“For sure. Is this a dress-up kind of event?” I rarely wore dresses except once or twice a year for charity events my parents made me go to. My mom had picked out every single one of those dresses so I wasn’t even sure if I had anything that would work for this.
“Yes. I’ll find you a dress.”
Before I had a chance to say anything else, my door swung open. My mom stood in it holding up two T-shirts. “Which one do you like better?” she asked.
“Amelia, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were on the phone,” Mom said after I hung up.
“It’s okay.” I looked at the two shirts she held. They were both light blue. One had tennis shoes running across the top of the words Five K. The other had a ribbon tying Five and K together.
“They’re both bad, aren’t they?” she said, scrutinizing them. “I should tell the designer to try something else.”
“No, Mom. They’re fine. I like the tennis shoes one.”
“Tennis shoes?”
I pointed to the one on the right.
“Those aren’t tennis shoes. Great. They’re supposed to be beakers.”
“Beakers? Why would you have beakers on a shirt about running a five K?”
“To show that the money raised will go to science to help find a cure.”
I turned my head sideways, trying to see as beakers what clearly looked like tennis shoes to me. I couldn’t. “Oh. Okay. Well, that works too.”
“Back to the drawing board,” she said, draping the shirts over one shoulder and leaving my room.
“Try tennis shoes!” I yelled after her.
“I love you!” she yelled back.
My attention was drawn back to my computer, still open in front of me, a picture of Heath Hall filling my screen. “What is your story?” I stretched my hands above my head to loosen up my shoulders—they felt much better today.
It was only Tuesday. Thursday and the museum seemed forever away. If we could figure out who Heath Hall was before that, then maybe I wouldn’t have to put on an Amelia-chosen dress.
Eight
Coach was standing over my lane when I finished my laps. He looked at his watch. Had he been timing me? I pulled off my goggles and earphones.
“Moore. Everyone else is gone.”
I looked at the lanes on either side of me. Sure enough, they were empty.
“If you can’t hear the end whistle, maybe you should stop listening to music while you swim.”
“You know, most coaches are happy that their athletes want to swim longer than they have to. You should be glad for my dedication and perseverance.”
He cracked a smile. “Really? How many coaches are you basing this opinion on?”
“Just you.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“And most coaches would want to reward me for my hard work by allowing me to swim the butterfly this Friday.”
He ran his hand over his hair a few times. “I’ve told you this before. It’s too close to the freestyle. I need you strong for that one. Now get out of my pool so I can go home and see my family.”
I pushed myself out of the pool, wincing a little at the slight pain in my right shoulder. It wasn’t too bad today, though.
“And I’m serious about ditching the crutch,” he called after me.
I gripped my headphones tighter. They weren’t a crutch; they helped me concentrate.
As I headed toward the locker room, the sky already on fire with the setting sun, I saw Robert standing by the gate, leaning against one of the posts. My stomach fluttered. I hesitated, not sure if he was waiting to talk to me or not. I hadn’t seen him at the pool since we’d broken up. Before, I would’ve given him a big hug, soaking the front of his shirt and he would’ve pretended to be mad about it. But today his arms were crossed in front of his chest, not exactly a welcoming pose. He had on sunglasses, even though they were past necessary, so I couldn’t tell if he was even looking at me. If he wanted to talk to me, he’d need to say so. I picked up my towel and wrapped it around me.
“Hadley,” he said when I was closer.
I turned toward him, keeping a good twenty feet between us. “Yeah?”
He didn’t move either, just leaned there against the metal post of the chain-link fence. “You still have some of my things. Could you bring them to school tomorrow?”
“Some of your things? Like what?”
“Like my Nike sweatshirt.”
I slept in that sweatshirt at least once a week . . . maybe more. “What Nike sweatshirt?”
“The navy one with the red lettering.”
“Okay, I’ll bring it tomorrow.” I loved that sweatshirt but it was time I let it go. Let him all the way go. “Anything else?”
“I think I left my math book there too.”
“How have you been doing your math homework?”
“Borrowing from Tony.”
I hadn’t seen his math book. “I’ll look for it.”
“Okay.” He finally straightened up from his lean but didn’t move to leave. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” I needed to be the one to leave first. He had been the first last time, after all. I surprised myself by actually acting on that thought.
“Hadley.” He stopped me before I got too far. “Did you find out about Heath Hall?”
That question had me turning back around. “Not yet. Did you want to tell me who he is?”
“No. He’s going to be at the museum tomorrow, though.”
I leveled him with an annoyed stare. Really? He still wasn’t going to tell me, but he was trying to make sure I remembered he knew? Those few butterflies left in my stomach were going to be easier to crush than I’d thought. “I saw that online.”
He shifted from one foot to the other. “So . . . you’re going?”
I looked at his feet, which were still shifting his weight back and forth. Why was he nervous? “You’re surprised?”
“You’re not exactly an art fan. Plus, it doesn’t seem like something you’d do.”
“Maybe you don’t know me very well.” Why had he shown up here at swim practice, bringing all his memories with him and claiming to know my habits? “You could’ve just texted me, you know.”
“What?”
“About the sweatshirt and math book.”
He pointed toward the track field across the parking lot. “I was here. Knew you would be too.”
Of course he knew that. It’s why we broke up, after all. I was too single-minded. Is that why he didn’t think I’d go to the museum?
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts, his head lowering a bit, all his bravado gone. Why did this version have to show up?
“It’s just, why are you getting caught up in the Heath Hall thing? I figured you’d mock him and write him off.”
He was right, that was exactly what I would’ve done . . . had been doing since I first heard about Heath Hall. There was no way I was going to tell him that the only reason I was now interested was because I was trying to protect my swimming. If he knew that, it would only prove everything he ever thought about me. I set my jaw. Then something he said occurred to me. “What do you mean, you ‘figured I’d write him off’? Did you have something to do with him showing up at the swim meet?”