Five
SENIOR YEAR
I usually wait until Sunday morning to go for a run. But by the time eight a.m. rolls around on Saturday, fifteen different tricks for lulling myself back to sleep have already failed, including counting the pink and white flowers on my bedroom curtains. So I roll over and face the parallel wall, the one that proudly displays uniform rows of framed eight-by-tens of my best sunset photos.
The first time I picked up my mother’s camera and aimed it at daylight’s swan song, I never imagined it would be the thing to eventually fill a huge gap in my life. I’d never slowed down long enough to appreciate that the same sun in the same sky could take on so many unique, spectacular appearances. Once I did, it boggled my mind that people weren’t trampling me for a front-row seat at the lake each night. I wondered if they even noticed.
And then I think about last night at the football game, and remember that my own days of not seeing things that are right in front of me aren’t over. Although, some pretty amazing things can happen in the dark.
I shudder and throw the covers off me, deciding to exhaust my racing mind into submission.
“Hey,” Mom says from her spot in the laundry room when she spies me coming down the stairs. “Up before nine on a Saturday? Are you feeling okay?”
“Couldn’t sleep. I’m going for a run.”
“That was a nice welcome back for Joel’s father last night.” The fact that she totally ignored me and swooped in with a comment about Joel makes me wonder: Did she somehow see the picture on the Ridgedale’s Finest page? I’m still trying to craft the perfect nonchalant answer when she adds, “Maybe now that he’s back, he can teach his son how to act like a man.”
The tension whooshes out of my body. No suspicion here, just good old-fashioned bitterness toward the boy who ditched her daughter the night of the junior homecoming dance. Sometimes I think she’s more hung up on what he did than I am.
“Low blow, Mom.”
“Maybe, but not uncalled for.” She gives the shirt in her hand a quick, rough fluff. “Did he ever give you an explanation? Or an apology, for that matter?”
“Not exactly, but I think maybe it’s been eating at him. He’s been weirdly nice to me lately.”
She stops mid-fold to give me a look. One that says Watch your back as clearly as if she spoke the words out loud. I grab my phone, earbuds, and key lanyard off the dining room table and reach for the front door before she can say more.
* * *
It’s hard not to feel a little more peaceful in the early quiet of my neighborhood. The breeze is cool and the sun is mellow and warm, nothing like the unrelenting brute it’ll be in a few hours. Neighbors are taking advantage of the reprieve by washing their cars in their driveways or walking dogs on leashes and babies in strollers.
I pick up my pace and adjust my earbuds, turning the volume up on my phone. Still, no matter how loud I blast my music, my thoughts are louder. I can’t go more than sixty seconds without being ambushed by the memory of that kiss, and the flush of heat it sends rushing through my body every time it replays.
Like right now.
It isn’t long before I find myself jogging down the wide wooden steps that lead to the lake at the center of our subdivision. According to the community website, it’s actually two lakes, but to me it looks like one big lake, bisected by a damlike path lined with willowy shrubs and staggered wrought-iron benches.
Whatever it is, it’s one of my favorite places to be alone with my thoughts. I love that the water is the sky’s mirror, the only place where the clouds ever take the same formation twice. I love that I can come out here with my camera to capture the sunset, and every night it’s new and different and breathtaking. And still, every time I watch the bright gold-and-pink light fade from the clouds, I wish it didn’t have to be over so soon. As I plop down on one of benches, the events of last night replay in my mind, and I think about some of the other things I wish I could’ve held on to a little longer.
I shoot to my feet, shaking yet another rehash of that kiss out of my head. If I’m going to outrun my thoughts, I have a lot farther to go.
* * *
I’m not heading toward the school. I’m not going back to the football field to look for clues. I’m really not. To prove it to myself, I veer off the sidewalk and make a pit stop at Mugsy’s Coffee Shop. There are a few dollar bills crammed into the license holder attached to my lanyard, and I dig them out as I order my usual, a salted caramel latte.
“Some things never change,” a voice behind me says.
I whip around to see Ben sitting alone in a corner booth near the back entrance that opens to the parking lot. He’s wearing a green hoodie, and his cell phone sits on the table in front of him like a weapon at the ready. He does not look happy.
“Hey,” I say with a nervous titter. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I’m used to being invisible.”
If he’s trying to make me feel guilty, that comment is a direct hit to my feel-like-shit-o-meter. Ben Collins is not the kind of friend I imagined walking away from. But he turned his back on me, too. And every time I peered over my shoulder in hopes that he’d be looking my way, he kept right on walking.
I keep my discomfort at bay by chattering senselessly. “What’s wrong with sticking to my usual?” I nod toward the cup next to his phone. “Next one’s on me if that’s not a hazelnut Irish cream.”
His eyes flick over to the cup and then back to me. “Still hating on hazelnuts?”
“Hey, if you enjoy eating something that tastes the way the janitor’s cleaning fluid smells, that’s your business.” A hint of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth, just enough that I don’t quit while I’m ahead. “You missed a crazy game last night. The power went out at halftime while Mr. Hargrove was onstage and—”
The smile vanishes, and Ben looks disinterested to the point of angry. It occurs to me that I don’t know where I’m going with this anyway. He’s the last person I’d talk to about the real reason why the blackout was such a big deal to me.
“You should probably know I’m here to meet Meredith,” he says.
“Oh.” The barista hands me my cup, and I stand awkwardly in the space between the counter and Ben’s booth, not sure what to do with myself. I’d planned to make a bold move and sit down with him, but the mention of Meredith is the opposite of an invitation. “Should I go?”
Ben pushes his cell phone to the edge of the table. “I’d rather we talk about this first.”
I step closer and peer at the screen. It’s lit with the image of him, Joel, and me. My eyes dart between it and Ben’s face, trying to read the solemn line of his full lips before I open my own mouth.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t you who posted it?”
His expression doesn’t change. “You mean it wasn’t you?”
“Of course not. It’s an anonymous account, and that’s the only picture they’ve shared.” I slide into the booth, keeping one eye on the French doors that overlook the parking lot, in case I spot Meredith’s car. “Besides, I haven’t spoken to Joel since the night of the fire.” Ben raises an eyebrow, and I hold up my hand before he can call me out. “I know. He’s been coming around again lately. But I don’t know why, and I’m not sure I want to find out.”
Except that I do. Especially after the way he looked at me before I walked off the field last night. And even more so now that two out of three people in the photo that’s currently fading to black on Ben’s phone have been eliminated as its posters.
But if Joel posted the photo, it only makes sense that he’s also the one who kissed me. The back of my neck goes hot, and my first sip of coffee is suddenly doing an impression of the Bellagio fountains inside my stomach.
Ben shifts in his seat and rests his elbows on the table. “Don’t you think it’s time we talked about what happened last year?”
I take a sip of my coffee, purposely avoiding his eyes. “What is there to talk about?”
“A lot, and I think you know it.”
“That’s funny, because there were a few things you could’ve said before that night that would’ve made everything pretty different.”
For a second we lock eyes, both ready to draw our respective swords. But then a flash of red car pulling into the parking lot catches my attention, and I scoot from my seat.
Meredith never forgave me the last time she found Ben with me when he should’ve been with her.
“Time to go. You’re right, though. We should. Talk, that is.” I motion to his phone. “I would’ve had someone warn you about that last night if they’d gone to the diner. But I guess everyone went to Fuddruckers instead. Sorry if you were waiting.”
Ben shrugs. “They let me off early when they saw how dead it was.”
“Okay.” I inch toward the front entrance. “Tell Meredith I said hi.” Why would I say that? Meredith wouldn’t care if I said hi. Meredith wouldn’t care if I turned into a tap-dancing monkey. “Or, you know, don’t.”
I speed to close the distance to the paned doors at the front of the shop, but stop when Ben says, “Mace?” He turns over his shoulder, and I follow his stare to where Meredith is still sitting in her car, applying lip gloss in the rearview mirror. When he turns back, he doesn’t look directly at me. His hands twist together on the tabletop. “I think we should talk about what didn’t happen that night too.”
My coffee turns to sludge in my throat. I swallow hard and manage a nod. But my mouth opens at the same time as Meredith’s car door, and I slip outside without saying a word.
When I get to the gas station on the corner, I chuck my cup and make a left. Then I start to run at full speed.
* * *
I lied. I’m jogging on the track that surrounds Ridgedale’s football field, still trying to tell myself that I’m not here because of that kiss. That stolen, cryptic kiss that’s hiding in every corner of my mind. Only now I’m trying my hardest to push what Ben said into one of those corners too.
What didn’t happen that night.
I spent so much time thinking about everything that did happen that night—the fire, the fight with Ben and Meredith—that I managed to convince myself that the other thing must’ve been my mind playing tricks on me. And maybe it was. Maybe Ben meant something totally unrelated to what I’m thinking.
An abandoned GO RAVENS sign curled against the bleachers catches my attention, prompting the memory of last night’s kiss to barge in again. I come to a stop, kicking my legs to stretch them out, and breathing deeply to distract myself. It’s bugging me like crazy that a moment that came and went in the blink of an eye has left its imprint on every minute since, and now it won’t leave me alone. What’s worse is that I’m not sure I want it to.
Screw it. I give up all pretense and jog out to the middle of the field. I can only hope that someone else somewhere is obsessing over last night the same way I am. Maybe they want to reveal themselves but they don’t know how. Or maybe they’re waiting for the perfect opportunity.
But since I have zero reason to believe either of those things, I’m resorting to blindly combing the scene of the crime, knowing full well that the only evidence is locked inside my head.
There are a few other random people using the track for their workouts this morning, so I try to appear casual as I trot the length of the field, hoping something other than gum wrappers and napkins will pop out at me. And right when it’s looking like my little mission is as pointless as I thought it would be, I reach the spot where the metal platform stood last night.
Here, I think. It happened right around here.
A round of tingles floats down my neck, and I circle slowly, scanning the ground. I stop when, about three feet to my left, I spot the creased, jagged corner of something sticking up from the green turf.
I dart toward it. At first glance, it looks like a bent, trampled piece of paper, and I’m disappointed. But when I bend down, I realize it’s a photograph. Not an actual four-by-six picture but a grainy printout on letter paper. It’s creased like an accordion and bowed in the center where it was folded, but it’s mostly intact. And it’s definitely not anything I recognize from the Ridgedale’s Finest page. Or anywhere, for that matter.
The image is a black-and-white close-up of a tattoo on the back of someone’s neck. Based on the muscle tone and hairline, I’d guess the subject is a boy, and he’s lying on his side. The tattoo is an intricately detailed snake, its body coiled and redoubled into the shape of a fern. It’s beautiful, and it strikes me in a way that surprises me. I trace the design with my finger for a few seconds before remembering where I am, and stand up with it. On impulse I snap a picture of it with my phone before stuffing it into my sports bra.
I very much doubt that this picture is somehow connected to the kiss. But just as I was certain last night that someone had posted the photo of Ben and Joel and me as some kind of message, I have a feeling that this picture is telling a story. It’s what pictures do.
An image that’s very different from the one pressed against my chest conjures in my mind then, and I have to physically shake myself to force it out. A thousand words indeed. And depending on the words Ben wants to say to me, I might finally have to acknowledge something that I’ve been perfectly happy to believe I imagined.
Which means admitting to myself when things really started to go wrong.