We’re the last group to go. Nick stays a step or so behind me the whole time and it drives me crazy, like I’m not good enough to run alongside or something.
“Do you have to run behind me?” I finally say when we’re long-legging it up a hill that twists through the forest.
“It bother you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not checking out your butt or anything.”
I stop. He rams into me and we both topple down. My arms go to break my fall, but I don’t have to. His right arm loops around my rib cage and he rolls us so that his back takes most of the fall. I’m on top of him. For a second his arm doesn’t move. When it does I push myself up. He stands up too, turning around, trying to figure things out, I guess.
His voice is a bark. “What are you doing?”
“Checking out your butt,” I tease, and then I leave him behind me, sprinting across the field so the coach can register my time and I can go home.
We all hang around, stretching, sort of, while the coach does coach things that involve muttering beneath his breath and checking his clipboard.
Ian walks over next to me and smiles. He pulls his leg up toward his butt, stretching out his quads. I reach for my toes but don’t actually touch the ground because it’s cold and snowy.
“Nick giving you a hard time?” he asks.
I grunt and reach up toward the sky.
“I think he likes you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He’s a loner though. He’s never had a girlfriend.”
“Seriously?”
Ian raises his hand. “I swear.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
Ian’s foot thuds back to the ground. I glance over at Nick. He’s walking in circles, not even pretending to stretch. Nick stomps over, doesn’t even glance at Ian.
“I think I should follow you home, make sure your car doesn’t slide off the road,” he says.
“I’m not going home.”
Nick cocks his head to one side. “What?”
“I’m taking her to the DMV, so she can get her car registered,” Ian says. He’s standing right next to me, smelling like cologne.
Nick’s nostrils flare. He looks at me. “Oh. Okay. I’ll see you later then, Zara. Be careful on the road, okay? It’s icy.”
“But the snow was melting earlier.”
“It melts for, like, a second and turns to water and then it freezes. It’s called black ice. It’s dangerous, so just be careful, okay?”
“Okay.” I watch him walk away. Every single cell in my body wants me to run after him, no matter how tired I am.
Philophobia
fear of love
That night I pad down the stairs into the living room and there’s Grandma Betty standing at the front window again. Her hand holding the drape shakes. She stares outside into the dark.
“Oh, Jesus . . . ,” she mumbles.
I touch her shoulder. She jumps, whirls around, almost growls, eyes flashing.
“Gram? What is it?”
“You scared the bejesus out of me.”
“Sorry.”
She puts her hands up to her heart.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” she says. She forces a smile. “I have to go call your mother. We owe her a call. How about you get started on dinner? I bought one of those precooked rotisserie chickens from Shaw’s and a box of stuffing.”
“Gram?”
“Everything is under control, Zara. Don’t you worry about a dotty old woman staring into the night.”
Yeah, right. I peek out the window. Darkness greets me.
“Why isn’t Nick hanging out with us?” I ask Issie and Devyn in PE.
Issie and I are lounging around waiting for the PE teacher, Coach Walsh, to show up. According to Devyn, he’s in the locker room, hollering at Ian about something. We just sit on the lower bleachers and wait.
Devyn’s fingers tap against the side of the chair. “I think he’s just trying not to draw attention to you. You know if he likes you then everyone notices you. Plus, it’s just part of his image. He’s all bad boy.”
“Sexy stud with a heart of stern,” Issie banters. She starts tying her sneaker.
Her fingers fumble around. I kneel down in front of her and start tying them for her. “You guys are cute,” I say.
Devyn laughs. His dimples show. Whenever his dimples show Issie starts blushing like crazy.
“Sexy stud with a heart of stern,” he repeats what Issie said while I start on her next shoe. “That’s brilliant.”
“He’s never even kissed a girl, so I don’t think that one works,” Issie says.
My insides stop working for a second. “Seriously? C’mon, how would you even know that?”
“He told Devyn. Devyn told me,” Issie says. “So that one doesn’t work. Okay. Moving on. How about hometown hero with high standards?”
“Hometown hero?” I say, yanking at the knot. “Nick?”
Devyn shrugs. “I think so. He saved me.”
I raise my eyebrows and start to ask how, but Megan slinks over, all sexified in her tiny shorts and tank top with spaghetti straps. Spaghetti straps are a violation of the school dress code, not like Megan cares. Coach Walsh obviously doesn’t care either.
Something in my throat tightens as Megan stands above me, blocking my view of Nick.
She smiles.
I do not trust that smile.
Issie coughs and twists her hands together. I slip a fingernail into the knot in Issie’s laces, and loosen the knot, as if I have all the time in the world. Then I look up and meet Megan’s eyes. They don’t match her smile. She obviously is not a good enough actress to make them friendly.
“Zara?” She twists a long lock of strawberry-blond hair around her perfect finger. “You’re from Charleston, right?”
I nod and wait for it to come.
“It must be hard adjusting to Bedford,” she says.
I glance at Devyn. He gives me sympathetic eyes.
“It’s okay.”
“Some people never adjust, you know,” she says.
“That’s not true,” Issie says. “Thanks for getting the knot out, Zara.”
Megan glares at her. “Yes it is. Some people can’t fit in.”
I start working on tying the lace. One rabbit ear. Another rabbit ear. Done.