Famous in a Small Town(47)

She pulled away from me, lurched toward Tanner.

“So you’re on the track team, huh?”

“Uh-huh. Yeah.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“I do track too.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. Let’s race.”

He was drunk already, getting drunker. But he smiled. “Yeah okay. We could race back to my place.”

“A hundred meters,” Brit said.

“For real?” The smile widened.

“Yeah.” Brit smiled too, teeth gleaming, and she swayed closer toward him. I alone knew she was stone-cold sober. “I bet you’re fast.”

“Well, not all the time,” he said. “Like not with everything. Don’t want you to get the wrong idea, if you know what I mean.”

She laughed, and it sounded like a stranger’s laugh, like someone I hadn’t known all my life. “For sure. But I wanna see how fast you can go. Then you can show me … how you take it slow.”

Brit would punch Brit for saying something that stupid. But she was possessed right now. And this was a bad, bad, bad idea.

“Okay, let’s do it.” Tanner pounded the rest of his drink back.

“A hundred meters,” she said again.

“Are we going like regulation here or what?”

“Fuck yeah we’re going regulation.” She grabbed his hand, leading him away.

“What dorm are you guys gonna be in?” Tanner’s friend said to me.

“Sorry,” I replied, and went after them.





thirty-six


Brit somehow convinced Tanner to take us to the university track. “I wanna see it!” she said, and “It’s on the way to our place,” smiling coyly at him and studiously ignoring me.

We made it to the track and managed to get in, Brit flirting with Tanner all along.

“I’ll time you,” I said, and headed down to the 100-meter mark. Instead of bringing up the timer, I first tapped out a quick text:

We are at the IU track please come pick us up

Brit is doing something stupid

Dash’s reply came instantly, as I brought up the timer.

On our way

I called out the ready, set, go, and they took off.

It was only a matter of seconds, but you could see exactly when Tanner realized Brit was good. He was half-assing it to start, but he pushed forward, lengthening his stride, increasing his speed for the final seconds. It wasn’t enough to close the distance between them as Brit crossed the 100-meter mark first.

They kept going after, propelled by their own momentum. You can’t just stop dead when you go that fast, Brit told me once. You can’t just turn it on and off like a faucet.

He said something to her as they slowed to a stop, a grin breaking his flushed face. I watched as he reached out, snaking his arms around Brit’s waist.

She turned and wrenched out of his grip. Punched him in the stomach once, and as he doubled over, shoved him to the ground.

I moved quickly, running toward them, grabbing Brit around the middle and pulling her back before she could do anything more. She struggled against me as Tanner wheezed.

“The fuck,” he choked out.

“That was for Luke.” Brit’s voice was tight, tears streaming down her face.

“The hell is wrong with you?”

“You ruined it, you ruined everything,” she said, trying to pull out of my grip, but I held fast.

“Brit, stop.”

We were alone, it was dark, and even though he was drunk and momentarily down for the count, Tanner Barnes could get his feet back under him at any moment, and I didn’t want to be there when he did.

“What the fuck?” He rolled onto his side, moving to get up.

“Brit.” I stepped backward, pulling her with me. “We’re going. Right now.”

I grabbed her hand and we ran.

Away from the track, out onto the street. It was Brit who pulled up first, her hand slipping from my grip.

She sat down abruptly on the curb, face streaked with tears, expression blank.

“You can’t do this right now.” I tried to pull her back up, but she refused to move, refused to look at me. “We have to get out of here, okay?” My pulse was punching fast, my lungs tightening.

And then the Cutlass pulled up. August hopped out of the passenger’s side before it had even come to a full stop.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“She won’t get up.” I gestured hopelessly to Brit as Dash got out of the driver’s side and circled around. “We saw Tanner Barnes, she freaked out. We have to get out of here—”

“It’s okay.” Dash knelt down in front of Brit.

“Who’s Tanner Barnes?” August asked.

“Remember Coach Junior?” I replied. “He made it happen, it was him.” Luke, the roof, the fall—or the jump, really, but jump sounds intentional and fall sounds accidental and what happened to Luke was an unfair mix of both.

Brit turned her face up to Dash, mascara running down her cheeks. She reached up both arms and he picked her up easily, like a little kid, and carried her to the car. August opened the door to the back seat and Dash set her inside.

“Hey!”

I spun around. Tanner Barnes was lumbering toward us.