Brian glared at Nick. “I’m not doing anything,” he said.
I didn’t really seem to have a role in the conversation anymore, so I started to leave them to it.
Charlie noticed me moving away. “Sorry. Anyway, I’m glad you got ahold of Lily—if you talk to her again, tell her I say hi.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said. “She wasn’t exactly happy to hear from me.”
All three boys stared at me when I said that. So I shrugged, with an effort. “She was Anna’s friend, not mine.”
“Right,” Charlie said. Then he paused, like people often did after I said her name—like I’d thrown it down like a gauntlet. “Hey, I’m sorry about Anna—she was a nice girl.”
A nice girl. I tried to push down the flare of frustration the phrase provoked, the idea that others would remember her that way. That they thought it meant anything.
“Sure,” I said stiffly. “Okay.”
Brian had started to turn away, but he paused when I said that and looked at me more carefully, like he was recalibrating. “Look, you really shouldn’t pay attention to that stuff that was written about her.”
“What stuff?”
“Oh, never mind,” Brian said. “Sorry. For a second, I thought you’d heard….Never mind.”
“What stuff?” I asked again.
“Nothing,” he said. “Really. Forget I said anything.”
I looked at Charlie and Nick. “What’s he talking about?” I asked them.
It was several beats before either of them spoke. And then Charlie shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “He’s probably thinking about someone else.” I looked at him and then at Nick.
Nick nodded. “Yeah, he’s just being an idiot. Ignore him. Anyway, we should get going. But I’ll see you on Sunday, right? At the park?”
I nodded, watching his face, still trying to figure out if he actually meant it. Surely saying it twice had to mean something, though. Didn’t it?
Charlie’s sudden laugh jerked me back into the moment.
“Wow,” he said to Nick. “You certainly have a type, don’t you?”
Nick flushed, Brian shot Charlie another dark look, and then suddenly the three of them were headed down the hall again.
—
IT STARTED RAINING JUST BEFORE track practice. A pounding, ceaseless downpour that came down like the wrath of Norse gods. It was far too heavy for us to run in, yet it was so intense it seemed it might pass quickly, so Mr. Matthews made us all wait around in the gym to see if it would clear up.
I headed to the bleachers and pulled out my book. A few seconds later, I received a sharp smack in the arm. “Put that down,” Sarah said.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing the spot she’d hit.
Sarah pulled an apologetic face as she sprawled out beside me. “Sorry. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength. Still, no reading for you. I’m bored and need someone to entertain me.”
“And that’s my problem?”
“Of course it is. That’s the price of my friendship.”
“Why can’t you just play around on your phone? Quietly?”
“I’d love to, but it ran out of battery. It’s been glitchy recently—not holding a charge as long as it should. I’m thinking about getting my phone guy to take a look at it.”
“Fine,” I said, setting my book down on my lap. “What would you like to converse about?”
“Well, I’m going to have some fun with the fact that you just used the phrase ‘converse about.’ I think that’s going to keep me going for quite some time.” Sarah waggled her eyebrows at me.
I sighed. She sighed back, longer and louder.
—
ELEVEN MINUTES LATER, MR. MATTHEWS finally called uncle in the standoff between him and the rain and told us we could all go home.
Sarah borrowed my phone to call her parents.
“You want a ride?” she asked, before she started to dial. “You don’t want to walk back in this.” I hesitated for a moment. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s my dad’s turn to pick up.”
I’d gotten rides with Sarah a couple of times now. Usually her dad got us—but the last time it had been her mom, and the trip had been marked by long stretches of awkward silence, interrupted only by her mom’s occasional comments, which were somehow directed at neither me nor Sarah but instead at some invisible third girl interested in fashion tips and DIY pedicures.
I nodded, embarrassed at Sarah’s having understood the source of my hesitation.
“Cool,” she said. “I’ll let him know we’ll be dropping you off.”
—
WHEN SARAH’S DAD ARRIVED, HE honked twice and we sprinted from the door of the gym out through the rain and shoved ourselves breathlessly through the car doors.
Even with windshield wipers going double-time, the rain made it difficult to see, so he drove very slowly after giving Sarah an affectionate pat on the shoulder.
“So,” he said, glancing at me in the car mirror and smiling. “Sarah tells me you’re getting good at this whole running thing.”
“I’m getting better,” I said.
“That’s great. It’s about time someone started making Sarah work for her wins. I’m pretty sure she’s starting to think she’s all that and a really fast bag of chips.”
“Dad,” Sarah said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“No, her head has been getting too big, I tell you. She needs to know she has some competition out there.” He glanced back at me again. “So at your first meet, you need to crush her, okay? Put her in her place.”
I felt myself turning pink.
Sarah laughed. “You’re embarrassing her. Besides, I don’t even remember talking to you about Jess’s running—you must have gotten that from Mr. Matthews in one of your little huddle sessions. You really should spend less time analyzing my competition and more time explaining to Mom that teenagers can’t survive on kale and crackers.”
“C’mon, you know why your mom’s like that,” he said, a slight edge to his voice.
“Yeah, I know, I know. She was overweight for like two days while she was growing up and it was the worst thing ever, and she just wants to protect me
