I scroll through Instagram. There are twenty new comments on Maggie’s last post.
I read every. single. one of them.
you would have loved the funeral. such a beautiful service and they played ur song
The youth group really misses you. We’re helping out at the harvest fest next week and it’s weird planning it without you.
Practice is soooooo weird without you girl.
Looking at these hurts, but I can’t stop myself. I switch back to her Facebook, but there’s only one new post on her wall, one from Mrs. Bailey. I almost don’t read it, almost don’t look because it feels so private, her grief on display.
Your father and I miss you so much. He’s having a really hard time with it. I am too. So many people came out yesterday to celebrate your life. You were so loved, sweetheart. So loved by everyone, especially us.
I exit the app, turn my phone off and place it on my nightstand, curling up on my side in bed. I feel so selfish for mourning when Mrs. Bailey is really hurting, selfish for thinking of myself rather than Maggie’s family.
But I lost her, too.
I push myself out of bed, stretch on the floor, and change—skinny jeans, knee-high boots I saved up for months working at the ice cream shop to buy because all the girls on the cross-country team wear them. They don’t quite fit, but that doesn’t matter. They make me look like I belong, and that is what’s important.
When we moved here the summer after my freshman year, I made a promise to myself in the back of the car as we crossed the border into North Carolina—no matter what it took, no matter how it made me feel, I would look like I belonged here. I would look like I was happy, be one of those perfect, shining girls everyone wants to be.
Even then the distance between my parents was growing, no matter how much they tried to hide it from me. So I decided: if their marriage couldn’t be perfect, then I had to be, to make things as easy as possible on them.
And then they got divorced anyway. But Dad got the majority of the custody, and I know he doesn’t know what to do with a teenage girl, so it’s better for him if I just—keep on pretending. Keep on lying.
I’m good at that.
There’s a knock on my door before Dad pokes his head in, right when I’m pulling a shirt on over my sports bra.
“Knocking means you’re going to wait for me to say come in before you just open the door,” I say.
He rolls his eyes, looks around my messy room. “Why aren’t you packed yet?”
“Packed?”
“It’s your mother’s turn this weekend, remember?” he says.
Shit. Mom. Right.
My mother gets visitation rights two weekends out of every month. It would’ve been more, but the DUIs on her record didn’t exactly endear her to the county judge, and the fact she walked in the morning of the custody hearing wobbly and smelling of booze just sealed the deal.
“I don’t want to go,” I say. “She’ll just be drunk the whole weekend.”
My dad’s face contorts like he’s smelled something awful. “Corey, be nice. She’s trying.”
I resist the urge to recite back to him exactly how many drinks it takes to get her drunk, whether that’s in beer or wine or cocktails. Doesn’t matter, I know them all by heart.
“Okay, but I’m packing a Breathalyzer,” I joke, and he frowns.
“You have a meet tomorrow, right?” he says, abruptly changing the subject, rubbing the back of his neck, the actual conversations we will never have about my mother’s alcoholism still making him uncomfortable. We don’t mention it unless it’s as a joke, something easy to laugh off and ignore.
“Yup,” I say. “Against Greenwood.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No need,” I say, turning and stuffing my spikes and an Ursula K. Le Guin novel into my duffel bag. “We’ll crush them anyway, no need for you to drive out to see that.”
“I like watching you win.”
I smile. I know my dad doesn’t understand the hype around running—he’s never been an athlete—but the fact that he cares, that he tries, more than makes up for it.
A small part of me whispers he likes watching me win because it means I’ll get out of here like he wants me to, but I stuff it down. Mom’s never shown up to a meet once, so in the game of “which parent cares more,” he’s the one who’s winning.
Maggie’s parents went to every single meet. Dylan would, too, she told me, before he left for college.
Guess they don’t have to go anymore, since they don’t have anyone to watch, and it would be awkward if they still showed up now that their daughter is dead. Some people would think it’s pathetic, even, probably. We only tolerate grief down here for so long before you’re just expected to get over it.
“Not today, Dad,” I say. “Save it for the bigger races.”
He nods. “Can’t wait to see you at those bigger races, Corey. I’ll sit right next to the scouts and tell them to watch out for you.”
“Dad,” I say, but fear at his words twists inside me. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t underestimate me,” he says, and winks. Before I can reply, ask if he’s joking though I know he’s not, Bysshe comes in and tangles himself around Dad’s ankles. Dad scoops him up and kisses the top of his head, then heads down the stairs.
“Don’t be late for school,” he shouts, and with that, he’s gone.
One Year Before.
She’s already inside when I walk up to the coffee shop, sitting by the window. She’s got on a cute purple top, forest-green coat draped over her chair, and earrings, things I’ve never seen her in on race days.
My heart beats even faster.
But this is just two girls in a coffee shop, two high school girls who want to get to know each other better. I have a boyfriend, and I don’t feel that way about her, and this doesn’t mean anything.
There’s a ding when I walk in, and she looks up immediately, excitement clear on her face even though we’re just here for coffee.
But the way she looks at me feels different. “Hi!” she says, pushing back from her chair, and before I know it she’s hugging me. She smells like honeysuckle, Southern summers, and my hands shake when I press them against her back.
“Hi,” I say, and she beams at me. I sit across from her, take my coat off and hang it on the back of the chair.
My phone buzzes when I do. It’s Trent, wanting to know if I’m coming over tomorrow after the game.
I put it back in my pocket. Talking to him when I’m out with this girl feels wrong. Rude.
“Who’s that?” she asks.
“My boyfriend,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, and when I glance at her, do I see a flicker of disappointment across her face?
“We’re not serious,” I say. “I mean, I guess we’re getting there—he wants me to come over for Thanksgiving and meet his parents and everything. Even his grandma.”
“Damn,” she says. “Grandma. That is serious.”
I laugh, but there’s a twinge of fear in my gut. “I guess.” I shrug, watch as she takes a sip of her coffee. “Do you have a boyfriend?”