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Fourteen

It’s a Halloween—or, okay, the weekend before Halloween—miracle that the Cedar Heights Hawks actually win a game. Now, before you get too excited, the other team only scored twice, so it was still a supremely sad and pathetic game no matter the outcome.

But we won, so I’m debating going to Andrea Christie’s house to hang with everyone and watch Andrea get into a fight with her ex-girlfriend Jenny over a skirt they both swear is theirs and not the other girl’s, when Holden texts that he’s going to the gym to “train” and that no one is ever there on Saturdays at ten thirty so if I want to film, this is my chance.

Idoneed more footage, so the drama will have to wait. There’s always more to look forward to.

Maybe Holden will be distracted and exhausted into honesty. A girl can hope, at least. That’s what I remind myself as I pull into the parking lot off the Carlisle Pike and head inside the creepily empty gym. The worker behind the front deskdoesn’t even look up from his phone when he says hello to me, still clad in my cheerleading uniform, so I just walk in and find Holden sprinting full speed on a treadmill. He’s wearing compression pants with shorts over them and an old-school Queen T-shirt soaking up his sweat. I haven’t seen him move like this since we were kids playing flashlight tag in the summer.

I stand on the treadmill next to him, feeling so weird and invasive and like I’m going to get kicked out if I don’t start breaking a sweat of my own, and start recording.

“Why didn’t you join the cross-country team if you can run like this?”

He glances in my direction, his face red. “I did. Freshman year. Had to make friends somehow.”

It’s a subtle dig, but I don’t recall him marching up to me to break the awkward ice that first time we passed each other in the hall. I only remember wishing he had.

“Are you still on the team?”

“No.”

“Why did you quit?”

“Someone has to look after Mara.”

“Your parents are pretty well off.” My mom once snapped at me as a child for loudly telling her that my one friend was loaded, said it was rude to comment on that, but it’s not like I was telling her how poor they were. Like,boohoo, you’re rich and you feel awkward about it. “Couldn’t they just hire a babysitter? Or she could watch herself these days.”

Say no. Say you’re wearing that shirt until it’s threadbare and gray because you can’t part with ten dollars to buy a newone. Say your parents are putting away what they would pay a babysitter into a huge account where everyone’s college tuition is going to come from.

“I offered,” he huffs. Not the answer I wanted, but I could work with it. “Yearbook was a better fit anyway, considering what I want to do after college.”

The digital numbers on his treadmill reach three miles and he lowers the speed to something I’d still be running full-force on, but he’s speed-walking.

“When did you plan on telling me that Taj isn’t going to New York?” I zoom into his soaked face. I look a hot mess when I’m red and sweaty, but he looks... I don’t know. Different. Like, different from how he’s looked before. He looks kind ofreal.

He licks his lips, tries to even out his breathing as he takes the treadmill down a few more notches. “I thought it was obvious he wasn’t going from the start.”

“And what was supposed to make it obvious? The fact that you said he was going and your mom thinks he’s going?”

He grins to himself. “I don’t know. Why would Taj go?”

“He’s your best friend. I guess I could have assumed he wasn’t going had I known he doesn’t even know why you’re doing this contest.”

He raises an eyebrow, mouth a tight line, as he stops the treadmill altogether. He pulls his shirt up to wipe his face, exposing his flat stomach and the trail of hair leading into his gym shorts. I look away. “There’s not much to tell,” he says into the fabric before dropping it. “Like I told your friend—I like video games.”

“Okay, he is not my friend. Just so we’re clear.” I film him getting a paper towel and cleaning spray to wipe down the treadmill, knowing all of this will end up on the cutting room floor, but it’s better to have an abundance of film rather than not enough. “Can I stay in your hotel room so I don’t have to pay for my own, then?”

He pauses, balls up the paper towel, and throws it into the trash can. “I thought you were staying with your dad?”

“You know what they say about making assumptions.”

“It’s not an assumption. You told my mom you were staying with your dad.”

“You told your mom Taj was going.”

He waves away my comment.

“I don’t talk to my dad,” I say simply.