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I roll my eyes. “That’s not happening. Photo or not, Ash doesn’t want to get back together with me.”
“What makes you say that?” Shelby gives me a sincere look-over. “Have you asked him?”
My shoulders fall. “No,” I say, running my finger over a crack in the Formica countertop.
She turns back to the computer and pulls up the scoring software. “So ask him. It won’t kill you to try.”
“It may not kill me,” I say, rising from my chair. “But it’ll hurt like hell.”
*
Shelby’s digital proof might have been enough to get my curiosity going, but it hasn’t given me the superhuman strength to find Ash in person and ask him about us. Instead, I take the easy way out and pull up my text messages as I walk toward my dad’s four-wheeler.
“Shelby is working the tower,” I say, looking for Ash’s name in my contacts list. “What do you need me on tonight?”
“Races start in twenty minutes and I’m short on flaggers,” he says, reaching into the box strapped on the back of his four-wheeler. He hands me a yellow flag and grins. “Pick a corner and you’ll be set.”
I make a face but I take the flag and head off toward the track. Flagging isn’t the most glamorous of track jobs, but it does require a lot of attention and maybe that will help me take my mind off what I’m about to do.
When I reach the track, I pick a corner that’s unoccupied by another flagger. It’s also in the middle of the track, so I’ll still have a pretty good view from down here. I used to be apathetic about the whole sport, but now I’ve grown to like it a lot. I’ve been able to watch kids Teig’s age get better with each race, moving up to faster level classes and kicking butt when they used to suck. It’s fun to cheer on my friends, even if I should probably stay unbiased.
My phone weighs down my pack pocket, and with a few minutes left until the first moto starts, I look at the screen again. Ash’s name is no longer in my texts. I deleted our chat string months ago. Four and a half months ago, to be exact. Right after we broke up.
All of my self-preservation instincts are telling me to turn off the damn phone and hide it away. That I’m making a massive mistake trying to reach out to Ash again, especially after I was an absolute bitch to him earlier today. But memories of that picture in his bunk make me start a new text. His number is of course, still in my phone; I’d never had the willpower to delete him fully.
I panic over what to type, wasting too much time and before I know it, the races have begun. I wait until the first moto is completed and the starting gate is about to drop for second one, and I pull out my phone again.
Hey?
Dammit. Why did I send that? My phone sits in my back pocket, probably just as humiliated as I am that it had to send that text. Hey with a question mark? What? Oh my god, Hana. My cheeks burn, and I try like hell to focus on the race so I can be alert if someone crashes in my corner.
It takes three more motos for me to get the courage to check my phone again. The bikes are so loud I’d never be able to hear the text message beep, and that’s kind of a good thing. Right now, before I actually look at my phone, I can pretend I don’t have a message from Ash. I can pretend I never sent something so stupid. But with two seconds to spare before the next race, I force myself to check.
And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to see that he’d written back.
What’s up? Need anything?
The starting gate drops and I shove my phone back into my pocket. Dad would kill me if he saw me on my phone during a race. I can barely focus on the bikes zooming by, their back tire roosts pelting me with sand every few seconds. There isn’t much to analyze about Ash’s text. He’d asked if I needed anything, and isn’t that exactly the kind of thing he’d always say? Kind, considerate Ash.
I wonder if he’s waiting for a reply, or he’s already forgotten about me. Does he think it was weird getting a text from me after so long? The rest of the motos take an agonizingly slow time to pass, but finally it’s intermission, and Marty announces that we’ll break for twenty minutes.
I stab the wooden end of my yellow flag into the ground and grab my phone.
Okay, Hana. It’s now or never. Don’t be a coward, just say what’s on your mind.
My fingers shake as I type the words and parts of me wonder if Ash can see me right now from wherever he is. I glance over at the nearest set of bleachers but he’s not there. The tip of my tongue tastes like iron, and I realize I’ve been gnawing on the inside of my lip.
My heart pounds like it’s generating enough electricity to power the entire planet, and I force myself to send the text.
I saw that video of your bunk on the tour bus. Why was my photo on the wall?
My shoulders feel like they’re carrying fifty pound weights as I watch my words appear on the phone screen. They’re sent now, and there’s nothing I can do to take them back. The fear of whatever he might say next makes my vision blur around the edges. I force myself to take one step and then another, walking across a set of double jumps toward where Dad waits on his four wheeler with a cooler of sports drinks. I’m not even thirsty, but if I don’t focus on something, my heart might explode.
Ash texts back almost immediately.
How else would I have good dreams?
Chapter 22
