Chasing the Sun

by Melanie Hooyenga

  His smile falls. “I hope this doesn’t change anything with us.”

  “No.” I don’t sound convincing even to myself. I move closer and wrap an arm around his waist. “But I respect that you were honest. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”

  A whoop of laughter from the food line makes us both turn. I press my chin into his chest and smile up at him. “Ready to eat?”

  We sit at a table with Naomi and Theo. Naomi and Neb exchange some kind of look that I’m not going to pretend to understand, but she seems pleased with whatever he signaled. After breakfast, a group gathers for another hike before we head to Portland for the day and I follow Naomi to our tent to put on sunscreen.

  “I’m staying here,” she says. “I can only handle so much walking in one day.”

  “You sure?” I ask, my body already itching for physical activity.

  She smiles. “Have fun with Neb. I can tell he really likes you.”

  I turn in the direction of his tent. The tent that Tara was in not too long ago.

  “Something wrong?” Naomi asks.

  “I don’t know. Kind of. Neb told me that Tara came into his tent this morning. He swears he kicked her out and told her he doesn’t like her, but I feel like that’s not the whole story.”

  “Did he tell you I saw her leave his tent?”

  I whirl on her. “What?! No! Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She holds up her hands. I’ve learned over the years that Naomi will tell things the way she wants to tell them, no matter how much I insist otherwise. “He told me the same thing he told you. I told him he had through breakfast to tell you or I’d do it for him. It was a test.” She smiles. “He passed.”

  The pancakes in my stomach harden.

  “Three Good Things About Being Honest?” Her voice is cautious, like she’s worried I’m more pissed than she expected.

  My sigh nearly deflates me.

  “So he didn’t say anything about me seeing her?”

  I shake my head.

  She pushes onto her knees. “That’s even better.”

  “If you say so.”

  She takes my hand and squeezes. “He didn’t turn it into an ‘I’m only telling you because your best friend said I had to’ thing.” She swings my hand back and forth, making my arm flop at my side. “Sage, he seems like a really good guy. He can’t help that girls throw themselves at him.”

  I pull away and she releases my hand. “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Oh my god, stop it.” She stands and looks me in the eye. “He likes you. You like him. You’re fricking adorable together. Tara is an inconvenience.” Her brow quirks. “An inconvenience that might have to be eliminated.”

  I snort, and the knot in my stomach relaxes. “Neb said something similar.”

  She laughs. “That girl isn’t gonna know what hit her.”

  “Did you tell him that she has it out for me?”

  “Nah, he already seems to dislike her enough without getting into all that. But maybe he and I can work something out.”

  “You’re not… actually going to do anything?”

  “Go have fun and let me worry about her.” She turns me around and pushes me out of the tent. “I’m taking a nap.”

  A dozen kids linger near the food table, including Neb. Tara and Ariana are nowhere to be seen, but I feel their presence like an omniscient force.

  “Ready?” Neb asks before taking my hand.

  “Be back in half an hour,” Ms. Kim shouts from her tent. “We leave for Portland at ten—that’s in one hour—and no one gets left behind.”

  A couple guys salute her, then we head for the path next to the creek. It’s still early enough that the heat hasn’t settled beneath the trees and everything feels crisp and new, like anything could happen. And maybe it can. Neb demonstrated his honesty this morning, and while I may not like what happened, it’s not his fault.

  When the group fans out on the trail, I slide my hand into the crook of his arm. “I kind of understand Tara’s motives,” I whisper. He looks down at me and I explain. “I strongly considered sneaking into your tent in the middle of the night.”

  His adorable half-smile makes my insides melt. “What stopped you?”

  “Raccoons.”

  “Raccoons? Did you see another one?”

  “No, but I’m sure they were out there.”

  He laughs, a short bark that makes several heads turn our way. “I would have protected you from the raccoons.”

  “Maybe we can work something out tonight.” I can’t believe I actually said that out loud. He hugs me against his side and we slow, making the person behind us trip into Neb’s back. The others weave around us on the trail until we’re at the back of the pack. Again.

  “I don’t need to see more of this trail,” he says, lowering his mouth to mine.

  Too soon, footsteps sound behind us and he breaks the kiss. He presses his lips to my forehead. “Some day we’ll be able to do this without other people around.”

  “Dare to dream.” I sigh against him as Mr. Mauro bursts through the trees.

  “What’s wrong?” Neb asks.

  “Someone twisted an ankle,” he says, hustling past us.

  Neb starts to follow. “Do you need help?”

  “You stay here. There are plenty of people to help by the falls.”

  I look up the trail as he runs away. “There are falls here?”

  Neb chuckles. He’s looking down at me with a soft expression, like there’s no place else he’d rather be. “Do you want to keep hiking or head back?”

  “Considering we got sidetracked on yesterday’s hike, I say we keep going.”

  “Hiking it is.” He drops his hand to my lower back, letting me take the lead.

  The trail is well-worn with very few roots to trip over, and my mind wanders as we venture father away from the campground. To Pax and the countless reasons he gave me to break up with him, yet in the end, he was the one who ended it. If I regret anything in our relationship, it’s that I never found the courage to stand up for myself. He ultimately made the final decision, and while I’m grateful, it pisses me off that I can’t own it.

  “What’s your favorite subject in school?” he asks, bringing me back to the present.

  “English,” I answer automatically, the way I have for years. “I love stories and the way you can escape real life in a book.” My feet stop moving and I look up, surprised. “But I also love history.”

  He turns around to look at me. “Are you not sure?”

  “It’s never occurred to me before right now. I mean, who likes history, besides people who want to teach it some day?”

  “You?”

  My hands twist together. History has always interested me because it’s what shaped our world. But I figured everyone’s fascinated by what our ancestors have done and how it’s led to where we are today. “Seeing the patterns in our world, how we repeat the same mistakes rather than learning from them, it intrigues me.” Is that what I’m doing with my own life? Repeating the same mistakes?

  “I think that’s cool.” Neb looks through the trees to the sky above us. “You can probably guess my favorite.”

  I move to his side and bump my hip against his. He wasn’t trying to start an existential conversation. He’s just getting to know me. “I’m gonna go with woodshop.”

  He laughs and plants a kiss on my nose. “You got me. Although I did make a pretty kick-ass birdhouse sophomore year.”

  “Do you think you’d be so into science if it wasn’t for your dad?”

  “It’s hard to say. Astronomy was his world and that’s what I was born into. It’s all I’ve ever known.”

  “What about your mom?” I’m not sure if that’s a sensitive topic, but she’s his world now. Besides, it would feel rude not to ask.

  “She was married to him for fifteen years, so she knows a lot through osmosis. But I think she was glad to separate herself from the ‘space world,’ as she called
it. She’s more into terrestrial things.”

  “We can’t all have our head in the clouds,” I tease.

  A smile softens his face. “Fair enough.”

  We keep walking, the comfortable silence drawing me closer to him. I hate that I constantly second-guess myself—it’s hard not to after everything Pax put me through—but Neb is nothing like Pax. He’s genuine and heartfelt and seems to like me for all the right reasons. Maybe I can learn to trust again.

  “You know,” he says. “My cousin’s majoring in humanities. It’s kinda like a combination of English and History. She’s really into it.”

  “What would I do with a degree in humanities?”

  “Stop the world from making the same mistakes.” He says it so matter-of-factly that it makes my heart skip a beat.

  “So I’ll be down here fixing the world while you’re off chasing the sun?”

  His eyes darken and his face grows serious. “I could get behind that.”

  Wait, what did I offer?

  Before I can overthink it, voices sound in the distance. “Has it already been half an hour?” he asks.

  “People must be excited to see Portland.”

  He touches my cheek. “Aren’t you?”

  “My parents used to bring me when I was little.” Before I fell into Pax’s world and shut out everything else. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “Well, I’m excited. I haven’t been since I was a kid.”

  Laughter announces the group before they appear on the trail and we step aside to let them pass. A guy I’ve never talked to is carrying Tara on his back, and she scowls at us as they go by. Her platform sandals dangle from her fingers.

  “What was the point of having Pax bring her shoes if she didn’t wear them?” Neb asks.

  Hearing Pax’s name in Neb’s mouth twists my insides. “Probably just to mess with me.”

  He cocks his head.

  “We have a… history isn’t the right word, but she’s BFFs with Ariana and whenever we were around each other she acted like I kicked her puppy. I never understood why she doesn’t like me.”

  “I’m sorry if all this crap with her made it worse.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Were you two hanging out here?” Kit shouts. He and Theo trail behind the others, followed by Mr. Mauro.

  I shrug, like that should be enough explanation, but Neb smiles and points at the sky. “I was showing her the constellations.”

  I snort while Kit looks even more confused. “But it’s light out.”

  This time Neb shrugs. “That’s never stopped me before.” Then he grabs my hand and we lead them back to the campground.

  I give him a skeptical look. “So you can see stars during the day?” I’m ninety-nine percent certain he’s joking, but maybe I haven’t looked hard enough.

  “No, I can’t see the stars during the day. At least not with the naked eye. But I know where they are, so I could still show them to you.” He points through a break in the trees. “Ursa Major is there, and directly above it is Ursa Minor.”

  “Ooh, those have the dippers, right?”

  “Yep. You follow the front edge of the Big Dipper’s bowl straight up to find Polaris—the North Star—at the tip of the Little Dipper. It’s the brightest star in the sky and the one that’s used for navigation.” His fingers follow a path from star to star and I can imagine the constellations glowing in the sky. “The stars move depending on the time of day, but I memorized the maps years ago so as long as I know my coordinates, I can pinpoint my location within a few miles.”

  “You know our coordinates?”

  He smirks at me. “You don’t?”

  “No, Starlord, I don’t.”

  He tightens his grip on my hand. “Then I guess you’d better stick with me.”

  My heart flutters and at all the implications in that simple sentence. He could mean right now in the woods, or for the rest of the trip, or for much, much longer.

  All of which I think I’d be okay with.

  24

  Neb

  “Are they turning? Is this the turn?” Naomi peers through the windshield like a little old lady and smacks my arm with her hand. “Navigator, where do I go?”

  “Turn right at the stop sign,” I say.

  “Didn’t you listen to a word Mr. Mauro said?” Theo asks from the backseat. He’s wedged between Kit and Sage, who’s behind me. Sage insisted that since I have the longest legs, I should sit in front, which earned a confused look from Naomi, but here I am. We’re in the middle of a caravan to a park and ride lot just outside of Portland, and from there, according to Mr. Mauro, we’re taking the MAX train into the heart of the city.

  Tara had to stay back at the campsite because of her ankle, and Ariana hung back with her. Knowing Sage doesn’t have to worry about running into them has made me even more excited for today.

  “Maybe I should have driven,” Kit says, and everyone groans.

  “Dude, you are literally the worst driver,” says Theo.

  “And your car smells like old tacos,” I say.

  Naomi makes a gagging noise and strokes her steering wheel. “Don’t worry, baby. I’d never do that to you.”

  “I’m totally getting tacos for the ride home,” says Kit.

  “Then you will be walking,” Naomi says.

  “Turn here.” I point at the car ahead of us as it pulls into a half-empty parking lot.

  “I thought it’d be busier,” says Theo.

  “It is Sunday morning,” I say.

  We park next to the other cars from our group and I open the door for Sage. “You okay?” I ask quietly. She didn’t talk the whole ride here and I started to worry that something was wrong.

  “Just a little carsick.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  She taps the strap of her backpack. “I’ve got water. That should help.” She moves aside to let Theo out and I’m tempted to pull her into my arms or do something to make her feel better, but I’m realizing there’s still so much I don’t know about her. Maybe she’s not a fan of a lot of touching in front of people.

  “Will you tell me if you change your mind?”

  She smiles up at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I promise.”

  “This way, everyone!” Mr. Mauro shouts from a few cars over.

  We join the others walking toward a covered platform and Sage slips her hand into mine.

  So that answers that.

  Naomi skips alongside us. “Where are we going first?”

  Theo claps his hands. “There’s a record store on Burnside Street that I heard takes up an entire block. We have to go there!”

  “As long as we hit Powell’s, I’m good,” I say. The bookstore is famous for shelves upon shelves of every topic you can imagine. “They probably have an intense display on the eclipse and astronomy right now.”

  Naomi reaches around Sage to poke my arm. “I think they’re on the same street, so I’m sure we can squeeze that in, Science Boy.”

  Sage smiles up at me. “I definitely want to go to Powell’s too.”

  “You didn’t already tell him you want to go there?” Naomi asks, and Sage shakes her head.

  “Okay, everyone. Listen up.” Mr. Mauro shields his eyes from the sun and looks over us with a nervous smile. “I’m not expecting us to stay together as a group, but there are some rules. One.” He ticks off his fingers. “No one is alone. Two-person buddy system minimum. Two, everyone must be back here in four hours. That’s 3:30. Set an alarm if you need to, but you need to be here. Three, please behave yourself and be aware of your surroundings. Portland is a big city.”

  Kit, Theo, and I exchange glances. A lot can happen in a big city in four hours.

  “You’ll have to switch from the Gray Line to the Red or Blue,” says Ms. Kim. “From there, you can get off anywhere you’d like.”

  “Yeah you can,” Kit whispers.

  “And finally,” Mr. Mauro says. “I need every one of
you to text me your name. Right now.” He pauses, then repeats, “Now. Please pull out your phones. You should all have my number, but please enter it now.”

  Everyone reaches for their back pockets and he rattles off the numbers.

  “Now text me your name.”

  His phone convulses as twenty texts come through at the same time.

  “Thank you. I’d ask you to share your locations with me, but that’s probably a violation of some sort.” He laughs at his joke and slips his phone into his pocket.

  Ms. Kim points at the train station at the end of the parking lot. “Trains run every ten or twenty minutes, so please plan to be on one half an hour before our scheduled departure time.”

  “Three o’clock,” Mr. Mauro says.

  She rolls her eyes and smiles. “Our goal is to get out of the city with plenty of time to get back for dinner, so please don’t be late. And one final thing.” She holds up a hand and the chatter dies. She may be tiny, but she seems to have a control over the others like she’s not a teacher to be messed with. “Please call or text Mr. Mauro or myself if you have any problems. Any,” she emphasizes the word. “We want you to have fun but we want you to be safe.”

  Sage’s hand slips back into mine and I step closer until our hips touch. Today is going to be fun.

  Mr. Mauro claps his hands together. “Let’s go!”

  It’s like a gun went off. People race for the train tracks and slam to a stop when they reach the kiosk. When we finally all have passes, we bunch together beneath the covered area and wait.

  Naomi bounces on her toes. “I shouldn’t be this excited, but I am!”

  “Portland, baby!” Kit shouts, pumping a fist over his head.

  Two women in expensive-looking clothes give us a simultaneous side-eye and move away.

  I pull up the map on my phone and search Powell’s Bookstore, then scan the map posted at the station. “If we take this to Providence Park station, it’ll be a couple blocks to Burnside Street and Powell’s and a bunch of other places.” The other places don’t interest me but I don’t expect everyone to want to go to a bookstore. But I’m glad Sage is into it.

  Theo gives me an appraising look. “Have you been here a lot?”