You Can't Catch Me (9 page)

When I get home I pull out all my homework and busy myself with it. Mom and Dad come home from work with dinner, and both ask me how my day was. I say, “Fine” even though it has been far from it.

My phone buzzes, and I’m half tempted to ignore it.

Hey. Can u come over?

I blow out a breath and text Jamal back.
After dinner maybe. But not for long. Got somewhere to be.

With my assignment to go to the track tomorrow morning, I decided to skip the regular morning run and cemetery trip. It was a bigger decision than it should’ve been. I made a pros and cons list and everything. In the end, missing Oliver for one day just wasn’t that big of an argument. So I’m going tonight to see Cayenne, but I’ll leave a note for Oliver telling him why I’m not there when I said I would be. Hmm… I wonder if Dad has any Post-its lying around his “office.”

We’re done eating here, so come over whenever
, Jamal texts back.

I look up at Mom and Dad eating their yummy gluten-filled pizza in front of the TV, watching
The Middle
and cracking up at “how true” it all is, while I stare at my barely touched salad because it’s missing the best part—the croutons. My history project is still splayed out across the kitchen table, barely touched as well. I haven’t told either of my parents my running woes, but I know Dad can tell something’s wrong. He keeps doing his coddling-eyes, and he asked me on a daddy daughter date. I took him up on it, and that seems to have pacified him for now.

My phone buzzes again.

See you soon. :)

Well, I may as well go now before it gets dark. I’m a tough girl, but no way, no way, no
way
am I walking through a cemetery past sunset.

I close my history book that was open to the WWII chapter and push from the table.

“Um, Dad?” I ask because I always go with Dad when I want something. He laughs at whatever joke was just told on their show and reaches over and holds Mom’s hand on the back of the couch.

I stick my phone into my back pocket and close up my salad to put in the fridge for a week before Mom tosses it. Then I grab my jacket, throw it over my arm, and stand next to my selective-hearing father.

“Dad?” I try again. He lets go of Mom’s hand to find the remote and pause the show.

“Mmm?”

I keep eye contact. It’s the most important thing. “You mind if I go to Jamal’s for a bit before I run tonight?”

His brows crinkle inward. “Did you finish your homework?”

No
. “Sort of. It’s not due till next Monday.” He looks at Mom, and when she shrugs, I keep going. “And running is my homework, too.”

He looks at Mom one more time, and she gives him the whatever-you-decide nod. Dad turns back and eyes the shirt I borrowed from his closet. I told him it was a new style when he caught me rummaging the other day. He said to only take the ones that Grandma bought him. I’m pretty sure the giant baby blue polo with the ducks on the pocket qualifies.

“Okay,” he says. “Be home by nine.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I give him a one-armed hug and pull on my running shoes. Their show is back on, and they’re holding hands and laughing when I shut the door.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. Jamal’s only a couple houses down, and it’s most likely him again. Tiff has been MIA today due to Fartbucket activities, and Drake just calls or comes over when he wants to talk. He’s called twice. I answered the last one, and after hearing him only talk about the fall formal for ten minutes, I cut the conversation short. Is it bad that I totally forgot about that?

I’m kind of dreading it, to be honest. Not because it’s Drake… We’re friends, and we can go as friends, and I’ll make sure to make that clear to him. But because every dress I’ve ever seen does
nothing
to hide Sharpies. They only enhance them. Heck, Hadley wore a bright yellow cupcake dress to prom last year, and those small things looked like they could’ve poked an eye out.

Maybe I can go in one of my dad’s shirts and tie it with a belt. I could be the start of a revolutionary fashion trend.

“Ginger!” Jamal calls from behind me on his porch. Apparently I’m so out of it that I walked right past his house. I shake my head and laugh at myself, reversing my tracks.

“That was fast,” he says when I step inside.

“Just finishing dinner when you texted.” His house sounds empty again. It doesn’t smell like boy though. I mean, that smell is still there, but it’s covered by something cheesy and spicy. I wonder what they had for dinner, if it’s gluten-free, and if they have any left over. “Your mom here?”

He shakes his head and then runs a hand over his short, curly hair. “I’m babysitting. Josh and Jesse are in the basement.” He gestures to the stairs that lead up to his room, and under normal circumstances, I think I’d be okay with that. I mean, it’s never been a problem before. But suddenly puberty and bigger woman parts coupled with the assumption that he has bigger man parts makes me detour to the living room and claim the only one-seater there: the recliner.

“So, what’s up?” I ask him.

He sinks into the loveseat, his knees angled toward me. “It’s crap, you know? Coach Fox not letting you on the team.”

I shrug and look down to make sure I’m still well-hidden. “I can’t beat my time. I wouldn’t let me on the team either.”

His eyes narrow. “She even has you doubting yourself.”

“It’s not that. You said it first—I’m getting soft.”

“I was just messing with you.” He shakes his head, brushing it off. I get that; we rag on each other all the time. Well, less lately. Ever since I got back this summer, things seemed to have shifted. Everything feels different now.

Or maybe it’s because
I’m
different.

I’m about to blurt that out. Ask him if he feels it too, but he cuts me off.

“I… I mean the team and I… we’re gonna take care of it.”

“Huh?”

“Go to the principal. Tell him that Coach Fox is going to cut the fastest girl we have on the team.” He lets out a laugh. “I mean, what does she know about coaching a
cross country
team anyway?”

My stomach squirms, making my butt wiggle in my seat. “Coach Fox? Hasn’t she been coaching for years?”

“Yeah, but…” He gives me a grin and a look like I should get what he’s implying. When I shrug at him, he continues, “She’s not exactly a runner, you know? I mean… you can
tell
she isn’t a runner.”

My squirming insides tighten and tangle up. I don’t know what feels worse, the entire team thinking that I can’t outrun my own score, or that they’re all looking at Coach Fox like she’s some sort of hippo that doesn’t know what she’s doing. Sure, I’m pissed that I might get cut from the team, from the only thing that I love, but I’m not mad at her. I’m mad at me. At my summer eating choices and the bloating results.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking around with me or if you turned into a class A jerk over the season,” I tell him. He sits back in surprise.

“What?”

“You’re saying Coach Fox is too fat to coach us.”

“Well, I just meant—”

“And that you don’t think I can beat my time.”

“I was just trying to reassure you in case you don’t.”

I push myself out of the recliner. “Well, don’t. I don’t need reassurance.”

“Ginger…”

He follows me to the front door, but I don’t want him to follow me. I don’t want him around me right now. This day has been a pile of crap, and this is the fly that births maggots on top of it.

“This isn’t Coach’s fault. It’s mine. And you won’t ever understand what it’s like, so just shut up and leave it alone.”

I open his front door, but he puts his hand up and closes it. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

His eyes are wide, like he has no idea why I’m upset. It hurts deep in the pit of my belly because I’ve never been mad with him. I’ve never had a reason to be, and maybe I don’t have one now either, and I’m just taking all my feelings about myself out on him.

Then his eyes drift down, just for three seconds that feel like three years, and I get a painful prick in the corner of my eyes. He’s staring at them like he knows they’re there, but how could he? I’m in a humongous shirt, and I’m double-taped. I can barely breathe, barely walk, and yet he stares.

“Well…” I say, and his eyes flick back up. “You did.”

I yank the door open and trip on my way out. I pretend I totally meant to and continue down the street toward the cemetery. When I get there, I lay my cheek down on Cayenne’s name, grateful for once this week that I am actually alone.

“I don’t get what’s happening,” I tell her. “Is everyone else changing? Or is it just me?”

Don’t think. Just run
.

I inhale deep, letting the morning air fill my lungs up to giant balloons. When I feel like they might burst, I let the breath out slowly, opening my eyes to the track line in front of my pink shoes. No one’s here. Just me and the track and my feet and my legs and my heart that’s
pounding pounding pounding
.

I take another long breath, in and out, while I look around to make sure I really am alone. My shirt isn’t baggy today—well, not yet. This won’t be the one I’m walking around in once the school bell rings. But when I saw that I was the only one out here, I pulled that one off and ran like I used to—just the sports bra and me. The baggy Daddy shirt is sitting in a heap by my water bottle and backpack.

Don’t think. Just run.

I’m thinking. Thinking way too much. So I shut my mind off of what I’m wearing and why it’s so hard for me to wear it, take another deep and long breath, then just…
run
.

Warmth immediately rises up from somewhere in my gut. It’s a good warmth. I
remember
this. When I was six, we were cleaning up from one of our huge family parties, and Mom found a cooler of water balloons that had somehow survived the festivities. She grabbed a green one, gave it a tiny squeeze, and turned to me with a wicked eye. I shrieked and took off. And I felt it…
this
… that undeniable urge to run as fast as I possibly can.

It travels through my legs and arms now just as it did back then. Mom was fast. She’d been running the treadmill every time she thought about Cayenne, and when I was six, that was pretty much every day. Sometimes twice a day. I saw her gaining on me, balloon in hand, and I pushed back my giddy laughter and forced my legs faster.

Faster, faster, faster. The distance between us got larger. My mom soon became out of breath, and I… I was still okay. I was
fantastic
. She lobbed the balloon, and it fell short of my feet by a couple of inches.

She called me her gingerbread man.

I step over the finishing lap line, the warmth in my stomach dumping down into my feet. My legs start to feel like rubber, so I slow my pace, take it to a jog and then walk it down. I make it another lap before I plop my butt on the track. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears, my head, my chest, my legs, my arms, my everywhere, and I am in love. I am in
love
with running. And I don’t care if I beat my time just now or if I didn’t. What I felt I want to feel again. So I take a swig of water, wipe the residue off my upper lip, and hop back to my feet. I run until I see a car pull into the school lot.

Suddenly, I can feel the Sharpies. Like they weren’t there when I was alone, but now they are. I hurry over to my baggy shirt and throw it over my head. Guess I better take a shower anyway, get it out of the way before the first period gym students show up.

Once I’m un-stinkified, I make my way to English 10, where Rodney and Jamal are having what looks like a very deep discussion about nachos.

“Dude,
Velveeta
. And bacon bits.”

“No, that crap is fake cheese. Lying cheese. And it’ll plug up your butthole like a giant cork.”

Jamal swings his arms out. “
Real
cheese does that.”

“Only when you eat a pound or more,” I say, sliding into my desk. Jamal gives me a strained smile, but doesn’t do anything otherwise to acknowledge our fight yesterday, and I’m on too much of a running high to be bothered by it right now.

Rodney points at me. “See, she knows.”

“And nachos aren’t nachos unless they’re topped with jalapeños,” I tell them.

“And that’s why no one likes to eat at your place.” Jamal lets out a forced and awkward laugh, like he’s really trying to forget our previous conversation, and I exaggerate my gasp.

“Hey! Who’s the one always coming over to raid my fridge?”

They share a glance, then at the same time say, “Drake.”

Okay, okay, I’ll give them that one. I shake my head, hiding my smile behind
Of Mice and Men
, the book we’re supposed to read this month. I saw the movie, though. Think I got the gist.

“Oh, dude,” Rodney says, punching me in the arm. “Congrats on making the team.”

“Huh?”

“Saw Coach Fox put up the cross country list outside the gym a few minutes ago. Your name’s at the top.”

“Next to your killer time,” Jamal adds, twisting the sharpened point of his pencil between his thumb and forefinger. The lead stains his dark skin.

I flick my gaze to his, narrowing my eyes. He puts his hands up.

“Didn’t say anything. Promise.” He lets out a breath. “When I asked Coach, she said it was your time this morning that beat it.”

My time this morning? She had to have been hiding under the bleachers or something.

Oh my gosh. If she was watching… she saw me running in nothing but my bra.

“I… I…” My eyebrows connect together in the middle of my forehead, and I slam my palms on the desktop. “
What?
”

I push myself out of my desk; I
have
to talk to her, but I get two steps, and the minute bell rings. My butt slowly lowers back into my chair, heart pounding so hard I can feel it everywhere. Maybe she was just kidding. Maybe everyone gets in, and she was just trying to push us. Maybe I really was alone this morning.

But where did the time come from?

“All right,” my English teacher starts. “Get a pencil out. Quiz time.”

Jamal spins around, and Rodney makes a cow noise with his nose, and I am too thought preoccupied to laugh.

***

It’s the longest school day in the history of longest school days. The teachers must’ve set their clocks to take five minutes to tick only one minute. And apparently it’s “Talk to Ginger” day because everyone and their dog keeps coming up to me between classes to see what my weekend plans are—um… nothing. Like always—and to see if I’ve answered Drake’s fall formal invite yet. Crap, I’ve still got to do that. I’d only scheduled cemetery visits this weekend, so now I’ve got to add that in too.

Is it bad that I’m going to a dance with one guy while secretly rendezvousing with another? Well, if you’d call exchanging sticky notes in a graveyard a “rendezvous.”

So after several hundred years, the bell rings for gym, and I book it through the halls so I’m not interrupted for the millionth time.

And yep, there I am. Right at the top of the list that has bright blue bubble letters saying CROSS COUNTRY TEAM.

My time. It’s a full second faster than my original.

Narrowing my eyes to thin slits, I reach up and rip the paper off the wall. I march straight past the lockers and down the hall of coach’s offices. Coach Fox’s door still doesn’t have a fancy name marker, so it’s just her name on a piece of paper that she must’ve put star stickers all over to make it look cute.

I pummel my fist into the wood, rattling the doorknob.

“Open sesame,” I say in my most sarcastic voice. Nothing happens for ten seconds, so I pound again.

“Seriously, Coach. Open it, or I’m barging in.”

Ten more seconds. I sigh and look down at the doorknob. Should I be all talk this time or actually see it through?

Then I remember that the time next to my name is total bull, and I slap my hand on the knob and throw the door open.

“Oy!” A deep grunt and a bang follows, and all I see is a shaggy head of hair flying back, a tendon-filled man hand flying up, and the door swinging back my way, slamming in my face.

Oh my gosh. Oh gosh, oh gosh… sweet mother of all embarrassing moments. My mouth drops clear open, and it takes a few seconds for me to realize I am not breathing. Warmth spreads up my neck, through my cheeks, and I reach out a shaking hand, nudging the door open with just two fingers.

Oliver is bent over, half his face covered by his palms. He’s breathing deep, in and out, in and out, like I would if I was running. His bloodshot eyes flick up to my very warm face.

“Oopsie.”

Yeah… I go with “oopsie.” The first word I actually say out loud to the guy, and I go with that because I’m so awesome.

I think he smiles. I mean I can’t tell because he’s still covering himself from nose to chin, but his eyes look amused. His shoulders move up and down as if he’s laughing.

I let the door swing shut behind me and crouch next to him, boldly putting my shaking and suddenly sweaty hand on his thick shoulder.

And no joke, the second I touch the guy, something unbelievable happens.

I mean, not like the floor splits open and a bunch of unicorns pop out shooting glitter from their bums, or like the entire locker room breaks out in a flash mob singing the best of Disney, or like Principal Turphy comes over the intercom and announces that school is cancelled, and everyone gets a 4.0 if they showed up today.

I mean like all those things happen inside my freaking stomach.

“Uh…”

The second word—or sound—I make at him.
Uh
. Apparently, the unbelievable things happening in my stomach are making me temporarily brain damaged.

“I-I’m sorry.” Phew, real words this time, even though they were totally stammered. “Are you okay?”

His eyes move from mine to the hand I have on his shoulder. I count to two and a half seconds before he nods at the floor.

“You make one heck of an entrance.” He drops his hands and gives me a small smile. Like a hot-dude half smile. And his voice is so much deeper than I expected. I know he’s older than me, but it’s the first time since meeting him that I am hyper aware that he is
definitely
older than me.

“In my defense, I gave fair warning.” My fingers slide from his shoulder, and a tingly fuzzy-socks-across-the-carpet feeling shoots through my palm, making me wish I hadn’t let go of him at all. Crazy.

We both push off our knees to stand upright. Thank sweet baby jebus his nose looks okay. If I had broken it, I probably would've died of humiliation. Then died again from dying of humiliation.

“Sorry, my mom isn’t here,” he says, watery eyes slowly going back to their normal, sparkly selves. “She went to grab a few things for practice today.”

“Uh-oh,” I stutter, trying to laugh off the redness in my cheeks. “What am I in for?”

“Not sure. Must be big though. She’s been gone for a while.”

“Didn’t want to help her?” I tease. It’s my go-to when I’m trying to forget embarrassing things. Like slamming someone in the face with a door. “What a loving son.”

He snorts. “Girl’s locker room. I’m gonna stay put until school’s out so I don’t look like a perv.”

A laugh jerks through me, and I temporarily forget why I was in here in the first place. “Probably a good plan.”

He smiles. I like it so much that I could marry it. I want to delve into his secrets, hang out in my spare time, not just my cemetery time, and find excuses to ask just any old question I want to so I can really get to know him.

“I’m actually glad I ran into you,” he says, interrupting my obsessive train of thought. “Or, more accurately, that you ran into me.”

I give him a little hardy-har-har very unladylike chuckle, which he seems to find hilarious. He reaches into the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out his pad of stickies. He pulls the top one off and holds it out to me.

“You weren’t at the cemetery this morning, but I was gonna… try to lead off with this.”

Any weekend plans?

“Not you too.” I laugh, and he gives me a puzzled look that is so cute my feet melt into the floor. “I just meant… never mind. I don’t have any plans this weekend.”

He pulls off the next sticky note.

How are you at mini-golf?

Something bubbles at the bottom of my heart, almost as if it’s been doused in vinegar and baking soda, and if he really is asking me out, then it’ll skyrocket out of my chest and onto the floor for the whole world to see.

“I’m not bad,” I tell him with a playful smile. I’m lying. I’ve never golfed in my life.

“You… you want to prove it to me?” He sets down the notepad and flips the edges. I notice an animated bee buzzing around the pages. “Saturday? Noonish? I’ll feed you too if you want.”

“Ooh, just like a dog,” I tease.

“Nah, like a cheetah.”

“You feed cheetahs?”

His brow furrows. “I meant ‘cause cheetahs are fast, and you’re a runner… it worked out so much better in my head.”

I laugh. “So, food and an activity. This sounds like a date.”

“Good,” he says. “I… I wanted it to sound that way.”

Kaboom!
My vinegar and baking soda rocket heart just lifted off, but instead of flying out of my chest, it flattens against my ribcage, and all the jagged pieces fall into my stomach.

“I want to… but… okay, here’s the thing. I’ve been asked to a dance, which is a week from tomorrow, and I just feel weird going with someone else and then going out with you on the side. Not that it’ll be more than the one date, but I feel like I should disclose this to you in case it’s a problem. And I’ll probably have to tell Drake—he’s the guy I’m going with. Just friends, promise—that I’m not exclusive with him, or
anything
with him, and then it’ll be awkward, and I just want to get through my sophomore year without boy drama because I’ve pretty much done my entire life boy-drama free. Does that even make sense? Because I’m not saying no. Just letting you know in case you want to take it all back.”