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I scrunch up my nose, blush, and smile simultaneously, and his eyes are glowing when I meet them with mine.
“Okay… yes, sure, okay. See you tomorrow,” I say, and a warm feeling spreads through my chest.
Dimples appear in his cheeks. “See you tomorrow, River.”
Chapter 7
Present
“I can’t believe that we’re going to be submitting our college applications soon. We’re, like, literally adults now,” Kit says as she affixes her sweat-guard wristbands.
I pull up my Gym socks, frowning. “I don’t want to go to college,” I say. “I want to live on a farm.”
She nods in agreement and we head out onto the track field. Mud squelches onto our trainers as soon as we step onto the grass. We hop across it like it’s quicksand until we reach the paved track, scraping our heels against the side of the path to get the dirt off.
“Have you picked your colleges yet?” she asks.
I shake my head as we set off round the trail. “Anywhere with good scholarships,” I say. “But I wasn’t kidding about the farm.”
“I know. I just want to be a housewife.”
The ultimate feminist win: thriving off the patriarchy for our own evil gain.
“You’ll be a senator or something,” I say, my breathing a little heavier now. My brain is picturing my inhaler with little pink love hearts around it. “You’re the kind of person our nation deserves.”
She snorts lightly. “I hate public attention almost as much as you do. I want to live in the shadows like a vampire.”
I glance over at her and see that she’s biting the side of her lip, an anxious expression on her face as our soles slap the track.
Changing the subject, Kit asks, “Are you helping with the Halloween dance this year?”
I chew it over. “I’m not sure,” I say slowly. “My living situation just got a little weird.”
She points her laser eyes on me. “Do tell.”
Now I’m gnawing on my lip too. “My mom and I just moved in with her boyfriend. It’s only temporary, and he’s fine, but…” I trail off. I don’t know if I should mention Tate. For the entire duration of our friendship Kit and I have barely ever spoken about boys, for the solid reason that if our lives were a movie we would die if it didn’t pass the Bechtel test. Plus I hate thinking about Tate, simply because it hurts that I have to hate him.
I stretch my back as we jog. “Actually, maybe I should help out – and not just with the design stuff. Maybe this is a great excuse to get out of the house.”
“And it’ll look good on your college applications,” she adds.
College applications that I don’t even want to apply for, I don’t add. There’s a palpable pain that comes with not living your life for yourself but I know better than to go against my mom. She’s done well in her life – stable job, nice home, semi-normal daughter – and, let’s not forget, she’s the reason why I’m running around this track right this very second. I owe her my life. The least I can do is try to give it to her.
I change the subject back to the Halloween dance, and we talk about it until my thoughts about college applications and Tate Coleson are almost forgotten.
Almostforgotten.
*
I thought that temporarily moving into Mitch’s house with my mom would result in awkward encounters and forced politeness,but it hasn’t required any adjusting at all. My mom and Mitch are out at work all day, and I eat dinner in my room, so we rarely even cross paths. I’m basically a lodger in my new little attic-cave but I love the space so much that I don’t really mind.
By Friday this feels normal.
The sky is ominously overcast this evening. My mom and Mitch are staying at his brother’s place tonight and they offered me to join but the thought of being introduced to another step-something made my stomach curdle, so I shook my head and told them that I needed to work on some homework.
In my warm, yielding bed.
I’m fully unpacked now, which was easy considering the fact that I didn’t bring much to begin with. I don’thavemuch to begin with. My clothes are in the drawers under the bed and my books are piled in miniature stacks around the border of the room. My mom retrieved my bath stuff from the house, so they’ve been stored in the cabinets by the headboard. I kept the black bed sheets because I’m emo – or maybe I kept them because I’m a weirdo. Either way, I kept the sheets, and I found no incriminating items belonging to the room’s previous resident as I worked my way around it.
