Since You've Been Gone

A text.

I grabbed it and saw I had two—the first one must have been what woke me up. But despite the fact it wasn’t even eight yet, as I looked down at the phone, I was wide awake. Both texts were from a number I didn’t recognize. And as I held the phone in my hand, it buzzed with a third.

Emily. You awake?

I’m outside.

Let’s go.

It was like my brain short-circuited for a moment, then started working again, double-time. It was Sloane.

She was back.

I was out my door and down the stairs in a flash, not putting anything on over the T-shirt I’d been sleeping in, not trying to be quiet, not caring if I woke the whole house as my bare feet pounded down the stairs. Sloane was here, she was waiting for me, and she could tell me what had happened, where she’d gone—actually, I realized as I jumped down the last two steps to the first floor landing and launched myself into the mudroom, I didn’t even care about that. All that mattered was that she was here, and things could go back to how they’d been.

I pulled open the front door and stopped short. Frank was sitting on the steps, wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, iPod strapped to his arm, and he stood and smiled when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “Ready to go for a run?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it when I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. I just stared at him as I felt my heart rate start to slow, my hopes fall. It wasn’t Sloane. She hadn’t come back.

She was still gone.

“Uh,” Frank said, and I noticed for the first time that he looked confused and a little uncomfortable.

I looked down at myself and suddenly realized that I had bigger problems. I was standing in front of Frank Porter—Frank Porter—in my nightshirt. Though it was slightly longer than a regular T-shirt, it wasn’t by much, and I quickly tugged it down. I was barefoot, and—oh god—I still had on some of the zit cream I’d put on my face the night before. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I quickly crossed my arms over my chest, then regretted this, as it caused the T-shirt to ride up higher.

“Sorry,” Frank said, and while I had a feeling he was trying to sound contrite, this was undercut slightly by the fact that he also looked like he was on the verge of cracking up. “I got your cell number and address from the school directory. I didn’t mean to wake you up—I guess I figured that if you weren’t awake, you wouldn’t . . . you know, come outside.”

I nodded, like this was a normal conversation. But part of me was still reeling at the fact that this was happening at all. I honestly couldn’t understand how I had gone, in the course of a week, from not speaking to Frank Porter, to knowing he had a sneaky hot body, to standing half naked in front of him.

“So,” he said, glancing down at my feet with a smile, “is this the barefoot running trend I keep reading about?”

“Oh,” I said. My face felt hot, like it was on fire, and I had a feeling it was bright red, which probably looked just fantastic with the white zit cream. “Um, no. Ha ha. I just . . .”

“Emily?” I turned and saw my dad standing behind me, wearing his robe and slippers and carrying his laptop, his glasses perched on top of his head. I truly hadn’t thought this could get any worse. But apparently Frank Porter was going to see the entire Hughes family in their pajamas this morning.

“Dad,” I said, hearing how strangled my voice sounded.

“Have you seen my glasses?” he asked, not, apparently, thinking anything was strange about the fact that his daughter was awake at eight a.m. and standing in the doorway in her pajamas, talking to a boy he’d never met.

“They’re on your head, sir,” Frank supplied from the porch.

My father reached up and patted his head, then nodded and put them on. Then he squinted out at Frank. “Do I know you?”

“That’s Frank,” I managed. It was possible to die of embarrassment, right? The expression had to have come from somewhere. “We were just, um, going running.”

“Oh,” my dad said. He stared at Frank a moment longer, then looked at me and frowned. “Well, be sure to put some shoes on.” Then he continued on inside, no doubt heading to the dining room to start working.

“Okay,” I managed. “I’ll just go upstairs and put on something to run in. And then I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here,” Frank said, and it looked like he was trying—though not very hard—to suppress a grin.

I nodded but, not wanting to turn around, backed up until I reached the doorway, then took a big step backward and shut the door. I leaned against it, closing my eyes, wondering for just a moment if I was actually in a nightmare. Surely this qualified.

Ten minutes later, I’d washed my face and put on a long-sleeved T-shirt and long leggings with my running shoes. It was already getting hot outside, but I felt that I needed to balance out the accidental half-nudity that had started my morning. “Ready to go?” I asked as I joined Frank outside, iPod in hand. I was hoping that if I was brusque and businesslike, he’d forget all about the state I’d shown up in.

“Sure,” he said, walking to the end of the driveway with me. I could tell that he was trying to catch my eye, but I busied myself with selecting my new playlist and adjusting the volume, not putting in my earbuds yet or pressing play, since I still wasn’t sure what the etiquette with that was.

“Ready?” I asked. Frank nodded, and we started running, me on the outside like before. I kept the pace slower, knowing that I certainly needed a warm-up, as my muscles were cold.

“So I guess I surprised you this morning?” Frank asked after a few minutes of silent running, and I got the feeling that he hadn’t been able to keep this to himself any longer.

“A little bit,” I said, realizing now that I was surprised—I hadn’t expected him to want to keep running.

“I said we should do it again, and you said anytime,” he said. “I remember you did.”

“I thought you were kidding,” I replied. “It didn’t look like you’d really had a good time.”

“Nothing worth doing is easy,” Frank said. “Especially not in the beginning. But I’m not about to give up.”

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. We ran in silence for a few steps, just the sound of our sneakers hitting the pavement, occasionally finding the same rhythm and landing in sequence, then falling out of it once more.