Falling into Place(29)

It was right before cross-country season, junior year. It was pouring outside, and Julia was curled on the window seat with a book and a cup of soup when someone began ringing her doorbell insistently. She opened the front door and found Liz standing on her porch in nothing but a pair of rain-soaked shorts and an obnoxiously green sports bra.

“Come on,” said Liz. “Let’s go running.”

Julia gaped. “What the hell are you—it’s raining!”

“I’ve noticed,” Liz said impatiently. “Go change.” She looked at Julia’s chest critically. “You’ll start an earthquake if you let those things bounce.”

“Liz, it’s wet.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Now come on.”

Julia closed the door in Liz’s face and waited to see if Liz would leave.

She didn’t, of course, so Julia went upstairs to change into a sports bra and her Nikes.

And they went running.

The rain was warm and smelled of beginnings. Liz and Julia ran unevenly, their footsteps syncopated: right right foot, left left foot. After a few minutes, Julia fell back a bit, because her strides were longer than Liz’s—it was kind of awkward trying to run beside her, because she had to take a normal step, and then a smaller one so that Liz could match it—and she was already wheezing. Breathing in the contents of ziplock bags did nothing to improve her lung capacity.

But Liz didn’t say anything and didn’t care that she wheezed, and Julia was thankful.

She closed her eyes and threw her head back. The rain hit her face and slid down her shoulders. Her legs were muddy and her shoes were so heavy with water that they released a small wave with every step. She just ran, and there was something eloquent in the sound of rain and footsteps.

“Watch it, gimp,” Liz said when Julia veered into her. Julia’s eyes snapped back open, and she found Liz running backward and smirking at her, and Julia laughed because she loved the ache in her legs, the stretch in her muscles, the heavy thudding of her heart, the rain that was everywhere.

She failed to notice that the wetness on Liz’s face wasn’t rain. She didn’t realize that Liz was drowning, or that Liz was crying because she knew that she could never outrun the things she had done.

“Where are we going?” Julia asked, but Liz didn’t answer. Julia was okay with that. Liz rarely ran the same route twice, and Julia didn’t mind following.

So they just ran, and eventually they turned a corner and Julia saw Barry’s Pond, which a disgustingly rich old couple from Florida had recently purchased. It had been a controversial sale—Meridian generally disproved of outsiders. Julia slowed as the grass turned to sand, but Liz went faster. Julia opened her mouth to say “What the hell,” but before she could, Liz ran onto the dock and over the edge without stopping, and disappeared in a flurry of bubbles.

“Crap,” Julia said under her breath, and then, louder, “Liz?”

But Liz didn’t come up, and after a minute, Julia began to panic. It was raining harder now, and she could hardly see. She ran onto the dock and stood at the edge, waiting for Liz to pop up, but she didn’t.

“Liz!” Julia shouted, bending over the water. “Liz—!”

Then she screamed, clear and shrill, as Liz shot out of the water, grabbed her, and dragged her under.

Julia came up choking. Liz was choking too, because she had been laughing as she pulled Julia into the water. Julia wanted to snap about fifty waspish things at Liz as she coughed the water out of her lungs, but as she turned to, she saw Liz laughing and breathless and brilliant and beautiful and hers.

So she splashed her.

Liz splashed her back, and they chased each other through the pond and the rain, their heads thrown back to drink in the sky, their fingers wrinkled, their hair plastered to their scalps.

Eventually, they dragged themselves back onto the dock to lie in the rain, which had faded into a drizzle. It tickled and left behind a fogginess that made the world blurry at the edges and just for them, only them.

As Julia lay there, her eyes closed, the splintering dock digging into her back in a dozen places, she heard Liz say quietly, “Thanks for coming with me.”

Julia smiled and sighed an unintelligible response. She spread her arms wide and felt the elastic of her sports bra tightening with every inhale, and for a moment, she couldn’t feel where she ended and the world began.

“I love you guys,” Liz said suddenly, fiercely. “You and Kennie. God, I don’t know what I’d do without you two.”