternoon I was at my locker when Josh ambushed me from behind. Before I knew it, he had wrestled me to the ground right there in the hallway, next to the industrial arts rooms.
“Dost thou submit?” he said in an over-the-top Shakespearean voice, already locking his legs around my head. “Dost thy Royal Highness submit to this mere peasant boy? Dost thou? Huh?”
I was laughing and trying to pry his legs apart at the same time. “Josh — come on, someone’s gonna see!”
He tightened the headscissors just enough to make me groan. “Nay, fair prince, thou shalt not escape so easily!”
I heard the sound of wheels rolling down the hallway. An older janitor — Joe, the guy who had been there forever — came around the corner pushing his cart. He stopped for a second, looked at us on the floor, and just smiled, shaking his head like he’d seen it all before.
Josh didn’t let go. He kept the hold, still playful, as Joe walked past.
“Evening, boys,” Joe said casually, continuing down the hall.
“Evening, Joe,” Josh called back, not even embarrassed.
I stayed in the headscissors as the sound of Joe's cart faded down the hall. We just lay there on the cold floor, breathing hard, not saying anything. It must have been a good minute. When Josh finally released me, he helped me up. For a moment we just looked at each other, close, not saying anything. Then he broke into that familiar grin.
“See you in English, Your Highness,” he said, and jogged off down the hall.
One of the nights that summer we ended up at Tony’s Drive-Thru after a long session on the track. The place was almost empty, just the hum of the fluorescent lights and the smell of fries in the air. We ordered burgers and fries and parked at the far end of the lot, sitting on the hood of Josh’s old car with the windows down and the radio playing low.
We were both still buzzing from wrestling, grass stains on our clothes, hair a mess. For a while we just ate in comfortable silence, passing the bag of fries back and forth. Then Josh got quiet in that way he sometimes did when something deeper was coming.
He stared out at the dark parking lot for a long moment before speaking.
“You know… moving here during the first lockdown was weird,” he said softly. “Back in Toronto I was always the loud kid, the one doing stupid shit to make people laugh. Here it was the same — ‘the freaky kid on the track.’ But it wasn’t just for fun, you know.”
“My dad left when I was nine. Just… packed a bag one night and never came back.”
Josh looked down between his knees, his thumb tracing the faded silver Pontiac logo on the hood. He kept at it, his nail catching on a chip in the paint like he was trying to scrape the metal clean.
“Mom tried, but she was fighting her own stuff — depression, drinking, the kind of pain that made her disappear even when she was sitting right there. I learned pretty early that the best way to keep her present was to keep her laughing. Keep things light. If I stopped moving, if the silence settled, it felt like everything might fall apart.”
He gave a small smile, but his eyes stayed serious.
“So I became the freaky kid. The chaos. The guy who turns everything into a game. It worked… most of the time. But wrestling with you — this — it’s the one place I don’t have to perform. I can just… be. And you stay. You don’t run.”
The silence settled then, heavy between us. Above us the parking lot lights hummed.
I didn’t know what to say at first. I just reached over and rested my hand on his knee, feeling the warmth through his track pants.
After a moment, I said quietly, “I’ve never told my parents anything real about me.”
Josh didn’t look over right away, but I felt him listening.
“I mean… they know I’m going to university and all that. But they don’t know about any of this.” I kept my eyes on the dark parking lot. “They think I’m just… normal, I guess. And I’ve never corrected them.”
Josh was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “That sounds lonely.”
I shrugged a little. “It is what it is.”
He nodded slowly, like he understood. He didn’t push for more, and I was grateful for that.
We sat there for a while longer, the radio playing some old song. For the first time, I understood that Josh wasn’t just wild and fearless. He was carrying his own quiet weight, the same way I was.
And somehow, that made the loneliness feel a little smaller.
I came back to the present, sitting on my bed with the duffel bag still half-packed.
Those days had been good. They had been real. But the heart of everything still lived on that empty track at midnight.
I closed my eyes and let the memory of our last night on the track play out again.
The clay was cool under our shoes, the lake whispering somewhere beyond the trees. It was late August, the last night before I left for university. Josh and I had the whole oval to ourselves, just like the beginning.
We didn’t talk much at first. We just ran a few easy laps side by side, shoulders brushing on the straights the way we used to. Then, without a word, we dropped into the grassy middle and started wrestling — slow, familiar, no rush. He got me in a loose headscissors and held it gently while I laughed and tapped his thigh.
“Still got you,” he said, voice soft.
“Yeah,” I answered, still breathing hard. “You always do.”
We rolled apart and lay on our backs, staring up at the same stars that had watched us the first night. For a long time neither of us spoke.
Finally Josh said, “You’ll text, right? When you’re back for breaks?”
“Every time,” I promised. “And you’ll come visit when you can?”
He nodded. “I’ll still be here. We’ll figure it out.”
I turned my head to look at him. “I’m gonna miss this. The track. The way you make everything feel… alive.”
Josh smiled that dreamy smile I’d first seen when he was lying on the clay after the bike almost hit me. “Me too. But we’ll still have it. Just… different.”
We wrestled one more time — nothing serious, just easy rolling and laughing — then sat together on the grass until the sky started to lighten. When we finally stood up, he pulled me into a quick, clumsy hug, our arms unsure where to land, like we were both afraid to hold on too tightly.
“See you soon, philosopher boy,” he said.
“See you soon, freaky kid.”
I watched him jog off toward the path, skateboard under his arm, until the darkness swallowed him. Then I stood there alone for a minute, the track quiet around me, the same place where everything had started.
I closed the memory and looked around my room again. University was waiting. Landon was already texting me about meeting up on campus. Josh was starting his carpentry program and figuring out his own path. Everything was changing.
But the track would always be there in my head — those golden midnight moments when a zany kid on a dirt bike crashed into my life and cracked me wide open. Whatever happened next, I’d carry that with me.
Life was good.
And I was ready.
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