Page 21 of Finding Her

poppy

My favourite place to study on campus was the grassy area that backed onto the forest. I had to cross the small river that ran through the campus to get there, which meant I felt like I was further away from everyone and had space to myself, without feeling like I was alone somewhere unsafe.

Even if I did keep a can of pepper spray in my bag just in case. But that was more because I was scared of bears than anything else.

Early Saturday morning, before we went to the mall, I’d been studying and enjoying the sunshine for about an hour without anyone passing by when I suddenly heard footsteps behind me.

Running. My hand tightened on the pepper spray in my bag, as if I thought I would ever use it, as I turned around to see who was there—or what .

Because even though I went to a school so close to nature, I couldn’t say I knew the difference in the sound of human footsteps versus animal ones.

And as it got closer, I became more and more convinced, it wasn’t just one person or animal. It was a herd of some sort.

I stood up, my heart slamming in my chest as I squinted toward the tree line.

The sound was getting louder, chaotic and mismatched, like whatever—or whoever—it was hadn’t figured out how to move in sync.

My brain scrambled through possibilities, none of them comforting. A bear? Deer? Really huge squirrels?

Then I saw him.

A boy broke through the trees first, running full speed down the trail. Tall, broad shoulders, floppy brown hair that fell into his eyes. Not the kind of bear I was expecting to come out of the forest, but I definitely preferred it to the alternative.

But he wasn’t alone.

A whole gaggle of girls—literal giggling, squealing girls—came charging out of the woods after him, like some kind of stampede.

Their laughter echoed off the trees, and they were all clearly trying to catch up, some shouting his name, others seemingly just screaming for fun.

Like it was totally normal to get up at seven in the morning on a Saturday to chase down a hockey player.

I blinked. Was this real?

Bear didn’t look back. He didn’t slow down. If anything, he picked up speed as his sneakers pounded the dirt trail. His expression was blank—no grin, no panic, just determination, like he was running for his life or trying to beat some invisible finish line.

And then his eyes flicked toward me.

For a brief second, they locked on mine. Dark brown, serious, and just the faintest hint of help me .

I stood frozen, gripping my bag, unsure if I should do something or just… pretend this wasn’t happening. What could I do, anyway? Hand him the pepper spray? Wave down the girl-herd like I was directing traffic?

But before I could make up my mind, Bear darted past me, his pace never faltering.

The girls slowed a little when they saw me, giggles turning to whispers.

I wondered if any of them recognized me, either from the gym class or as the girl Claire had made the bet with.

I wasn’t sure how far news of that had spread.

But even though they looked and whispered, none of them stopped.

I dropped my bag back down, feeling like an idiot for panicking, and sat back down. Of course it wasn’t a literal bear or a herd of deer or anything. I opened my book again to keep studying.

I didn’t see anyone else until Bear came circling around again. This time, running much faster and without an entourage. And to my surprise, instead of running straight past me, he collapsed on the ground next to me, breathing so hard that I was worried he might be having a heart attack.

“Where’s your adoring fan club?” I teased. He managed to lift his head just enough to glare at me for a second then dropped it again.

“I… think…” It took him another minute of gasping before he could finish the sentence and I smirked. Now he knew how I felt in gym the day we ran the mile. “I lost them.”

I was surprised by the words. Why would he want to lose them? Sure, I’d find it annoying to have a group of people following me around on my run, but this was Bear we were talking about. Hockey player extraordinaire, who was beloved by the whole school. Did he really hate it that much?

“Do you want some water?” I asked. I pulled my water bottle out of my bag and held it out to him.

I expected him to say no, which I was sure he would have done if I offered it to him in gym class, but to my surprise, he nodded and swiped the water bottle from my hands.

He squirted some into his mouth then made a disgusted face.

“What is in this?” He asked. “It’s like… fruit punch?”

“Oh, I put flavouring in it,” I said, internally cringing at how I forgot to tell him. “And it’s not fruit punch, it’s blue raspberry.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, but then drank some more. I guess he was really thirsty.

“Nobody over the age of five should have blue raspberry flavoured anything,” he choked out. “This is disgusting.”

“You don’t have to drink it,” I said. I tried to take the water bottle back but he held it away from me so I couldn’t, then took another swig.

I guess it wasn’t disgusting enough to warrant not drinking it.

He took one last gulp before handing the bottle to me.

When I glanced at it, I laughed as I realized it was practically empty. “You liked it.”

He made a face. “Did not.”

I shook the bottle in front of his face, showing him the minuscule amount of water left that sloshed around the bottom. “You can’t lie to me. This was almost full when I handed it to you.”

He scowled at me. “Liar.”

“You liked it,” I said in a sing-song voice. Bear ignored me as he used both hands to brush some dark hair out of his face. “Have you been growing your hair out?”

“Not intentionally,” he said. His bangs immediately began falling back in his face. “I just haven’t gotten the chance to get it cut in a while.”

I watched him as he pushed it back again, then forced myself to pull my gaze away so I stopped being creepy.

It felt like Bear and I were finally building some sort of friendship—or, at least, he didn’t outright hate me like he did when we first got partnered up—and I didn’t want to do anything to scare him off by watching him like some sort of stalker.

I shoved my water bottle back in my bag, freezing as my fingers hit the soft bunch of fabric inside there as well.

I glanced at Bear’s hair again. Was it possible that it was just long enough…

“Turn around,” I ordered.

He stared at me. “What?”

I made a spinning motion with my hand. “Turn around. I have a surprise for you.”

I was careful not to say a good surprise because I had a feeling he was going to be annoyed when he found out what I had in mind, but I didn’t care.

Bear looked annoyed but he sat up properly and spun around.

I pulled out the pink and white scrunchie from my bag and kneeled behind him, considering the best way to do this.

When I didn’t move for too long, Bear muttered something about the girls catching up if he didn’t move.

I laughed silently and held onto the scrunchie with my mouth so I could use both hands to pull his hair back like I was putting it in a ponytail.

Bear made a noise of surprise as I ran my hands through his hair but he surprisingly didn’t protest. I gathered up as much of his hair that would stay and tied the scrunchie around it until it was pulled back in a bun.

Some of the hair at the base of his head wasn’t quite long enough to stay up and fell back down, draping his neck, but the majority of it stayed, to my delight.

“Turn back around,” I ordered. Bear sighed but did as I asked. I carefully pulled out some pieces at the front to frame his face and smiled. “Beautiful.”

He groaned. “Men don’t want to be called beautiful, Poppy.”

“Fine,” I said. “Very handsome. Happy now?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Depends. What colour hair thingy do I have on right now?”

I stifled a laugh. “Hair thingy?”

“You know!” He said. He pointed to the purple scrunchie in my own hair. “Hair thingy.”

I couldn’t hold back my laugh that time. “It’s called a scrunchie. And yours is a gorgeous pattern of pink and white.”

“I am not walking around with that in my hair,” Bear said immediately. He went to pull it out but I grabbed his wrists quickly before he could.

“No!” I exclaimed. “I worked very hard on that. Leave it in.”

“I look like an idiot.”

“You haven’t even seen a picture of yourself.”

“I don’t need to. I already know I look like an idiot.”

“Look,” I said. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket then went to sit next to him and turned it on selfie mode. “You look great. And we match!”

He scowled at the camera. “It’s bad enough that I’m wearing this,” he said. “I don’t need photographic evidence of it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You should always get photos of your good hair days. Now smile.”

He didn’t smile, of course. But he didn’t frown either. And he sat perfectly still as I rapidly took a bunch of photos.

“Give me your number,” I said, once I was done. “I’ll send them to you.”

“I don’t want—” He smartly shut up when I glared at him, then recited off his phone number.

I put it into the messages app and attached all the photos.

A second later, I heard his phone chime with the message.

And for some reason, it made a warm feeling spread through my heart to know that he’d been willing to give me his real phone number instead of giving me a fake one instead.

“So, what are you?—”

“Bear!” A voice called from the trees. It was accompanied by heavy, running footsteps. “Bear, we need to?—”

The girls skidded to a stop as she reached the edge of the forested path and could see us sitting on the beach together.

Now that I could see her properly, I realized I recognized her.

She was in our gym class, although I was ashamed to say I still hadn’t learned her name.

Unlike the other girls who had been following Bear, she looked like she was actually dressed for a run, with her blue hair pulled up in a high ponytail and full workout clothes on.

“Just catching my breath, Mia,” Bear said. I frowned. Even though I tried to learn the names of everyone in all my classes, I doubted Bear did the same, so he must have known her from somewhere else. And for some reason, that made my heart clench.

“Oh.” Her eyes darted between him and me again. I could see the question in her eyes: why is a popular boy like him talking to a totally unknown girl like her? I couldn’t say I had a good reason for her. “Well, Claire’s waiting, so we should go.”

Claire? He was going to see Claire?

Bear muttered something under his breath about how she could wait, but then groaned and got to his feet.

“I’ll see you later,” he said to me. Then he took off running again, not waiting to see if Mia was following.

She sent me a withering glare that made me recoil.

What had I done to her to deserve that? Then she sniffed and ran after him, leaving me in the dust. I stared after them, homework forgotten, wishing she had never shown up.