Chapter 29 #2
“Well, guess it’s lucky you’re here then. This town is entirely landlocked. Not one Tater Tot tidal wave on the books.”
“Good to know. I’ve got to get educated on my new home.”
I swallow. “You moved here?”
He nods. “Two weeks ago. Snowcap Mountain was just a temporary stop on the highway of life. I’ll be starting at the high school after Christmas break.”
I feel a momentary panic. “As … a … teacher?”
“What? Oh no, ma’am. I’m a senior.”
“Right, of course. Um, welcome, then. I thought maybe you were done with high school.” I mean seriously, what brand of growth hormones are they putting in boys’ cereal these days?
“It’s the facial hair.” He’s right; that and his impeccable manners had me confused. “I turned seventeen on Halloween.”
“A Halloween baby? That’s cool. You must have the best birthday parties.”
He grins. “I’ll be sure to invite you to the next one and then you can tell me how it ranks.” Is this flirting? I bite my lip.
Some more runners walk up behind him, and he moves to the side to let them approach the table. After he watches me do my “mittens off—four safety pins—mittens on” routine a few times, he starts counting out the pins for me, since his fingers are bare.
“So, speaking of facial hair,” I say, “how do you know Lincoln?”
“We just met yesterday. I had a job interview at that restaurant down the street—the Hollywood?—and Lincoln was on shift. Anyway, he told me this was happening, so I thought I’d come support.”
Of course, that would be just like my cowboy to make friends so easily. I flush deeper at the realization that my brain thinks of him as “my” anything. It’s a good thing that it’s cold outside, otherwise my red cheeks would be a dead giveaway of how happy all my nerve endings are to see him.
“Did you get the job?”
“I start Thursday.”
“Well, see if you can get them to put Tater Tots on the menu.”
“Only if you promise to come in and order them from me.”
There’s that charge of pleasure again. “It’s a deal. I’m Hattie, by the way.”
“Jay,” he says, enveloping my mittened hand in both his bare ones. “Want to run-slash-walk together, Hattie?”
“Yeah, sure.” It’s not until I turn to ask Lucia if she thinks she can handle the last few stragglers on her own that I realize she’s been staring at us, open-mouthed and eyes all twinkly, for some time. She answers my question before I can ask it.
“Go, go, go!” she says, practically shoving me away from the table. “I’ll finish up here. Nice to meet you, by the way, Jay. I’m sorry my rude friend didn’t introduce us. I’m Lucia.”
“That’s Lucia,” I echo. “Lucia, Jay. Jay, Lucia.”
Jay actually touches his hat in Lucia’s direction, which could not be more cowboy, even though it’s a White Sox baseball cap. “Thanks for sparing her.”
“No problem. You two kids have fun,” she replies, ever the maternal type. Part of me wishes she could play it a little cooler and not seem so obviously excited for this match, but most of me is glad she’s seeing this. Whatever happens now, it won’t be a secret from the Beaver Bunch.
As we walk over to the starting line, a parking curb I don’t see catches my right toe and I almost go flying. Jay grabs my elbow and pulls me back up. “You okay there, Hattie?” he asks, his eyes smiling.
“Yes, thanks,” I say, and then, I don’t know why, I keep talking. “I have poor peripheral vision from a genetic eye disease.” Awkward, yes. Positively cringy. But ultimately, just true.
The expression in his eyes goes from teasing to one of concern. Not like he’s worried about me, exactly. More like he’s paying very close attention.
“Well, all right. Stick close to me during this race then, just in case.”
In this moment, there’s nothing I’d like more.
Jeff and Lincoln both join us at the back of the pack to wait for the start. Amanda shows up, and I introduce her to Jay, aware of how much easier it is to be around her and a boy I like when I’m not jealous of her. Then I pull her aside.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you think you could give me the number of that therapist you see?”
“Of course! She’s the best. Is everything okay?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Absolutely. Just, you know, dealing with life.”
“I hear that,” she says, squeezing my arm.
The gun goes off and we run. Normally, it would be hard for me not to race for time, to try to get a personal best or pick off runners in front of me. But today, that seems wonderfully pointless. We all jog along, laughing and talking, each burst of giggles making a cloud of steam in front of us.
Soon we’re outside town, the houses dropping away and leaving cow pastures and patches of trees in their place.
We turn onto a road with a sloping hill and my pulse pounds a little harder.
This is where I drove. In front of me, I see the dark slashes of the skid marks from that day angling off the road. It makes me a little dizzy.
“Want to walk?” Jay has slowed and is looking at me closely in that way of his again.
I shake my head slightly and speed up, trying to run away from the feeling. Suddenly, Mason is up ahead, standing on the side of the road just like before, except this time he’s waving a banner like a bona fide race supporter.
I sprint toward him, not really sure what I’m going to do when I get there.
But it’s a false alarm. When I get close, I see it’s not Mason with a banner at all, it’s the flag to mark a turn in our course, to tell us which way to go.
So I hug the turn, brushing past the flag, my feet light on the pavement.
And I realize—it doesn’t matter anymore whether Mason was ever really appearing in my peripheral vision in the first place, or if I was only imagining it because it hurt too much not to.
Either way, I had additional time with him that no one else got, like a bonus round.
I snort to myself. What I got with Mason, what I had to get in order to not totally implode, was an extra-long goodbye.
That’s very uncharacteristic of me, or at least the old me.
And I wouldn’t trade it, because getting real with him made me dig into all the ways I’m broken.
They actually aren’t so terrible. There’s nothing I need to pretend doesn’t exist.
I’ve accidentally put space between me and the group, but now Jay is catching up with me again; I hear his even breath coming up on my right.
“Whoa, you really know how to turn on the gas,” he says, matching my footsteps.
Laughing, I slow down so I can take breaks from looking at the road to look up at his face.
His cheeks are flushed and full of life, and his eyebrows are raised as if he’s anticipating something fun.
His face is loaded with fascinating details: a small scar on his right temple, the arch of his hairline.
And of course, his dimples. I make a mental note to stare at him more after the race.
“I tend to get carried away,” I say.
“Then let’s do that,” he says.
“If you think you can handle it.”
“C’mon, Firecracker.”
We both accelerate. On the downslope, the wind is at our backs, pushing us forward. It makes it feel easy, like I’m weightless, like I can just be. The universe definitely does not hate me today.
Maybe it never did.