“Stop,” he calls, just two minutes later.
I circle back. He’s doubled over, his elbows on his thighs.
“I can’t do this,” he says. “If you want me to go, we’re driving.”
“Probably should’ve done that in the first place,” I murmur.
We walk back to the house, and he nudges me.
“I have something bad to tell you,” he says.
I glance at him. Immediately, a million thoughts race through my head. He’s had a rough few years, but he hasn’t been especially forthcoming about it. Maybe he’s going to admit—
“Eli’s back.”
My whole world screeches to a halt.
Here I was, relieved that Rose Hill felt lighter without Eli Black in it, and he’s been back? What happened to college? What happened to all our talks about escaping this damn town?
It doesn’t matter.
I throw back my shoulders and refuse to let the surprise show on my face. “I don’t know what you want me to do with that.”
He grimaces. “It’s a warning. Be careful, okay?”
My past with Eli is complicated. He was my bully, my friend, my love. He shattered my heart, and I wanted to make sure that bridge could never be crossed again. I burned it to the fucking ground.
“Why are you warning me?”
He’s never liked Eli—it probably has to do with the bully part of the equation—and he’s never had a problem showing that disdain.
“And,” I grab his arm, “how do you even know?”
He scowls. “Because he’s an asshole and let me know he was back. In typical Eli fashion.”
Uh-oh.
“Are you okay?” We round the corner back onto our street. “I mean, he didn’t do anything…”
“He’s just a provoking little shit,” he says under his breath. “I handled it.”
For some reason, that statement worries me more than the fact that my ex-boyfriend is back in town. After all, I managed to avoid him when we were in the same school, even with our best friends dating. Everyone adapted.
Though, that was before.
I don’t know what our after looks like. I avoided him for a year, but it’s only been six months since I put the final nail in our coffin, and even then, he didn’t know until it was too late.
“Riley,” Noah says.
His voice drags me out of my thoughts, and we both grind to a halt on the sidewalk in front of our house.
Noah glances around, and I approach the porch slowly. My eyes are playing tricks on me. They must be.
Yet the closer I get, the more my stomach twists.
My black water bottle sits on the top step. The watercolor Chicago skyline sticker faces us.
I cringe and spin, ready to book it, and Noah catches me with both hands on my arms.
“You said you lost that, right? That’s what we were going to find?”
I meet his gaze. “I dropped it when I fell.”
He nods curtly. “Someone must’ve recognized it. You have regular running buddies, don’t you?”
I shift on my feet. The urge to flee creeps up my spine.
“So it could’ve been one of them. We probably just missed them.” He makes a show of looking up and down the street.
He releases me and grabs the bottle, tossing it to me. It’s weirdly heavy in my hands, and I have another urge: to chuck it into the bushes. I try to latch on to his reasoning, even though he doesn’t know the full story. He wasn’t there.
“It could’ve been Skylar,” I admit. We’re not that close, especially after I abandoned the cheerleading team my sophomore year. She quit soon after and joined the track team.
Our running schedules occasionally lined up, and that’s how she talked me into joining the cross-country team this year.
Cross-country.
My very first friend at Emery-Rose made sure I didn’t do that sport. She stuck her claws in me, claimed me—that’s in her words, by the way. Amelie Page was a force to be reckoned with, even at fifteen years old.
Maybe she meant to keep me away from Eli.
It didn’t work.
“Honey, why are you outside?” Mom stands in the doorway.
Fuzzy gray slippers, her threadbare robe wrapped tightly around her. She squints in the sunlight, raising a hand to block her eyes.
“I…” don’t have a good excuse. I slip past her, into the house, and let out a small breath when she closes and locks the door. “Are you hungry?”
She smiles. “I had some soup while you were at school. How was cheer practice?”
Noah appears over her shoulder, scowling. “Mom, Riley—”
“They don’t start until next week,” I lie.
She nods and touches my cheek. “The running is good, but I’m worried it’ll make you too skinny. Boys prefer a girl with curves nowadays.”
“Mom,” Noah says again.
She drifts in his direction.
Sometimes I think she’s become a ghost, and none of us realized until it was too late. Now she haunts the house, half in this world and half in the next.
The same old question bounces around in my head. How do I get her back?
She passes him, pressing a faint kiss to his cheek, and heads to the stairs. She moves silently, her robe now loose and trailing behind her.
Going, going…
Gone.
My brother and I trade a look.
“Pizza,” he says at the same time I do.
I nod. “Yell when it gets here.”
I follow Mom upstairs. She’s back in her room, shut away tight, and I slip into mine. I examine the water bottle in my hand. Dirt smudges the bottom, but otherwise it’s exactly the same.
It’s not a bomb. Before I lose my nerve—again resisting the instinct to throw it—I set it on my desk and turn away.
As soon as I’m dressed, I go find Noah. He’s on the couch in the living room, feet propped up on the coffee table and phone in his face. I flop next to him, and he drops the phone on his chest.
“How was cheer practice?”
I flick his ear. “Don’t be a jackass.”
He swats at my hand. “Don’t let Mom get away with that shit. She should know that you quit the cheerleading team two years ago.”
I raise my eyebrow. Up until two months ago, I don’t think Noah even knew. He was in his own little world. We all have been.
“Cross-country was okay.” It’s better to change the subject than go down that path. “We’re just doing a lot of drills to get in shape. Shorter runs as a whole team. I think Coach is trying to determine where everyone is.”
Our first meet is next weekend, and maybe it’s just me, but I feel like we’re vastly unprepared. I keep telling myself it’s only Monday… there’s a full week of practices ahead of us…
But my pragmatism is showing.
Whatever. In the end, it’s a solo sport. There’s team scoring, but each point depends on the individual. We’re not tied together like lacrosse—
My lips twist.
Here we are, circling back around to Eli.
“I requested the day off,” Noah says. “For your meet. It’s at Lion’s Head, right?”
“Yeah.” I make a show of checking my watch. “And on that note, I need to go do homework. Yell when food arrives.”