As we walk over to the starting line, a parking curb I don’t see catches my right toe and I almost go flying. Jay grabs my elbow and pulls me back up. “You okay there, Hattie?” he asks, his eyes smiling.
“Yes, thanks,” I say, and then, I don’t know why, I keep talking. “I have poor peripheral vision from a genetic eye disease.” Awkward, yes. Positively cringy. But ultimately, just true.
The expression in his eyes goes from teasing to one of concern. Not like he’s worried about me, exactly. More like he’s paying very close attention.
“Well, all right. Stick close to me during this race then, just in case.”
In this moment, there’s nothing I’d like more.
Jeff and Lincoln both join us at the back of the pack to wait for the start. Amanda shows up, and I introduce her to Jay, aware of how much easier it is to be around her and a boy I like when I’m not jealous of her. Then I pull her aside.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Do you think you could give me the number of that therapist you see?”
“Of course! She’s the best. Is everything okay?” she asks, cocking her head.
“Absolutely. Just, you know, dealing with life.”
“I hear that,” she says, squeezing my arm.
The gun goes off and we run. Normally, it would be hard for me not to race for time, to try to get a personal best or pick off runners in front of me. But today, that seems wonderfully pointless. We all jog along, laughing and talking, each burst of giggles making a cloud of steam in front of us.
Soon we’re outside town, the houses dropping away and leaving cow pastures and patches of trees in their place. We turn onto a road with a sloping hill and my pulse pounds a little harder. This is where I drove. In front of me, I see the dark slashes of the skid marks from that day angling off the road. It makes me a little dizzy.
“Want to walk?” Jay has slowed and is looking at me closely in that way of his again.
I shake my head slightly and speed up, trying to run away from the feeling. Suddenly, Mason is up ahead, standing on the side of the road just like before, except this time he’s waving a banner like a bona fide race supporter.
I sprint toward him, not really sure what I’m going to do when I get there.
But it’s a false alarm. When I get close, I see it’s not Mason with a banner at all, it’s the flag to mark a turn in our course, to tell us which way to go.
So I hug the turn, brushing past the flag, my feet light on the pavement. And I realize—it doesn’t matter anymore whether Mason was ever really appearing in my peripheral vision in the first place, or if I was only imagining it because it hurt too much not to. Either way, I had additional time with him that no one else got, like a bonus round. I snort to myself. What I got with Mason, what I had to get in order to not totally implode, was an extra-long goodbye. That’s very uncharacteristic of me, or at least the old me. And I wouldn’t trade it, because getting real with him made me dig into all the ways I’m broken. They actually aren’t so terrible. There’s nothing I need to pretend doesn’t exist.
I’ve accidentally put space between me and the group, but now Jay is catching up with me again; I hear his even breath coming up on my right.
“Whoa, you really know how to turn on the gas,” he says, matching my footsteps.
Laughing, I slow down so I can take breaks from looking at the road to look up at his face. His cheeks are flushed and full of life, and his eyebrows are raised as if he’s anticipating something fun. His face is loaded with fascinating details: a small scar on his right temple, the arch of his hairline. And of course,his dimples. I make a mental note to stare at him more after the race.
“I tend to get carried away,” I say.
“Then let’s do that,” he says.
“If you think you can handle it.”
“C’mon, Firecracker.”
We both accelerate. On the downslope, the wind is at our backs, pushing us forward. It makes it feel easy, like I’m weightless, like I can just be. The universe definitely does not hate me today.
Maybe it never did.
Jennifer March Soloway, nothing has made me believe in the idea of “meant to be” more than meeting you at the Big Sur Children’s Writing Workshop. I think back often to how I basically got the zoomies when I saw you on that last morning because I knew you were about to change my life. I won the agent lottery with you and am still a bit in awe as to how I got so lucky. Your editorial instincts, your emotional support, your optimism combined with sharpened business savvy, and your delightful way of being authentic and hilarious while sharing gems of wisdom are just a few of the qualities I have reaped the benefit of while working with you. Thank you so much. Onward!
Maya Marlette, from our very first conversation I knew that you reallygotHattie, and by extension, me! You infused every note you gave with a deep understanding of the heart of this book, and taking your notes was easy because they always felt like the exact right thing to do. You elevated the story tenfold. Plus, reading in the margins to see all the places where you laughed at my jokes fed me more than any food. Thank you so much for all the enthusiasm, expertise, sensitivity, and intuition that you brought to this work.
And thank you to everyone at Scholastic for giving such attention to detail, for polishing this book until it shone. I’m so darn proud of it now, and that is partly because of all of you.
Rombutan, I’m so thankful for your gorgeous cover art. It is such avibe. I have yet to look at the cover without getting tears in my eyes.
