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Alex stops, puts her hands on top of her head, and breathes in deeply. “Sorry,” she finally heaves.
“I can keep up,” I say, even though I’m sucking more wind than she is.
“No.” She waves one hand at the stones in front of us. “Sorry that I didn’t warn you I use a graveyard as a turnaround.”
I shrug. “It’s fine.” Our words are weightless, none of them carrying any of the importance they have in the past.
“Rest for a minute?” she asks, walking toward a bench. I nod and follow her, sitting near her but not next to her. The inches of air in between us could be filled with concrete. The sun is sinking and the last bits of warmth are leaving the air, letting the cold in. I scratch my nose, suddenly bothered by it.
“Sorry,” I say. “My nose itches.”
“It’s okay.”
“Doesn’t it mean someone is talking about you if your nose itches?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s if your ears are ringing.”
“That’s it. My dad always said if you pull on your earlobe the person talking about you will bite their tongue.”
Alex stiffens and I realize that I just said earlobe, and now we’re both picturing large red drops of Ray Parsons’s blood on the dusty floor of the church, his chain hanging from her hand.
“I hate that we’re talking about stupid things,” she says, kicking the toe of her shoe into the little pockets of snow scattered in the grass.
I grab her hand, breaking the wall between us and linking our freezing fingers. “I hate it too,” I say.
She looks at me for a second, her eyes roaming over my face in search of something. “I’m sorry if I scared you the other night.”
“You don’t scare me.”
Her mouth pulls to the side like she’s about to argue, but I stop her with a question. “Why’d you call me?”
“Because I wanted to see you.” It comes out quick and honest, and she looks a little confused about how easy it was, or maybe that it’s the truth.
“I wanted to see you too,” I say.
I don’t know which one of us leans in first, or if we’ve both been covering the distance while we talk. But we’re talking and then we’re kissing like it’s how a run is supposed to end, and it’s electric and fluid and totally normal all at the same time. I pull her into my lap and she wraps her legs around my waist as if she knows exactly what she’s doing, even though she’s clearly an inexperienced kisser.
Which I’m thrilled about. I can tell I’m the first guy to kiss her, the first guy to bury his hands in her hair and crush her against him, torso to torso. And while making out isn’t part of my usual run, I’m all for it becoming a habit. Because I’m definitely running with Alex again. I’m definitely going to hold her hand in the cold and cross all the space between us until we can’t be any closer.
I don’t realize until later, when I’m lying in bed with lips swollen from kissing, replaying every second, that she didn’t say she was sorry for tearing into Parsons.
She said she was sorry if it scared me.
29. PEEKAY
Sara is looking at me like maybe I might break, spontaneously shatter on my own bed, and then she’ll have to explain to my mom and dad why she needs to borrow the Dustbuster.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I actually am,” I tell her.
I’m not, but I can’t explain that to her. I love Sara, but something was taken from me at the church, something that she can’t relate to. Every time I walk outside I think maybe someone is going to grab me. I take a sip of a glass of water I got out of my own tap and swish it around in my mouth first, like maybe it’s a threat. And I’m starting to understand why Alex always walks on the balls of her feet, why her back muscles are always tensed, like a cat ready to spring.
She knows. She gets it. So that’s why I’m going to tell Sara that I’m okay and leave it at that.
“So . . .” Sara looks down at my quilt, tracing the pattern with her finger. “Should we call that Nolan guy, do you think?”
She’s not the first person to bring it up. Five or six girls sent me their pics of the cop’s cell and email, even though I still have my own. I’ve looked at it a couple of times, wondered how I would phrase that email, or what I would say on the phone. Mom and Dad want me to press charges, but I told them I don’t remember anything, or who the guy was. Which is totally a lie, but it’s not like it’s the first one I’ve told them.
