“Yeah, no kidding,” Irene says, peering wryly over the frame of her cat-eye glasses. Her hair is purple this week, short and shaggy around her ears. “Twenty-four hours with nothing but crickets and wind. Never again.”
“More like twenty-four hours with crickets, wind, and your bitching.” Caleb pauses to shove half his sandwich in his mouth. He’s six foot four and built like a tree trunk; the dude never stops eating. “I’m trying to get a little peace and quiet on this trip.”
I know better than to take their bickering seriously. Caleb and Irene have been best friends since kindergarten. I don’t know how, exactly—they’re nothing alike. He’s the definition of mellow, a guy whose idea of a good time is stargazing on the edge of town with his dog and a six-pack. Irene, on the other hand, keeps a running, snarky commentary on everything that happens, her hands always busy, always sketching or scrawling. The manic energy comes in handy when she’s tagging street signs or stenciling pictures on walls.
“I’m down,” I say to Caleb. “My shoulder’s still pretty stiff, but I think it’ll be fine by then. I just have to talk my mom and dad into it. And, uh, Sasha.”
Irene snorts, but doesn’t look up from her book. “Better find a backup backpacker, Caleb. Gabe’s gonna be home for the holidays.”
“Hey, I’m my own man.”
She shakes her head sympathetically. “She’s not going to let you out of her sight for a whole week. Especially not for Christmas. I mean, what are the holidays without an all-out screaming fight?”
“It’s tradition,” says Caleb.
Now I remember how they’ve been friends so long. They have me to gang up on.
“What was it last year? The chocolates you got her were the wrong kind?” Irene says, rolling her eyes.
“Nope, that was Valentine’s Day. Christmas was the fact that he went to Midnight Mass with his family instead of taking her out for that carriage ride.”
They’re both enjoying this too much. “Whatever. It’s not like I need her permission to go.”
That really makes them laugh. I scowl around the table.
Ladies and gentlemen, my supportive best friends.
I’ve opened my mouth to argue when Caleb nudges me. “Speak of the devil.”
I follow his gaze to see Sasha, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. Heads turn as she steps across the patio. Seeing her walk toward me used to send a hot thrill through my body, crowding out every thought in my head. I wonder when I stopped feeling that way.
“Oh, great! You can ask her now!” Irene’s eyes give a wicked sparkle. “Since it’s no big deal, right?”
“Ask me what?” Sasha sits on the bench next to me, otherwise ignoring my friends. Her lips are etched out in perfect red lines, a nonchalant pout.
“Uh . . . well . . .” I take off my strapback hat, mess with the brim, push it back on over my curls. Irene’s the one who answers.
“Caleb and Gabe here are planning a trip over Christmas break.” Irene’s voice is cloyingly sweet; she loves a chance to troll Sasha. I shoot her a look, but she ignores me. “They’re going backpacking. You don’t mind, do you?”
Sasha doesn’t even look at Irene. “Obviously I don’t. I already told him it was okay.”
My stomach twists. It’s not true—I haven’t said a word to Sasha—but she can’t admit Irene knows something before she does.
“Anyway, Christmas doesn’t matter. Because we’ve got our own trip planned for New Year’s,” she says.
I turn to look at her. “Huh?”
“Yeah, remember?” She takes my hand in both of hers. “You said we could go to Houston. Hit up some clubs, watch the fireworks. Get a hotel room.” She says the last part softly, suggestively, but instead of stirring my interest it sets my teeth on edge.
“Uh, no, I don’t remember,” I say. Because I never said that, I finish silently.
“You’re such an asshole sometimes.” She stands up abruptly. “Whatever. Have a good time in the backwoods. I hope you get murdered by hillbillies.” She stalks away, her profile icy with disdain.
“What a lovely girl,” Irene says, watching her go. “Are you sure she’s not the one who ran you down, Gabe?”
“Ha, ha.” I throw my sandwich wrapper down on the table. “Thanks a lot, Irene. Now I’m in deep shit.”
“Oh, you were going be in trouble no matter when she found out.” Irene flips a page in her book and starts to embellish a hair-metal mullet onto a portrait of Dolly Madison. “Relax. She’ll be pissed about something else by dinner.”
“Great, that’s a huge consolation.” The first bell rings. I scoop up my books. “I’ll see you guys after school.”
I head down the hall toward my fourth-period photography class. I’ve got a whole roll of film to develop today, all of Sasha. Sasha posing with her hands lifting her hair, pin-up style. Sasha posing in her Mustang Sally costume. Sasha posing by pretending not to pose.
Then, ahead of me, I see something that draws me up short: purple Keds, scuffed along the white rubber sole.
My whole body seems to lift up, floating a little at the sight of her. She’s walking away from me, but I recognize her dark hair bunching around her backpack, the way her shoulders slope. I pick up my pace, try to catch up, but she disappears into the library before I can say her name.
Hardly anyone uses the library here, aside from a few mousy-looking girls who reshelve materials during their lunch breaks. I’ve only been in there once, freshman year, when Mr. Doyle brought us down to try to instill in us the magic of reading. We spent the whole time sneaking up on each other in the stacks.
It’s silent inside. I guess that’s the idea, but after the noise of the hallway it feels almost like a tomb. Like a beige-carpeted, industrial-metal-shelved tomb. A plump-cheeked man wearing a bow tie sits at the front desk. He raises an eyebrow at me as if to say, Really? You, in a library? I give him a little wave, hitch up my backpack, and breeze past as if I know just where I’m going.
Catherine’s the only one there. She’s sitting under a window in a vinyl armchair, her legs curled beneath her. The sunlight skims the top of her head, making a glossy halo in her dark hair. She’s reading, her earbuds in again. I watch her for a second, trying to read something in her clothes, her body language, her expression. Trying to figure out something about her. I’m usually pretty good at that kind of thing—but with her, I can’t. Her jeans are faded, her dark-blue T-shirt nondescript. She has a plain green backpack, no pins, no patches, no Sharpied song lyrics.
She looks like she’s trying to be invisible.
Her eyes dart up from her book and widen when she sees me. I take off my hat again, squeeze the brim. “Hey,” I say. “Sorry.”
She takes out her earbuds. “What?”
“I said . . . I mean . . .” I take a breath. “I just wanted to say thanks. I didn’t mean to freak you out the other day. At the food-truck park. I really just wanted to say thanks.”
She puts her feet back on the ground, sits up straight. On guard. But she doesn’t close her book or get up to go. She bites the corner of her chapped lower lip.
“I wasn’t supposed to be out that night,” she whispers finally. “I’m sorry I didn’t stick around for the ambulance, but my dad’s really strict. If he found out . . .”
“Yeah, no . . . don’t worry,” I say quickly. “I’m just glad you called them. I was really out of it. I could have been there all night. You saved my life.”
She shrugs uncomfortably. The silence stretches out between us for a moment.
“Yeah. I mean, they never caught the guy who ran me down,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going. “You didn’t happen to see who it was, did you?”
She shakes her head. “I was around the corner when I heard the tires squeal. I didn’t even see the car.”
“Man. Oh well, I guess I’m just happy to be alive.” I sit down on the chair adjacent to her. “What’re you reading?”
She holds up the book. I recognize it right away; there are about ten copies of it around my house.