A Tragic Kind of Wonderful(51)

I switch it back and more texts from Holly appear that are all variations of Are you okay? and Call me! from Sunday mostly and a couple yesterday but nothing from anyone else so maybe nobody wants to hear my long explanation for that video clip from over a year ago and maybe when they get it they’ll roll their eyes and all my explanations will just be annoying and pitiful—

Swoosh! My e-mail and text both go out so it’s too late to call any of it back now.

I don’t want to sit still but there’s nowhere to go and Mom will just worry and ask me questions if I don’t stay in bed and it seems like a long time with no replies to my text but I look at the clock and it’s been less than two minutes and I doubt anyone is even awake yet and won’t be for a while since there’s no school this week—

Mom pops her head in to check on me and I manage a smile and then she leaves for work so now I can get up but I still need to be quiet since Aunt Joan doesn’t go to work for another hour though she’s pretty much been hiding in her room—

My phone buzzes with a text from Zumi.

Stop sending me your pathetic

rants! I’m blocking you!

She did a Reply All and no more texts appear but if they did I wouldn’t be able to read them since everything’s blurry with my eyes flooding and now water is smeared on the screen and I smash a pillow over my face so Aunt Joan won’t hear me cry but I can’t stop and it’s getting worse and I have to get out of here!

I can’t take my bike because Aunt Joan would definitely hear that so I keep sobbing into the pillow and sneak out the patio door and out the side gate and now I can get away and she won’t know I’m gone since she never checks on me before leaving in the mornings.

The sun’s not up but it’s getting light and the only thing I can think to do is go to the track and sit on the bleachers but I remember it’s spring break so no one’s going to be there jumping and why does watching people running and jumping make me feel better anyway when I never actually saw Nolan do it even one time but it doesn’t matter since it won’t work now when it’s just a sandbox if no one’s jumping in it but thinking about it that way tells me how to fix this.

I need to get to school faster but I’m still pushing the pillow against my mouth and nose to muffle my crying though I don’t need to be as quiet out here and it’s awkward to hurry while holding my pillow up with both hands but there’s no way I’m going to go back home so I drop it on a neighbor’s lawn and take off running.

*

Long jumps are a lot harder than they look even knowing what you’re supposed to do like concentrate on how fast you run more than how hard you jump because the coaches say how far you jump is mostly about how fast you’re running when your feet leave the runway and then it’s about controlling your rotation and keeping your balance in the air and not so much about actually jumping like a kangaroo.

There’s a middle-aged woman wearing gray sweats jogging here but I ignore her and keep jumping again and again while trying to run as fast as I can and also plant my right foot on the board but not past it without slowing down or screwing up my strides so I can jump as far as I can without falling backward when I hit the sand—

“Excuse me, hello?” the jogger says while stepping in front of me waving a hand and looking at me but with her head kind of lowered down like she’s ducking under a low tree branch or something and she says, “Do you need help?”

I shake my head and pace away from the pit and turn around to make another run at the board but now she’s standing in front of me blocking me with both hands up and she says, “What’s wrong, sweetie? Can you tell me why you’re crying?”

I try to say “I’m not crying” but it’s hard from gasping so much with all this exercise and I think maybe she’s confused by me breathing hard and the sweat running down my face and I wave her out of the way so I can make my run—

“Okay,” she says like she doesn’t believe me and then she says, “Is there someone I can call for you? You really shouldn’t be doing this without shoes. Look, you’re bleeding.”

I look down and see the tops of two of my toes are scratched and a little bloody from the jumps but it doesn’t hurt or anything and now that I’m looking down I see a few red splotches along the runway and I wonder when I took off my shoes and socks but now that I think about it I don’t remember putting them on this morning and I see I’m still wearing my sweatpants and my zombie teddy bears sleep shirt too—

“Let’s call your mom or dad,” the jogger says and starts walking sideways toward the bleachers while she keeps watching me and she says, “Is this your phone on the bench here? Let’s call someone and get you home.”

I run by her and she flinches as I pass and I scoop up my phone and run up the bleacher steps—

“Sweetie, wait!” she calls.

I yell “It’s okay I’m going home now!” and I keep on running and glance back once to see her watching me and shading her eyes but she isn’t following me.

I’m not really going home but I can’t stay here with this woman in the way and it wasn’t working anyway and I think it’s because I can’t really imagine Nolan here since he was never actually here and there’s only one place I can think of that I can get to where I’ve seen him and been with him and that’s where I need to go and now that I think about it the last time I felt like this I rode up to that happy place and it helped me feel better so that settles it except the Golden Gate Bridge is over twenty miles north but I can get there in maybe a few hours—