face when Eureka said she was quitting, leaving the captain position open. “She’d say I’ve gotten slow.”
Cat would be on the field with the team right now. She was great at running them through their drills, but she wasn’t brilliant at pep talks—and the team needed pep to face Manor. Eureka glanced at her watch. If she dashed back as soon as this was over, she might make it to school in time. That was what she wanted, right?
When she looked up, Landry’s brow was furrowed. “That would be a pretty harsh thing to say to a girl who’s grieving the loss of a mother, don’t you think?”
Eureka shrugged. If Landry had a sense of humor, if she knew Cat, she would get it. Her friend was joking, most of the time. It was fine. They’d known each other forever.
“What about … Brooke?”
“Is Brooks a he?” The notebook returned and Landry scribbled something. “Are the two of you
“Why does that matter?” Eureka snapped. Once upon an accident she and Brooks had dated—fifth grade. But they were kids. And she was a wreck about her parents splitting up and—
“Divorce often provokes behavior in children that makes it difficult for them to pursue their own romantic relationships.”
“We were
“You tell me. Perhaps you can talk to Brooks about your loss. He seems to be someone you could care deeply about, if you would give yourself permission to feel.”
Eureka rolled her eyes. “Put your shoes back on, Doc.” She grabbed her bag and rose from the couch. “I’ve gotta run.”
Run from this session. Run back to school. Run through the woods until she was so tired she didn’t ache. Maybe even run back to the team she used to love. Coach had been right about one thing: when Eureka was low, running helped.
“I’ll see you next Tuesday?” Landry called. But by then the therapist was talking to a closing door.
2
OBJECTS IN MOTION
Jogging through the potholed parking lot, Eureka pressed her key chain remote to unlock Magda, her car, and slid into the driver’s seat. Yellow warblers harmonized in a beech tree overhead; Eureka knew their song by heart. The day was warm and windy, but parking under the tree’s long arms had kept Magda’s interior cool.
Magda was a red Jeep Cherokee, a hand-me-down from Rhoda. It was too new and too red to suit Eureka. With the windows rolled up, you couldn’t hear anything outside, and this made Eureka imagine she was driving a tomb. Cat had insisted they name the car Magda, so at least the Jeep would be good for a laugh. It wasn’t nearly as cool as Dad’s powder-blue Lincoln Continental, in which Eureka had learned to drive, but at least it had a killer stereo.
She plugged in her phone and cranked up the online school radio station KBEU. They played the best songs by the best local and indie bands every weekday after school. Last year, Eureka had DJ’d for the station; she’d had a show called
Rolling down all four windows and the sunroof, Eureka peeled out of the lot to the tune of “It’s Not Fair” by the Faith Healers, a band formed by some kids from school. She had all the lyrics memorized. The loopy bass line propelled her legs faster through her sprints and had been the reason she dug up her grandfather’s old guitar. She’d taught herself a few chords but hadn’t touched the guitar since the spring. She couldn’t imagine the music she’d make now that Diana was dead. The guitar sat gathering dust in the corner of her bedroom under the small painting of Saint Catherine of Siena, which Eureka had lifted from her grandmother Sugar’s house after she died. No one knew where Sugar got the icon. For as long as Eureka could remember, the painting of the patron saint of protection from fire had hung over her grandmother’s mantel.
Her fingers rapped on the steering wheel. Landry didn’t know what she was talking about. Eureka
There were other things: Cold fear whenever she drove over even the shortest bridge. Debilitating sadness when she lay sleepless in bed. A heaviness in her bones whose source she had to trace anew each morning when her phone’s alarm sounded. Shame that she’d survived and Diana hadn’t. Fury that something so absurd had taken her mother away.
Futility at seeking vengeance on a wave.
Inevitably, when she allowed herself to follow her sad mind’s wanderings, Eureka ended up at futility. Futility annoyed her. So she veered away, focused on things she could control—like getting back to campus and the decision awaiting her.
Even Cat didn’t know Eureka might show up today. The 12K used to be Eureka’s best event. Her teammates moaned about it, but to Eureka, sinking into the hypnotic zone of a long run was rejuvenating. A sliver of Eureka wanted to race the Manor kids, and a sliver was more of her than had wanted to do anything other than sleep for months.
She would never give Landry the satisfaction, but Eureka
This clique of girls at school who’d never acknowledged her before drove by her mailbox after Diana died to drop off a cross-stitched friendship bracelet with little crosses on it. At first, when Eureka ran into them in town bare-wristed, she’d avoided their eyes. But after she’d tried to kill herself, that wasn’t a problem anymore. The girls looked away first. Pity had its limits.
Even Cat had only recently stopped tearing up when she saw Eureka. She’d blow her nose and laugh and say, “I don’t even
Eureka
She grieved every day, all the time, with every atom of her body.
Eureka hadn’t been on this road since before Diana died. She’d turned here so casually, not thinking it would hurt, but suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Every day some new pain found her, stabbed her, as if grief were the foxhole she would see no way out of until she died.
She almost stopped the car to get out and run. When she was running, she didn’t think. Her mind cleared, oak trees’ arms embraced her with their fuzzy Spanish moss, and she was just feet pounding, legs burning, heart beating, arms pumping, blending into trails until she became something far away.
She thought of the meet. Maybe she could channel desperation into something useful. If she could just make it back to school in time …
The week before, the last of the heavy casts she’d had to wear on her shattered wrists (the right one had been broken so severely it had to be reset three times) had finally been sawed off. She’d hated wearing the thing