When Wishes Come True

By the end of the semester, I had twenty-four installments in my Djinn series and had posted another personal best at the DII finals, this time winning comfortable with a time of 32:59.59, still close to two minutes short of what I would need to go to France next year.

I had to skip the Texas Relays for Jen's mom's wedding; I had never seen Jen that happy. Henry made sure William understood the rules around dating his daughter and with all her new uncles, he was guaranteed not to get too far out of line. He and Enrique hit it off immediately.

Judy and Tom couldn't make it to the beach and I opted to stay at school to take classes so I could finish a year early, Will and the girls all followed suit, all of us making time on weekends to go down and make sure my parents weren't bored; Abby and Angela got Judy's and Toms room, Jen and William got the couch, at Susan's insistence, I'm pretty sure they played anyway.

That fall I finished my thirty-sixth Djinn story and finally felt I could let it go for a while, while continuing to dominate the cross country meets, claiming every DII record there as to claim.

Without telling me, my dad, Dr. Elleridge and Ms. Sanders had compiled my Djinn stories into a collection and presented the whole thing to a few publishers. Under the tree Christmas morning, I got an acceptance letter and an offer to publish the whole thing. My dad and I drove into the city to meet with the publisher and my editor, it was a good thing I only needed nine hours to graduate, I had a ton of work to do to get it ready to publish, including coming up with a title.

"Dad, why did you run?" I was staring out the window of the car as we drove home.

"It was what I was good at, and I saw an opportunity to use it to open other doors, why?"

"Rog thinks I can make the Olympics, but I just can't find any more, he says I need to find my 'it'. I don't even know what that means."

He raised his eyebrow and looked at me when I called Coach K. Rog, "Why do you run?"

"At first, I did it to be like Uncle Jim. Now I guess I'm like you, I'm good at it, really good and there's a place there where I can just shut everything else out, no pain, no stress, no anxiety, just me and the track. I get a lot of ideas for stories there, too."

"And when you had that breakthrough?"

I blushed, "I had just been with Abby the first time, I was so confused; I just ran until it all made sense."

"And now you run to block things out, maybe what he means is you need to find something to run for, to run towards, not from. The Olympics would be pretty cool, and I would love to take your mom to Paris."

"Thanks dad, nothing like a little more pressure," we both laughed.

"So, why do you write?"

"Because the stories deserve to be told, I can't just leave them there, and they deserve to be told the right way. Like 'When Angels Walk', I could have let that Indie guy publish it but the changes he wanted would have made the story cheap, it deserves better, it's too beautiful to be anything but what it is."

"Why don't you feel the same way about yourself, especially when you run? Do you deserve to be anything but your absolute best?"

We sat in silence for a long time. I let his words sink in, maybe I could do it just for me, to see how good I could really be. There were no words for how much I loved my dad in that moment.

"And you're calling Coach K. Rog now, what's up with that?" My dad broke the silence.

"He's a good friend, not just my coach; I can talk to him about stuff," I could feel my neck and cheeks burning.

"Still, I never called one of my coaches by their first name, much less a nickname."

I didn't say anything.

"I checked him out, he's a bit of a prodigy, only twenty-four, Masters in Sports Education from The University of Texas, seems to know how to coach runners, bright future ahead of him."

"Dad, just stop it, ok?" I punched him in the arm, but he was right, I was madly in love with my coach, I had taken those summer classes to get my degree faster because of how I felt about Rog, I had destroyed all those cross country meets, for Rog and it hadn't been enough.

This spring, I would run for myself.

I worked harder than I ever had, editing my book, running my heart out and it all started to come together. At the Division II championship, I set new collegiate records, not for just DII, but across the board in both the 5K and the 10k, qualifying for the Olympics in both events; we were going to Paris.

'Tales from the Sands of Time' was released two days later to rave reviews, historians marveled at the accuracy of my representation of certain characters in my book, one in particular going on and on about how I had described Ponce De Leon, claiming it was like I had actually been there. They couldn't keep the book in bookstores, it screamed to number one on the New York times Bestseller list and would stay there all summer.

The Olympic Trials were in San Antonio, two new personal bests and an American Record in the 10k at 30:00.00; everyone had their eyes on Jamey Harper, especially one really cute track coach from a small college in Texas.

The 10K was day one of the Olympics, I didn't have time to get nervous, I had had good workouts and felt awesome. I was getting lots of attention, as much about my book as my running and I thrived on it. Rog never let me out of his sight, and I thrived on that, too.

The gun sounded and I sprinted to the front of the pack, staying to the inside and focusing on my plan, never pushing too hard and never letting the leaders get too far ahead, the pace was fast but comfortable. Two runners broke from the group, I almost followed but the favorite held her place, so I followed her lead. Sure enough, the group gobbled up the escapees and they fell to the back of the pack.

When it finally happened, it almost caught me off guard, but I moved with them, slowly separating from the rest as we churned around the track, two laps to go and they started sprinting, I went with them again, staying close, out of the final turn I was in fifth place, my time was now, I reached deep looking for everything I had, focusing on the thin tape less than one hundred meters away, by less than a tenth of a second I had taken third, only the second American to ever reach the podium in this event.

Covered in hugs and congratulations from the other runners, someone handed me an American flag that I waved proudly for the crowd. An hour later, I received a bouquet of flowers and my bronze metal, grasping the hand of the Kenyan runner that took the gold, the three of us raised our hands to the cheers of the crowd.

I would repeat the process a week later, again taking the bronze in the 5k, the first American to do so. Rog found me after the ceremony, hugging me tightly and lavishing me in 'I told you so's'.

"Would you please just shut up and kiss me?" I smiled at him, our lips met and nothing that had happened that week mattered.

"You're not my coach anymore, I grinned." He took me to his hotel, our clothes found the floor and our souls found each other, passion and sweat and sex filled the air as we explored each other for the first time, Rog kissed me and ran his fingers up and down my body, sucking on my breasts leaving large sloppy wet circles around them, his hand found my center and one and then two fingers slid inside me, finding that spot and massaging slowly as my passion rose.

His mouth followed the trail left by his hands, burying his face in my wetness, using his tongue to tease my aching bud, moving his fingers in and out, I screamed as one orgasm after another coursed through my body.

Rog entered me slowly at first, he was bigger than I thought he would be but somehow it all fit completely inside me, I moaned and squealed as he moved in and out, driving me insane with pleasure over and over again, I had lost count of the number of times I had reached climax or the number of times he had cum inside me, each seemed to be more powerful than the last; he was relentless until I begged him to stop.

I froze and opened my eyes wide," Raj?" it was almost a whisper.

His deep brown eyes burned into my core as he dangled a small pendant with a purple crystal in front of my face," I wished for a life with you, whatever that meant. I am no longer Djinn, but it was worth it." He kissed me sweetly and I cried uncontrollably until there was nothing left.

Epilogue

In a rare occurrence, "When Angels Walk' was published as I had written it and I had two novels on the New York Times Best Seller List at the same time.

Jen and I both got to be maids of honor at Abby and Angela's wedding while the honor was all mine when Jen married Will. We all stayed in that small college town, Abby as a trainer at the University while Angela set up an accounting office and Will and Jen opened a small restaurant on the town square.

Rog kept his position at the University, turning out several national championship teams and a few more Olympians. I got my PhD. at The University of Texas and settled down in my uncle's old office, teaching inspired young writers how to tell their stories while turning out a few of my own.

My students called me Dr. K because they couldn't spell Keshishian either and I got my exercise chasing three little ones around our house, more than one of them was pretty fast.