99 Days(47)

I think of my email from the dean about declaring a major, still flagged in my inbox and awaiting a response. “How is that a thing you knew you wanted to do?”

Tess shrugs. “I’m good at math,” she says. “I’ve always been good at math; I’ve been doing my parents’ bills since I was eleven. And I like international stuff—like, how what happens in one country money-wise affects what happens in another country.” She grins. “I get that that’s, like, really boring to most people, don’t worry.”

“No, it’s not at all. I’m super impressed.” I shake my head a bit and pick at a place where the caulk is peeling on the side of the pool, making a mental note to tell the maintenance guys about it. Tess leans back on her palms, turning her face up like she’s trying to wring sunshine out of the clouds. “Do you think you and Patrick will stay together?” I ask, then immediately feel awkward about it—feeling like a creep and not even knowing why I’m asking, exactly. “Sorry.” I look down at my feet. “That’s totally weird and over the line.”

Tess shakes her head. “No, it’s fine; I’d be curious, too. I think so, yeah. We’ve talked about it a little. He’s not sure where he’ll be, but it’s not so far from there to here.” She wrinkles her nose a bit. “Did you guys used to talk about going to college together?” she asks me. “As long as we’re, you know, being over the line?”

That makes me smile—it is weird, no question, but in some strange kind of way I appreciate it. “Yeah,” I tell her, “we did.”

Tess nods at that, seemingly unbothered. “Sun’s coming out,” is all she says.





Day 45


My first act with Patrick as People Who Are Trying to Hang Out is to meet for the world’s most awkward run around the lake, a couple of boats bobbing along in the current and a woodpecker knocking around in the trees. On one hand, we don’t actually have to talk very much, so that’s helpful. On the other, while the running itself isn’t the painfest it was when I first got back from Bristol, trying to keep pace with him makes me realize how easy I’ve been taking it.

“You good?” Patrick asks, not looking at me.

“I’m good,” I say, eyes straight ahead.

It didn’t used to be this uncomfortable—nothing about being with Patrick used to be uncomfortable, but running around in particular was part of our everyday: racing to the tree line at the edge of the farm and back, suicides up and down the bleachers at the high school on weekends. Sometimes Patrick won, and sometimes I did. As far as I know neither one of us ever threw a race.

Now I ignore the burn in my leg muscles and keep going. I feel hyperconscious of how soft and out of shape I probably still look in my leggings and tank top, like there’s a layer of pudding under my clothes. I wonder if he’s been running every day since he got back, too, both of us orbiting circles around each other all over town. The idea makes me lonely and sad. Then again, he’s got Tess, doesn’t he? Tess, who I drove home from work last night; Tess, who put her flip-flops up on my dashboard and sang along in the world’s most off-key, unselfconscious voice to the Miley Cyrus song on the radio.

Tess, who I definitely didn’t tell about this little outing.

“Way to be,” Patrick says when we’re finished, throwing me a high five to say good-bye like he’s congratulating me on something, even though it doesn’t feel like we’ve accomplished anything at all. “We should do it again.”

I shake my head in wonder as I watch him jog away from me, back in the direction of the farmhouse. The sun feels prickly and hot at the back of my neck.





Day 46


“You should pay them,” I argue after dinner the next evening, sprawled on the grass in my mom’s damp backyard. A couple of fireflies flicker lazily in the pine trees. “They’re doing a job, they should get paid.”

“They’re college athletes!” Gabe says stubbornly. “You get a scholarship, that’s the compensation. If you don’t go to class and use it, that’s—”

“You can’t go to class and use it!” I fire back. I like this, arguing with him good-naturedly. Patrick and I agreed on everything . . . until the moment we emphatically didn’t. “You’ve got practice, like, eighty hours a week; the coaches actually tell you not to study and focus on your games.”

Gabe makes a face. “I get paid eight bucks an hour to swipe cards at the student center at school,” he tells me, warm ankle nudging against mine. “You want to pay them eight bucks an hour?”

“Maybe!” I say, laughing. “Better than not getting paid at all.”

“Uh-huh.” Gabe grins at that, ducking his face close to mine in the darkness. “This is a stupid argument,” he decides, bumping our noses together. “Let’s make out instead.”

“You wish,” I tell him, climbing up onto my knees so I can reach over him and grab the bag of gummy worms he brought me—the movement ignites a searing ache in both thighs, though, and I groan a little bit.

“Easy, tiger,” Gabe says, reaching for the bag himself and handing it over. “Been running a lot, huh?”

“I—yeah.” With your brother, I almost tell him—could tell him, could just slip it in right now and it wouldn’t have to be weird, it could be normal, like I have nothing to hide there at all.