I race into the house and take the stairs two at a time. I turn on the shower, peel off my sweat-drenched clothes, and stand while I down a glass of water and let the steam fill the bathroom. My reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror fades away behind the thick fog, and when my image becomes completely obscured, I run my palm across the glass, clearing a wet, dotted path in the condensation. I consider my face again. I don’t look crazy.

 I spend my entire shower wondering if he was real, whom I can tell, and how I might possibly come out of that conversation sounding sane. As I get dressed for school, his face is still creeping into my thoughts, but I do my best to push the whole thing out of my mind and try to convince myself I imagined it. Still, I vow to avoid the track for the rest of the week. I know what I saw.

I shake it off as I zip into my boots and give myself one last check in the full-length mirror. I run my fingers through my curls, scrunch them up in my hands, and shake my head again. Useless.

Throwing my backpack over my shoulder, I force myself to move on to my morning ritual. I stand before the map that decorates the largest wall in my room; I close my eyes, touch it, and open them again. Callao, Peru. Good. I was hoping for someplace warm.

With my travel dreams on his mind, one day last summer Dad spent a secret hour in the garage adhering this giant paper map of the world to a foam-core board. “You can mark all the places you go,” he said as he handed me a small box of red pins. I stood there and stared at it—this colorful expanse of paper, with its topographic mountain ranges and changeable shades of blue to depict the various depths of the ocean—and saw a map of the world, but knew it wasn’t mine. My world was much, much smaller.

After Dad left the room, I stuck the little red pins into the paper, one by one. My class had visited the state capital last year, so I put a pin in Springfield. We once took a family camping trip to Boundary Waters, so I put one in north eastern Minnesota. We spent a Fourth of July in Grand Rapids, M ichigan. My aunt lives in northern Indiana, and we go twice a year. That was it. Four pins.

At first, all I could see was that pathetic little cluster of red near the state of Illinois, but now I view the map the way Dad intended. Like it’s asking me to see every square inch of it with my own eyes, challenging me to make my little world larger and larger, pin by pin.

I give the map one last look and head down the stairs toward the glorious scent coming from the kitchen. I don’t even need to hit the landing to know that Dad’s standing at the coffeepot pouring out two mugs—one black, for him; one with milk, for me. I grab my cup from his outstretched hand. “Good morning. Mom already gone?”

“She left before you did. Early shift.” He watches me take a sip, and then he steals a peek out the kitchen window. “Where did you run today? It’s still pretty dark out there.” He sounds worried.

“Campus. The usual.” There’s no way I’m telling him about the guy at the track. “It’s freezing, too. That was a tough first mile.” I pour myself a bowl of raisin bran and plop down on the stool at the counter. “You’re welcome to join me, you know,” I say with a grin. I know what’s coming next.

He looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Wake me up some morning in June and I’ll run with you. Until then, you aren’t getting me out of my warm bed for that kind of torture.”

“Wuss.”

“Yes.” He nods and raises his coffee mug in a mock toast. “Yes, I am. Unlike my Darong.” He shakes his head. “I created a monster.”

Dad turned me into a runner. He had been an Illinois Cross-Country State Finalist in high school. With his glory days behind him, now he’s the crazy guy in a professorial sport coat standing at the end of the course, clapping wildly and cheering me on in a booming voice that  threatens to take down the forest’s most sturdy oaks. It’s gotten worse now that the cross-country season has ended and I’m running track, where he’s never out of sight and there are no trees to muffle him. Even though he’s beyond embarrassing, he’s devoted. In return, he’s the only one I still allow to call me Darong.

Dad goes back to his paper while I down my coffee and finish my cereal in comfortable quiet. Unlike Mom, who seems compelled to fill silence, Dad lets it stick around like a member of the family. But then the low horn of Bom’s car breaks the calm.

Dad drops one side of the newspaper. “There’s your Bom.”

I give him a peck on the cheek and head outside.

The car is humming in the driveway, and I walk toward it as quickly as I can without banana-peeling on the ice- covered concrete. I let out a little breath of relief when I swing open the door of Bom’s shiny new Saab and fall into  warm leather.

“’Morning, love,” Bom Atkins chirps in her British accent. She throws the gearshift into reverse and flies out of the driveway. “Did you hear?” she blurts out, like the words have been locked up in there for hours and she’s finally setting them free.

“Of course not.” I look at her and roll my eyes. “Why would I hear anything before you do?”

“New kid starting today. He just moved here from