“Strudel?”
Nick raises his hands in the air. “I have no idea.”
“The PE teachers are into strudel,” Issie says. “I’m not sure why. It’s so gooey.”
“Gooey is good,” Nick says.
“Seriously?” I ask him. “You like strudel.”
“I like a lot of things that aren’t good for me.” He smiles slowly at me. My mouth must be hanging open because he starts laughing.
“You made her blush!” Issie says. “Don’t blush, Zara. He’s just teasing.”
Coach Walsh blows the whistle and we take off. A lot of the girls just jog, but Megan Crowley bolts, and I dash after her, hating how cute and long her legs look as she runs with a perfect stride, her feet swinging low and quick. Does Nick notice how perfect she is? Why do I even care? Megan turns her head and flashes a smile at me. It is not a friendly smile. What is wrong with that girl? What is wrong with me?
“Go get her,” Issie huffs out. Her form is all off. She’s loping and too loose, her arms flapping everywhere. “Don’t wait for me.”
“But . . .”
“I’m not much of a distance runner, more of a sprinter.” She smiles apologetically. “More of a walker, really.”
We haven’t even gone a quarter of a mile and Issie’s face is already red.
“Go. Catch her.”
She smiles and waves me away.
Then she adds, “You know you want to.”
I pick up my pace, easily catching up to Megan. I flash her my own version of the evil-Megan, super-unfriendly smile and pass her at the quarter-mile mark.
Let me just say that there’s nothing better than running fast. There’s nothing better than the way your legs feel when you stretch out to sprinting speed and you know that your lungs and heart can sustain it.
My running shoes pound over the red track and I start to catch up to the leading boys.
The gym teacher switches on some really ultra-urban hip-hop music, which almost breaks my stride because it has to be the strangest thing in the world listening to ultra-urban hip-hop in a gym in northern Maine. I swear, Maine is the whitest state in the nation.
We went running the day my dad died, in Charleston. My breath hiccups out of my mouth and I lose my breathing rhythm. Crap.
“Don’t think about it. Go faster.” I am mumbling to myself. What is wrong with me? Running never makes me nervous. I lap the jogging girls. They’re singing, “Whassup. Whassup with you . . . ”
I lap sweet Issie. Her arms are still all loosey-goosey and she waves at me before she yells, “Watch out. She’s catching up.”
I just run faster and hit the slowest of the lead boys. I wink and race by him. He smells like onions and he has big, wet circles in the pits of his shirt. He speeds up, but can only stay with me for a tenth of a mile before he drops back. Then it’s Nick.
I cruise next to him. He’s some sort of running god, because he isn’t close to being winded. His stride is long, powerful, and quick.
“Hi.”
Why I said this, I do not know. He’s cute. Okay. I am a sucker for cute boys and he was nice to Issie. Plus, he has good hair and he isn’t as pale as most Maine males. He looks like he works in the sun, or at least has seen the sun once, maybe many weeks ago. Plus, life is all supposed to be about making love, not war. My dad listened to John Lennon; I know this stuff.
“You’re fast,” he says, easy. No huffing. No puffing. No blowing the house down.
“So are you.”
We run together, keeping pace. The only one ahead of us is Ian, who is loping around the track as if it’s nothing.
Nick shrugs at me while he runs, which is really something, because when I’m running full tilt it’s hard for me to speak, let alone break form to shrug.
“You can go faster, can’t you?” I huff out.
He just gives a little smile again and then his eyes shift into something cold, like gravestones with just the barest information about a life etched onto them.
“Zara,” he whisper-says.
I lean in closer to hear him. “What?”
My voice is not a whisper. It matches the thudding beat of my heart, the bass of the music that blares out of the speakers.
“Awesome job, new girl!” Devyn yells, clapping.
Nick locks his eyes into mine. “You should stay away from Ian.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s just . . . he’s a user.”
“A user?”
We thunder past the jogging/singing girls.
“What do you mean, a user?” I ask again.
We flash by some unhealthy boys, including the onion-smell guy.
Nick sniffs the air. “Smells like they might not make it.”
Might not make it. Like my dad.
I gulp and turn my head to look at him. He is oblivious. My dad’s face flashes into my head, the water bottle on the floor, the way I couldn’t do anything to help him. I ache, just ache, and it makes me mad. I start kicking. It’s way too early, but I have to get ahead and get away, like I can outrun death somehow, like I can run away from what’s real.
Might not make it.
Every muscle rebels but I ignore them and push past Nick, closing the distance between Ian and me in the final lap. I pass people but don’t really notice who. Some yell, but I don’t really hear them. With every footfall I increase the distance between me and Nick, between me and bad memories.
Might not make it.
Just Run. Run. Run.
I halve the distance between Ian and me. I quarter the distance.
People yell, I think. People holler. My red running shoes blur as they move over the grainy track. My arms pump. Kicking high to catch up, all power, all speed, and I get so close I can smell Ian, cold and icy like my windowpane this morning. He turns and looks at me.
He isn’t even concerned. A runner never turns to look back unless he knows he can’t be beat.
He smiles kindly—amused, I think—and picks up his pace. No sweat soaks his shirt, no beads on his forehead. Nothing.
God, that’s incredible, to be able to run like that.
He crosses the line three strides ahead of me, standing up, smiling.
I stumble across the line and fall to the ground, gasping for air, clutching my cinched-up stomach, and suppressing the urge to vomit, which is what happens sometimes when I run hard.
“You were great.” Ian bends over me and reaches a hand out to help me up.