I started running six months after Rosie died. It was one of the ways I wanted to honor her memory - taking charge of one thing that I had some control over - my health. With Michael safely tucked into his jogging stroller, it was something I could do without having to go to the gym. I lived in the South Bay after all, and my house was less than a mile from the Strand, where I could run, walk, or ride my bike.

The Strand was a 22-mile bike path that stretched from Will Rogers State Beach to Torrance Beach. It was the perfect place to get away from it all - without having to get away. It was four blocks away from my little house in Hermosa Beach, and I loved to listen to the ocean while Michael pointed to the houses we'd run past.

In the beginning, I was so out of shape that all I could do was walk. It would take me a few months before I'd finally get to ease myself into a steady run after a 10-minute brisk walk to warm up. Michael would yell for me to run faster while I prayed I wouldn't pass out in front of the beautiful houses that lined the east side of the Strand. There were days when all I could do was walk, but it was better than nothing. I felt good, and that was what mattered.

My running form could use some help, though. I knew I was leaning forward too much as I ran, my shoulders up to my ears, and every night, shoulders hurt. Even my legs and feet hurt. I was doing something wrong, but I couldn't place it. But as long as I was running farther and farther up along the Strand without stopping, I ignored the discomfort.

Sometimes I wondered if running, or, at least, walking, would have made a difference for Rosie. Would she still be alive if we'd spent more time walking together instead of sitting at home with the kids, or watching some reality TV show all night?

"Your handle bar's too high," said a voice next to me as I pulled on the brake handle on Michael's stroller and stopped.

"What?" I took off my headphones as a man stopped next to me, though now, he was running in place. He was tall, with reddish-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. I was struck by how blue they were against the backdrop of the sky behind him.

He grinned. "Your handle bar's too high," he said again, pointing to the handle bar of Michael's stroller. "That's why your shoulders are up to your ears, and you're forced to lean forward when you run, which puts a lot of pressure on your hips and your knees."

"Thanks," I said, embarrassed. He had just mentioned all my aches and pains in one go, complete with a very faint accent. Not Scottish. Irish then, I thought, although I had no idea. All I knew was, he didn't speak like a lot of people I knew.

"Do you feel any tightness in your shoulders after every run?" He asked.

I nodded, unable to think of saying anything coherent. Michael was fast asleep, and I was grateful that the sudden stop hadn't awoken him. I started to run again, hoping that the man would move on. I figured I'd fix the handlebar after he was gone.

But the man wasn't done. He jogged alongside me, towering right next to me though he had to slow down his pace to keep up with me and my short legs.

"I don't mean to bother you, but if you lowered your handlebar, then you wouldn't be straining your shoulders as you are right now."

I wanted to tell him to go away, my embarrassment growing with every second. Finally, I stopped running and looked underneath the handle bar to see if there was a lever to lower it. I'd purchased it off Craigslist because I couldn't afford a brand new one. I could have gone online to search for its instruction manual, but it had never been high on my priority list.

"May I?" He asked. "My sister has one just like this, and she has the same problem since I forget to set it back to her height every time I use it."

Seeing that he was so intent on helping me regardless of what I would have said, I stood aside to let him have a go at it. In five seconds, he lowered the handlebar to accommodate someone of my height and stepped aside with a flourish of his hand. As I wrapped my fingers around the handlebar, I could feel the difference immediately. My shoulders, at least, didn't seem strained.

Suddenly I felt silly. I'd only purchased the stroller four months ago after Michael outgrew the last one. But since then, all I'd done was complain about my neck and shoulder pain when all it needed was a simple flick of some lever I never bothered to find before.

"Wow, you fixed it. I mean, you fixed me," I said. "Thanks."

"I'm Erik, by the way. I see you running past my house some days. It's just a few blocks back there," he said, pointing his finger along one of the beautiful houses along the Strand.

"You live on the Strand?" I asked. After what he had just said, my question sounded so silly, but it was the only thing that came out of my mouth then. I'd gotten used to the idea of only seeing the residents in such houses as if they were people living in some display case, with every nuance of their life visible for all to see. They had become unreal to me, nothing like the man who still grinned in front of me.

He nodded, his face coloring. "I run on the Strand, too, of course. It's not like I just watch people from my deck or something."

I stared at him in alarm. Had he been watching me huffing and puffing past his house all these months? Did I pull my stomach in? Was I frowning? Yelling at Michael over something?

"Are you alright?" he asked me, his brow furrowing. "Did I say something wrong? I mean, I'm not stalking you or anything. I live on the Strand."

He was beautiful, I thought. But then why was he talking to me, of all people?

I was short, with light brown hair that was always pulled up in a bun or tied in a loose ponytail. One girl at juvie called me mousy while another one called me plain. Rosie always said I was beautiful, but then that was Rosie. She always had nice things to say about me even when sometimes - I suspected - there was nothing nice to say.

And David - he once said that if it weren't for my eyes, there wasn't much going for me in the looks department. He said this after the divorce, so I was sure that the divorce had something to do with this particular opinion. Before that, I was his gorgeous little thing - though money machine was more like it.

Still, how could someone this handsome introduce himself to someone like me? Wasn't I dripping in sweat, wearing no makeup over the sunscreen I applied every time I went out? Who ever said this was the perfect time to meet such a handsome stranger when I looked like I had just rolled out of bed and ran out the door? How did those women in running commercials do it?

Then my embarrassment turned to horror when I saw his outstretched hand.

"I'm Erik, by the way," he said again. "What's your name?"

The word hyperhidrosis suddenly popped into my head. Someone who perspired excessively. I had no problem with excessive sweating but at that moment, I might as well have been afflicted by it. That and the horrible realization that he was still waiting for me to say my name.

I took a deep breath and forced a smile. In all my time running along the Strand or the bike path behind Ardmore, no one had ever asked me for my name before - especially not some handsome stranger like this Erik. Was he blind?

I forced myself to hold out my hand, but the thought of my sweaty hands touching his made me cringe. Sweat dripped down my nose and at that moment, I knew. I was panicking.

"I'm...I'm gone," I said and ran as fast as I could away from him. It was silly of me, but I couldn't help myself. It was as if something alien had taken over me and told my muscles to do one thing even as my mind said I could totally do it - talk and think rationally about a man like Erik.

I must have run past five or six houses before I finally stopped to turn into a walk street so I could catch my breath. In the past year since losing Rosie, I'd never once thought of meeting anyone new. There was still David, after all, coming over when he wasn't supposed to, and my lawyer wasn't exactly on the ball about helping me do anything about it. I often wondered how David would react if I started dating again.

Still, it wasn't a reason to run away from helpful and friendly strangers. Even Rosie would have probably asked me why I just did such a cowardly thing. And if she would have asked me - if she were still alive - I'd have replied that I didn't have any makeup on. It was the best excuse I could come up with, but one that was quite valid.

So I told myself that the next time I'd run along the Strand, knowing now that someone like Erik had seen me run past his house a few times, I'd start wearing make-up. Tons of it if I had to.

And for the next three weeks, that's exactly what I did. I wore make-up over my sunscreen. It melted down my face and stung my eyes and, of course, I never ran into Erik again.

For wasn't that the story of my life so far? That whenever I didn't expect something to happen, it did. And whenever I did want them to happen, they didn't.

Or if they did, they always turned out so wrong.