Chapter Twenty-Five Keely #2
He pulled his feet up and pressed the soles of his shoes together into a butterfly. “I have to get back at you somehow for all the pranks.” When she didn’t respond, he tipped his head at her legs. “What I’m doing, you should be doing, by the way.”
She scrambled to pull her feet together. “What do you mean, getting back at me for the pranks? I thought we were done keeping score.”
Max studied her for a second, dozens of emotions splayed across his face: surprise, amusement, interest. “I don’t know if we’ll ever be done.”
Her heart rocketed so fast and so suddenly, she was sure if she looked down, she’d see it knocking against her ribs.
They continued stretching, and Keely tried not to notice his muscles flexing beneath the fabric of his running gear, a moisture-wicking, AMU-green tank shirt and black athletic shorts. When he shifted, she got a peek of the built-in liner hugging his upper thighs. Was he wearing underwear?
In what world did that matter?
After what seemed like ages but was probably no more than twenty minutes, Max stopped stretching.
Keely popped up next to him and held her hands out, palms up. “Passion, please.”
He slapped them in a double high-five, fingers dragging along hers as he drew back. “What’s your favorite thing in the world?”
His laugh, her brain supplied.
Oh, no. That was the truth. Max’s laugh was her new favorite sound.
Her smile melted into a flat line. “Science,” she said instead, tacking on an “obviously” at the end for good measure. Did he hear the lie?
“Obviously,” he agreed, and started walking along the track. “And what’s your favorite thing about science?”
She rushed to catch up. “The breakthrough.”
“And what’s your favorite thing about—”
“I get it,” she said as they fell into step together. “Okay, fine. Do you remember the field trip we went on in fifth grade?”
He grimaced. “The one to the Richmond Science Center? That place was so boring.”
“It wasn’t, though. Not to me. It made me feel. . . less than—and also somehow bigger than—myself. Bigger than all of it.”
It was the first and only field trip her father had ever volunteered to come on, and he was on his phone the whole time, taking hushed calls and answering emails.
Usually when a parent chaperoned, that child became cool for the day, other kids crowding around during lunch and asking to be in pictures. Keely didn’t have any of that.
What she did have, though, was cells.
At Max’s confused expression, she kept talking, trying to pull her abstract thoughts and dreams into words that made sense.
“There was this giant cell model. You could walk inside it and see mitochondria—”
“They’re the powerhouse of the cell, you know.”
At her glare, he mimed zipping his lips and handing her the key.
She pushed his hand away. “The exhibit was nothing spectacular. I’ve looked at pictures online since, and.
. .” She shook her head, struggling to capture the right words from the thousands in her brain at any given time.
“I felt so small, in a larger-than-life kind of way. I was made up of those little molecules, would only ever be made up of them, but I could do so many things. I could dance and read and sing and laugh. Watch movies, think about boys—”
He hummed behind his zipped-shut lips, but she knew what he wanted to say. She rolled her eyes, and he blew laughter through his nose.
“It’s just. . . miraculous. Billions of years of life, matter, energy, have put us here, with these bodies, on this planet that sustains itself for the most part. I don’t think I’ll ever know enough about it. About us.”
Finally, she inhaled. When Max didn’t talk, she glanced over. His cheeks were puffed like he was about to burst.
He was a child. She handed back his pretend key, and he exhaled sharply. She wouldn’t laugh. She wouldn’t.
“That’s how I am about running.” He shrugged. “I can never know enough, improve enough. The key to passion is always thinking there’s more to learn. Going after something with your whole heart until it breaks. Even when it’s ugly and leaves bruises.”
Keely nodded, Max’s earnest words ringing true. “Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how much I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s kind of thrilling to think there’s always more.”
“Exactly.” His voice rose a few notches with his excitement. “Each new method or technique unlocks something totally new to work at and master. Every time I’m ready for more, it’s there, waiting patiently. It only ever moves as fast as I’m ready to go.”
At some point, he’d increased their pace. That had to be why her heart was thrumming so heavily in her ears, why sweat and awareness prickled on the back of her neck.
It had nothing to do with how his words were the same ones written on her soul. How he’d crawled inside her mind and recited her own joy back to her.
This was too much. This was a mistake. Getting closer to Max, asking for his help on her essay. Before the locker room, their trip home, she would have been okay with this. But now, knowing exactly why he needed it, where his passion came from. . .
How was she supposed to compete with this, with him, when his joy and enthusiasm for his father’s legacy seeped from every pore?
There was no real winner in their game, but they still had a finish line. And the closer the calendar crept to the scholarship deadline, the end of the semester, Keely’s fear grew that she would lose more than the money.
She’d lose her heart, too.
“Race you,” she said, breaking into a sprint and, hopefully, leaving him and those feelings far behind.
“Look at you,” Max called, pride coloring each and every word. “You’re running.”
He zoomed past her, flipping around for a few seconds to run backwards.
“Show-off!” she shouted through a laugh, and he shook his head, spinning back around.
“I’ll wait for you,” he yelled over his shoulder.
Adrenaline and endorphins flooded her system as she sped up. If he were really trying, there’d be no way, but up ahead, he alternated between glancing back at her, slowing to a jog—was he whistling?—and, occasionally, doing his version of a cartwheel.
He fell over on his last one, which gave Keely an opportunity to catch up.
But the harder she went, the farther away he seemed. He was toying with her. She wouldn’t ever catch him, would she? Was there any point to this?
Her entire life, she’d been trying to catch up to something, an ambiguous goal she didn’t know and couldn’t see.
Growing up, there was no space in her house to screw up safely, not when her parents fought so much.
She had to time her requests, and her disappointing news.
Eventually, it became easier to not disappoint them at all.
Instead she stayed in her room, doing her homework, reading textbooks like they held the answers as to why people like Max had families who were happy and perfect.
Then Max moved away, and Keely had to learn how to make new friends. She tried what worked at home—being amenable, being nice, always doing exactly what was expected of her.
What did she expect of herself, though? She had anxiety that never rested, no matter how many colored pens she had or deadlines she met.
Zoey was avoiding her, and Keely was spending more time chasing Max around campus playing pranks than she’d spent on her thesis this semester. She—she was just drowning.
When would Keely reach the finish line? When would she get to rest?
When would her best finally be enough?
Gasping sounds rent the air, and since she wasn’t close enough to hear Max, she had to guess they were coming from her. His footfalls grew softer, and she pushed harder, though she could barely catch her breath.
She couldn’t catch her breath.
“Max,” she said, but it was all hot air. Her knees wobbled.
“Done already?” he yelled back. His amusement was clear, his grin as blinding as the spring sun creeping up into the sky as he looked over his shoulder at her. He slowed to a stop. “Keely?”
“I—” she tried. She shook her head.
Max ran to her. He ducked, and—had he always been fuzzy around the edges like that? And was it getting dark already?
“You’re hyperventilating,” Max murmured. “Come on, Key. Breathe. In through your nose. Out loud with your mouth. Force it.”
She sucked air in through her nose, but it was all hot and humid, and her lungs were burning, screaming at her. She went faster, taking more in. She clawed at her neck. Was there a second part to Max’s instructions? She couldn’t remember.
“Breathe out now, Keely. Make it messy.” He demonstrated, but it just sounded like distant hissing to her. That wasn’t helpful. As soon as she could think straight again, she’d tell him so.
“Feel it,” Max demanded. If her vision was working properly, she would have sworn he looked nervous, with the way his mouth pinched in at the corners.
“I’m going to touch you on your sternum, between your breasts.
I want you to breathe deep enough to move my hand. Can you nod to show me that’s okay?”
It sounded fine enough, and she needed all the help she could get. She didn’t know if she managed the nod she intended, but he let out a sigh her misfiring brain categorized as relieved, and he rested his fingers on her chest.
“Breathe, Keely. Move my hand.”
The small sliver of space where he touched her re-centered her brain. She leaned into it, closing the distance between them, and her next breath was more of a gasp. Maybe she wasn’t going to die, if she could still think about how much she hated this. Hated. . . him? That didn’t sound right.
And he wasn’t looking at her like he hated her.
Her next inhale moved his hand, and he nodded. “That’s perfect. Just like that.”
Definitely didn’t hate her right this moment.
“Touch me, too.” He stepped closer and dropped his voice an octave and a few volume notches. “If you want.” He tilted his head to catch her gaze. “Hold your hand to my chest to see how it should feel.”