My phone chirped. Lisa wanted to know if I’d found my way to school without her. Not yet, I responded. My head was somewhere else, but my legs crossed the street out of habit. Skirting the shadow of Hillhurst Middle, I watched a pack of girls drag their friend to the curb and point to the woods across the way. There wasn’t enough concealer in the world to hide the distress darkening the chosen girl’s face. It wasn’t just the itchy sweater and stiff jeans, the tender blisters throbbing inside her new shoes. It was the look of not wanting to chicken out on a dare.
“Don’t go in there,” I said. “He’s real. Trust me.”
The leader whispered something and everyone laughed. They looked so small, so fragile, but tough, too. They’d survive. We all do. As the girls strutted toward the playground, the spared one, bluffing for her friends, turned and rolled her eyes at me. I didn’t care. Fear is good. It keeps us safe. Not always, but it keeps your eyes wide, alert. But sometimes it keeps you from living. It’s hard to know which is which. You have to trust your instincts.
Trusting mine, I sprinted across the street and into the tangle of brush. Branches snatched at my face, my arms, my legs, but I pushed on, moving swiftly. I was running late. Please wait for me, I thought. At the top of the stairs, I stopped to catch my breath. The back of my knees tingled. It was a long way down, with no one to catch me. The shelter was gone. No ropes cinched the trees. No black tarps sucked up sun. Just a mountain of garbage. Tires and barrels and broken furniture. For the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like I was being watched. It was just me, alone.
Clutching the heart at my collar, I plunged forward, down the stairs, through the trees, pulled by something more powerful than fear. My head and heart had called a truce. Fighting my way through the prickly scrub edging the woods, he was right where he’d said he would be, waiting on the other side. I kissed Foley and he kissed me back. We needed to start from the beginning. The beginning beginning. If I can do this, I thought, I can do anything.
What We Knew Page 21