The Trail Rules

by Melanie Hooyenga

  She grabs my hand. I’m startled by her touch, but she’s not looking at our hands. She’s staring me in the eye. “That’s not a reason to stay with someone. It’s unfair to both of you.”

  “I know.” My wobbly voice does not convince her.

  “I’m serious. Staying in a relationship for the wrong reasons makes it horrible for everyone.”

  I get the impression she’s talking from experience, but I don’t pry.

  “It sucks hurting someone, but you have to do what’s right for you.”

  Her words are the lifeline I need right now. “He’s just such a wonderful—”

  “Have you signed up for the Pow Cross yet?” She cuts me off, her gaze focused over my shoulder at the door.

  I twist around. Kurt’s walking through the entrance, followed by Topher.

  And Mica.

  My stomach flip-flops. “Did you tell them we’d be here?” I whisper.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. They asked what I was doing and I didn’t lie.” She smiles, but it’s less confident than before. “I hope it’s okay. I don’t want you to think I’m one of those girls who can’t go anywhere without her boyfriend.”

  “I definitely didn’t get that impression.”

  “Okay, good.” She waves so they see us. “Now you can see what they look like when they’re not covered in mud.” She winks. “Or one in particular.”

  A blush heats my cheeks as the guys approach the table.

  “Hey, Mike,” they chime.

  They’re each wearing a variation of shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers, and for the first time, I can see their hair. Kurt’s is dark and looks like it curls when it’s longer, Topher’s got the brown shaggy in-his-eyes thing, and Mica’s has streaks of blond that I didn’t notice before. It’s spiky in the front and my fingers itch to run through it. He smiles at me and I resist the urge to check my own appearance.

  Topher pats my head. “Your hair’s nice without that helmet.”

  I poke him in the side. “I was thinking the same about you.”

  He pretends to flip his hair over his shoulder. “The ladies love it.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  Kurt trails a finger down one of Alex’s braids. “It okay if we crash your party?”

  Her hand slips around his bare knee and she smiles up at him. “Do you have more treats?”

  I glance at Mica’s legs, which are as muscular as I remember but noticeably cleaner. I take a sip of latte to calm my thoughts when Topher throws his hands in the air. “We have moose balls!” Latte goes down the wrong pipe and I cough. Repeatedly.

  Mica darts toward me but stops before making contact. “You okay?”

  I meet his eyes, my own watering, and cough again. Then laugh. “I’m sorry, moose balls?”

  Kurt rolls his eyes. “Mousse. The chocolate fluffy stuff.”

  “They’re round balls so…” Mica adds.

  “Mousse balls!” Topher shouts again.

  I nudge Alex’s foot with mine. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

  An hour later, they’ve devoured their supply of mousse balls and we’ve had enough caffeine to fuel a small jet. I pick at my napkin. “I hate to break up the party, but I have to go soon.”

  “Where’d you park?” Alex asks.

  I point through the window.

  “We’ll walk you,” she says, pushing back her chair. Kurt eyes her uncertainly but follows her lead. “It’s too nice out to go home yet. Do you have a little more time?”

  I check my phone. “I have twenty-three minutes.”

  “Perfect. Let’s hit Pearl Street.”

  Chairs screech as we stand, and despite my recent resolution to make decisions for myself, I’m grateful she’s taking the lead. I’m not ready to go home yet, and based on how closely Mica is standing, he isn’t either.

  We step into the afternoon sunshine and pair off—Alex and Kurt in front with Topher close at their heels, while Mica hesitates next to me. We make eye contact, and my entire body reacts. The sunlight does a weird thing to his eyes where they bounce from light brown to green and back to brown, and they crinkle at the corners when he smiles. I push my hair closer to my face to shield it before it turns red, and gesture toward the others. “Shall we?”

  We follow them, but they’re far enough ahead that if anyone were to see us they’d think we were alone. Guilt stabs me, but I shake it off. I’m not doing anything wrong.

  “Do you live far from here?” he asks.

  “I live in Louisville, so ten miles from here. What about you?”

  “Longmont. Home of the Trojans. Straight up 119.”

  So not college. “Aside from the fact that we beat you every year in basketball, I don’t know anything about your school.”

  He laughs, but it’s not loud and attention-grabbing. It’s soft and genuine and draws me closer.

  I weave away, feigning interest in a window display as we walk.

  “It’s high school. Thank god I only have one year left.”

  Cally’s voice dances in my head. An older man… I look up at him. “You’re a senior?”

  He nods. “You?”

  “Junior.” I leave out that I just turned sixteen last month. Some guys are into younger girls, while others think they’re immature and—not that it matters. Because I have a boyfriend.

  And it’s terrible that I have to remind myself.

  “So how’d you get into riding?” I ask.

  He waves a hand at the group ahead of us. “The three of us used to ride bikes to get around, and toward the end of middle school we discovered the trails. Then we got Alex into it. We ride as much as we can, but me and Alex have jobs and with Kurt in college, it’s getting harder.”

  I think back to what Alex said about dating Kurt. School’s only been back for a couple weeks—too soon to really know how it will affect their relationship.

  “Where do you work?”

  “A bike shop in town. Alex too.”

  I laugh. “So you’re hard core.”

  He shrugs and runs a hand over his hair. The spikes bend, then snap back into place, and I realize he’s embarrassed. Or maybe just shy. “I love riding. My mom’s on my case about college and picking a major, but I don’t know what I want to do.”

  I reach out to touch his arm but catch myself—but not before he notices. He pauses, looking down at me, and I crane my neck to look up at him. Standing almost toe-to-toe, I barely come up to his shoulder. “I’m having the same fight with my parents. I’m technically not supposed to be here because—” I do air quotes, “—I need to crack down on the studying.”

  “You know what you want to do?” He asks, his eyes still on mine.

  I smile. The little voice inside my head shouts completely inappropriate things and I blush for the hundredth time. “Not a clue.”

  We start walking again, but I pause in front of the next window. Leather bracelets like the ones I saw at Brianna’s cover a low table in the window. “My friend—well, sort of friend—has some of these.” I scan the display for a certain word.

  “Do you want to go in?”

  I nod, already moving toward the entrance, and he lets out an ear-piercing whistle that makes me jump. I turn and he’s waving at the others and pointing at the store. “Do you not believe in texts?” I ask.

  He opens the door and waits for me to pass. “I’m old school.”

  My jaw drops. “You don’t have a phone?” How do people even survive that way?

  He laughs and pulls his smartphone from his pocket. “Can’t text when you’re riding. So we whistle and yell.”

  I find the bracelets on a rack and he follows. “You don’t strike me as the yelling type.”

  “Only when I need to.”

  I trail my finger over the leather straps until I find the one I’m looking for. I pull it off the rack.

  “Courage?”

  It’s warm in my palm and I wrap my fingers around it, breathing deeply. “Yes.”

 
; “No offense but,” he pauses, and I open my eyes to look at him. “You don’t strike me as the type who needs that reminder.”

  And just like that, I know I’m in trouble.

  Trail Rule #8: Sometimes you don’t realize you’re on the wrong trail until the right one crosses your path.

  Chapter 16

  “What about this one?” Cally steps out of the dressing room and I nod so hard my ponytail bounces. The black, form-fitting dress is mostly lace with a shimmery fabric underneath. Straps crisscross her chest and repeat the pattern at her waist.

  “Totally queen-worthy. You look like a Greek goddess.”

  She purses her lips. “This is supposed to be like a flapper. Roaring Twenties, right?”

  “Yeah, but this is gorgeous. And it’s sort of flapper-ish.”

  She runs her hands over her sides, then does a little twist. “Shouldn’t it—I don’t know—flap?”

  I snort, and she doubles over with laughter. “I don’t think Blake’s gonna care if there’s no flapping.”

  She gets a faraway look in her eye for a moment, then refocuses on me. “Sold. Now what about you? You really don’t like any of those?” She nods at the pile of discarded dresses on the floor of my adjacent dressing room.

  I shrug. “I guess they’re okay. Nothing really screamed ‘pick me! pick me!’, you know?”

  Cally smooths her hands over the stitching in her dress. “Should we try another store?”

  The thought of trying on more dresses makes my skin crawl. “What’s wrong with me? This is supposed to be fun.” Last year Brianna and I spent days trying on every dress in the greater Boulder region, including the ones we’d never in a million years wear in public, but now I can’t bear to touch another sequin.

  She steps over my rejects and leans against the door next to me. “Maybe this is about more than just dresses.”

  I straighten and touch her arm. “If you think this is because I’m not having fun with you, that’s totally not it.”

  She pulls back a little. “I wasn’t, but now I am.”

  “Shit.” I cover my face with my hands.

  “What’s going on, Mike?”

  I don’t want to go to Homecoming. The truth hits me hard. My hands drop to my sides and I shake my head. “I don’t think I should go to the dance.” Mica’s smile flits through my mind, along with the memory of what it did to me. “I’m not being fair to Evan. He’s been nothing but loyal and I’m basically stringing him along so I can have a fancy night out.”

  “You’ve been loyal, too.” Her eyes ask the question she doesn’t voice. Right?

  I already told her about Mica and the guys crashing my coffee date with Alex, but I didn’t elaborate on the way he’s infiltrated my thoughts. “Technically, yes. But it’s pretty bitchy to know you want to break up with someone and not tell them right away. That’s something Brianna would do, not me.”

  “You sound like you’ve made up your mind.”

  My heart sinks. “I think I have.”

  I leave the shop empty-handed and feeling like a horrible human being. Not going to the dance is the right thing to do, but then I won’t be there for Cally when they announce the Homecoming Queen. She says she doesn’t care if she wins or loses, but I’d want her by my side if the situation was reversed.

  When I get home, I text Madison. Her sisterly advice hasn’t been as frequent as it used to be, but that’s probably because I haven’t reached out to her.

  She calls when I’m standing in the kitchen, debating between drowning myself in chocolate chip cookies or cookie dough ice cream.

  “This sounds desperate.” Her voice is light, like she’s uncertain how to respond to my MAYDAY text.

  “I think I need to break up with Evan.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought things were good with you? Better than good.”

  I fill her in on my frustrations and the upcoming dance. “I can’t be the bitch who breaks up with him right after Homecoming.”

  She sighs. “There’s no good time to break up. But if you’re already thinking about it, you should just rip off the band-aid.”

  I close my eyes. In no universe did I ever imagine having to tell Evan that I don’t want to be his girlfriend anymore. “This sucks.”

  “The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be.” There’s a hitch in her voice that puts me on alert.

  “You sound like you know from experience.”

  “Let’s just say no one wants to hear that the other person has been wanting to end things for months.” There’s an edge of bitterness to her voice, one I’ve never heard from her.

  “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

  There’s a rustling and I picture her shrugging and pushing her hair over her shoulder the way she does when she doesn’t want to talk about something. “It’s in the past. I try to live life without regrets, and instead take lessons from the crappy things that have happened. My lesson is to tell my little sister not to string her boyfriend along if she doesn’t love him anymore.”

  My chest tightens with love and sadness and dread at what I know I need to do. And for the way I’ve teased her in the past. “Thanks, Maddy. And I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She sighs. “It’s not something you advertise. But I’m over it.”

  “I shouldn’t have joked about you getting engaged.” It hasn’t been long since she came to dinner, but I can still picture the look of anguish that flashed over her face before she pretended to be hiding an engagement ring.

  “Just do me a favor, okay?”

  I’m almost afraid to ask. “Sure.”

  “Think about his feelings too.”

  *****

  The easy way would be to freeze Evan out. Start acting distant, don’t answer his texts right away, and eventually he’ll ask what’s going on and break up with me. But I swore to myself that I’d start taking control of my own life, and leading Evan to break up with me is not the way to do that.

  My parents got home as I was ending my call with Maddy, then it was time for dinner and they shooed me upstairs to finish my homework.

  I text Cally. I’m scared.

  It’ll be okay.

  Will it?

  Eventually. This is the right thing to do. Text me after.

  ok.

  I switch windows and text Evan. Can we meet?

  I hold my breath waiting for his reply, but eventually I have to breathe. He’s not replying.

  I flip open my Chemistry book but all I see is Evan’s face. Maybe Ethics. Or History. Anything to not think about what I’m about to do.

  My phone finally dings.

  Wanna come over?

  The thought of slinking out of his house after breaking his heart turns my blood to ice. How about the park by your house?

  Right now?

  I cross my room and open the door to listen for sounds downstairs. The TV drones from the living room and I don’t hear any movement from my parents. Okay.

  I grab a hoodie from the back of my desk chair and my keys from my dresser, then at the last minute grab the Courage bracelet that’s on my dresser with the tag still on. The block print is carved deeply into the metal and it’s curved a little, making it perfect for running your thumb back and forth over. I pop off the tag and slip it onto my wrist. A magical sense of calm does not wash over me, nor do I suddenly feel able to scale tall buildings in a single bound, but maybe it takes a little while to work.

  I tip-toe downstairs and am out the door and driving through our neighborhood when it hits me. I’m about to break up with Evan. This is real. My whole life is about to turn on its head and once I say those words, I won’t be able to take them back.

  But it’s what you want.

  Evan’s already there when I pull into the parking lot, and my hands are shaking so badly I drop my keys on the ground. His shoulders are hunched and he’s not smiling. He points at the swings. “That okay?”

&nbs
p; “Sure.” I follow him to the swings and we sit side by side. Crickets chirp nearby and the moon breaks through the clouds, bathing us in faint light. I push back, then lift my feet and let gravity pull me back and forth, back and forth. I expect Evan to do the same, but he hasn’t moved since he sat.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to break up with me?” His voice is low and scratchy.

  My toe hits the ground and I stop swinging, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. I am the worst person on the planet. “Evan, I—”

  “Is that what this is?”

  I finally look at him and my throat constricts. His normally clear eyes are bloodshot and he looks so exhausted it’s like he’s about to pass out. He’s gripping the chain of the swing like it’s the only thing holding him here. “Was practice hard?”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”

  I drop my gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on, Mike.”

  I kick the dirt. “I don’t know. Lately I haven’t been feeling the same.”

  “About me.” His voice is flat.

  I nod, and tears blur my vision. I hate myself for doing this to him.

  “How long?”

  If I’m honest with myself, the resentment and frustration have been building for months, but I only realized it the past couple weeks. I go with that answer. “Since school started?”

  He snorts, but it’s not the playful laugh I’m used to hearing. He sounds angry. “That explains a lot.”

  I look up. “What?”

  “You’ve been pushing me away. I tried to talk to you and you kept saying everything was okay.”

  “I was hoping it was.” I sound weak and pathetic and I’m still being unfair to him. If I want to end this, I need to do it and not make him lead me there. I take a deep breath, run my thumb over my bracelet, and look him in the eye. “You’ve always been wonderful to me. Everything I could ever want.”

  “Until now.”

  “I don’t know why my feelings have changed, but they have.” Mica dances across my thoughts and I push him away. This isn’t about him. “Lately I’ve felt—I don’t know—like all I do is what everyone else tells me to do. Like I’m not thinking for myself. I know you just want to take care of me, but I feel like all you do is try to protect me and…” I trail off. I can’t tell him how smothered I feel. How sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.