I bled for a few more days and called in sick to Sweetwater Lake. But other than the physical discomfort, the absence of what had been, all I could feel was relief. I just wanted to forget that the whole thing had ever happened. It helped that Noah and I never spoke about it again. That he always wore a condom and I got a prescription for the pill. We just moved on. Everything was okay.
But all these weeks later, sitting in the bathroom stall, it’s as if a dam has broken inside me. I finally realize that everything is not okay, that I’m not okay, and that Noah was wrong about everything. I remember what he said in the lifeguard shack: “This will ruin me, my future, everything I’ve worked for.” Noah didn’t care about me. He was only worried about what a pregnancy would mean for him. I was just an afterthought. My future and my health were secondary to his. And because of that, I can finally admit I don’t want him anymore.
Within a few seconds, minutes maybe, the panic attack passes. My chest loosens and my fingers relax. My vision clears and my head ceases to throb. I rest my elbows on my knees, my head between my legs, and tell myself, It’s going to be okay.
* * *
—
Noah leads the boys in stretching and I try to ignore him as he leans over to one side, his shirt lifting up to expose a small patch of muscle, flexing against the sun.
Coach jogs over to me and I realize I’m the last one to arrive at practice. “You’re late, Ellie. Whatever the hell is up with you, I’m not interested,” he says, tapping his clipboard against one palm. “Knock this shit off. I can only deal with one Steckler on the edge. Take a lap, Ell,” he says. “Then another. Don’t stop until I blow the whistle three times.”
Horror Laps. That’s what we call these drills. Usually he lets you go after four or five rounds, but I once heard that he made Lilly Adams keep going way after dark, hours after everyone left, just for rolling her eyes at him during drills. Coach only blew his whistle after she stumbled and puked.
He lowers his gaze to the clipboard in front of him and I roll my head around my neck. I put one foot in front of the other and start. That’s the only way to do it. Just start. That’s what Stella always says.
I pound the gravel as I make my way through the first quarter of the oval. I can hear the boys behind me, charging at me, ready to drown me in their dust. When they come up close, they part and run around me, leaving me vulnerable and up for grabs. I keep my eyes forward, but I can feel Noah lagging behind the group, falling into step with me.
“Hey,” he says.
“Fuck you,” I say.
“I’m sorry.”
“Again,” I say. “Fuck you.”
“Come on, Ell. You know that wasn’t cool, what you did on Saturday.”
I laugh. “You know what else isn’t cool? Pretending like I didn’t get pregnant and have an abortion this summer.” After a beat I don’t hear his footsteps anymore. But I don’t turn around. I keep going, picking up speed, as I feel the anger that’s been simmering below the surface course through my veins.
Then he’s there again, catching up to me, in step with me, our feet pounding in time.
“So that’s what you blew up about,” he says softly. “I thought you were past this.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.”
“I figured this might happen,” Noah says. “Delayed trauma. I’ve heard about it. Look, it sucked for me too.”
Bull-fucking-shit. As if his body went through what mine did, as if we were both affected in the same way. I don’t answer him as I lean into the inner ring of the track, going faster and faster.
“No one knows, though, right?” Noah asks. His heart is so close to mine. I can feel his breath hot on my neck and he turns to look at me. I hate this about him, how he can see straight into me and press all of my soft parts, hold them in his hands and mold them like putty. “This would look so bad for you.”
I grunt and keep pushing around the track.
“Who, Ellie? Who did you tell? Was it Stella?”
The final stretch of track comes into view.
“Mila,” I say softly, her name drifting into the wind.
“You told Mila Keene?” he hisses. “You don’t even know her. How did this happen?”
I try to pick up speed and outrun Noah and his questions, but his hand grabs mine and for a second I think we’re back on the lifeguarding chair, when his fingers would graze my thighs under the thick white floats we kept over our laps, how they would sometimes find their way inside me right in front of everyone, our little secret.
I yank my hand from his grasp and don’t say anything. I keep going, leaning into another lap around the course, leaving Noah behind. I focus on my own breath and the gravel and the birds chirping overhead. If I listen carefully, they all become one bleating siren. They call to me and only me. Run. Run. Run.
10
STELLA
Mom used to say that I wasn’t really a “people person,” whatever the hell that means. I first heard her say it on the phone years ago. She was talking to whoever. A cousin, a teacher, a friend from high school. Whoever it was, she said it with the flippancy of someone who just discovered their child didn’t really like mushrooms, or preferred to read than swing on the monkey bars. Like it wasn’t a big deal. And part of me believed her. Still does. The whole people thing is great for Ellie. She gets energy from them, uses them like batteries. But me? I prefer to remain unattached, unencumbered.
So I don’t really know how to deal with this predawn text from Mila.
Wanna run before the bell? I’ve been meaning to try the trail up by Ellacoya. Coach said it’s good practice for regionals.
I groan and wipe the sleep from my eye. I hate running with people. Especially people who beat me. Who cause me to start my season in second place. I stare at the words and wonder what it would be like to get inside Mila’s brain and figure out what makes her tick. Maybe then I could beat her. I type out the word Yes.
Twenty minutes later, I’m walking up the dirt road to the service entrance to Ellacoya, which leads to one of the best paths in all of the Catskills. Mila’s there, wearing black leggings and a well-loved, mint-green, long-sleeve shirt, clearly one of the free ones they give out at races. I expect her to turn around, but she’s hunched over, her phone pressed tightly to her ear. The red plastic case is bright against her hair.
“No, Dad,” she says sharply. “You have to stop doing this.”
I hang back for a second, not wanting to butt in.
“Seriously,” Mila says, pleading now. “I don’t want to see you anymore. You can’t come here again. Not yet. It’s not okay.” She registers my presence but she doesn’t look surprised or even embarrassed. She just shakes her head in frustration and motions for me to come closer. “Fine. Okay, bye,” she says curtly before hanging up. She stares at her phone for a beat and I see a crack slicing through the screen. She shakes her head and slips the phone into her pocket.
“Asshole.”
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask, awkward.
“Nope,” Mila says. “He’s just . . . intense. Let’s go.”
Relieved, I start up the path. It only takes a few strides before I feel her next to me, keeping in line with my stride. I wonder if I’m supposed to say anything, if we’re supposed to talk, or if the silence is okay. A few birds caw overhead and there are droplets of dew on the moss, squishing underfoot. It’s calm and lush out here, behind the modern A-frames and freshly cut lawns. It’s only when we hit the first mile mark that I realize neither of us have said anything, and that there’s no tension, no fear. My mind relaxes and heads into that place I love, the place where nothing exists outside of my steps, my breathing, my heartbeat.
Mila must feel it too. Our feet pounding against the ground as we head up an incline, the one that cuts deeper into the woods, where the trees narrow overhead and the temperature drops about
five degrees. It’s the perfect time of year for this trail. Late September. Apple season. Crunchy-red-leaf season. Cross country season. My season.
As we reach the trail marker, she speeds up, moves faster, pumps harder. It only makes me pick up my pace, push forward, and surge ahead. My mind floats, as if suspended in air, like nothing can break the spell. It drifts to where it always does: the future. What could be. If I let my vision go just a little bit blurry I can picture it. Me at Georgetown. Walking through campus. Gazing up at the colossal gray neo-medieval buildings. Entering a charming brick townhouse full of teammates who are excited to see me. Reminding myself, This is where you belong. That’s how I felt after the scout took me on a tour last year, pointing out where I would eat lunch with the squad, where I’d take classes. It was all so certain. Until it wasn’t.
When we get to a massive maple tree in the middle of the clearing, I shake my head, discarding the memory. I motion to Mila to follow me to the right. We start up a narrower path where we have to run in single file, I try hard not to stumble over knotty roots. Mila’s breath is heavy behind me, steady as we climb higher and higher.
Sweat trickles down my back as I make a hard left, turning into the clearing. It’s a route I know by heart, could run in my sleep. And this is the best part. Just beyond the cliff’s edge a vista appears, the horizon stretching wide until the fluorescent leaves meet it on the other edge. Mila must see it because when I turn to her, she’s looking past me, her eyes wide and her mouth forming an O shape as she gazes out at Foxfire Point.
I slow and clasp my hands behind my neck as the scenery comes into focus. “It’s the best view in Edgewater,” I say, catching my breath.
Mila turns in a circle and stares out over the trees, their leaves on fire with stunning reds and bright oranges. We can see fields and reservoirs, and the sun peeking out behind the clouds. “Wow,” she says. “It’s like a painting.”
“That’s why people love it here.”
“No,” Mila says, shaking her head. “Like an actual one. The Hudson River School. The Romantics. Late 1800s. They would paint mountains and valleys here in the Catskills, over in the Hudson Valley, and up in the Adirondacks. But all anyone ever remembers are the dudes. Thomas Cole and Frederic Church and those guys. They were rich pricks who loved nature and palled around with Emerson. But Susie Barstow painted this one.” Mila takes a few steps closer to the ledge of the lookout point and shields her eyes with her hand. “I saw the sketches when my mom took me to Philly a few years back. They’re in a museum there. They look just like this. Massive. Extraordinary. They’re meant to make you feel small. Human. In real life . . . It’s breathtaking.”
I’m quiet, not knowing what to say.
“Everyone always erases the women from the Hudson River School. Not surprising, obviously. But I love them. It’s why I wasn’t totally bummed out when I learned we were moving here. I thought I’d get to see some of the landscapes for real, all the time. And look . . .” Mila motions around us. “It’s . . .” She trails off and I glance over at her. Her eyes are misty and she crosses her arms over her chest, taking it in. “My dad got me into them, you know. He had a massive coffee-table book about the Hudson River School. And a dozen puzzles of views like this. We put them together all the time when I was a kid. That all stopped when things got bad.”
I say what I’m thinking before I can stop myself. “My mom, too. Alcohol. Sober for twelve years. Well, she was. Had an episode a few years back.”
Mila doesn’t say anything but she sucks in a breath between her teeth.
“It’s weird. Wondering if she’ll slip again. Like standing on shaky ground. It changes everything, you know. Being the kid of that. Living through it. Makes it hard to trust people.” My stomach flips, kind of not believing I just said all that. I’ve never talked about Mom with anyone but Ellie and Dad.
Mila laughs. “That explains it, then.”
“What?” I ask.
“Why you and Ellie are easier to be around than everyone else here. We always find each other.”
“Do we?”
Mila turns back to the horizon and watches the wind ripple through the trees. “We’re the messy ones. All tough on the outside, but mushy in the center.”
“You don’t seem so tough,” I say, scoffing.
Mila laughs, her face turned to the view. “And you don’t seem so mushy.” We’re both quiet for a second, and then Mila nods at where we came from. “Race you to the trailhead?”
11
STELLA
I make it home and out of the shower just in time for Ellie to bound down the stairs a few minutes late and shoot me a look like Let’s go. When we pull out of the driveway, both our phones buzz with an email from Coach. Ellie whips out her phone to read it.
“Oh, shit. Longshot’s this week,” she says.
“Already?” I groan.
Longshot is supposed to be a twelve-mile race up and down the hills beside the lake. It’s a brutal course, so Coach only schedules it once a year. But no one actually runs Longshot. Well, no one but me.
I learned about the tradition freshman year. As the only rookie on the varsity roster, I thought it was just a regular practice, but on a different course. I showed up to find Lilly Adams’s girlfriend, Jade, handing out hair glitter and face paint and all the senior girls dressed in matching neon sports bras. The boys had traded their usual uniforms for muscle shirts with long, droopy arm holes and sweatbands that matched the girls’. This wasn’t a race. It was a party.
When we got to the course, everyone lined up and Coach brought his whistle to his lips. Without warning he blew into it long and hard and we were off. As we raced up the first hill, I could already tell who would lose steam before the halfway mark. I chugged ahead, putting one foot in front of the other, steadying my breath and focusing only on the trees in the distance. The leaves were starting to change, from forest greens to brilliant reds and oranges.
At first I didn’t notice the reveling behind me, the incessant cheering that carried over from the bus. But as we flew down the first hill, it was impossible to ignore.
I pushed forward, keeping my gait steady as I braced myself for the next hill. But when I reached the top, I realized I was alone. The singing had all but stopped and my skin began to tingle. I had outraced them. I had won, I thought, and the race wasn’t even half over.
The next two miles were a delight, as I sped up and down the rolling grass on my own, with only soft earth and the setting sun to keep me company. Edgewater at its best.
But soon, I noticed that I hadn’t passed anyone, not for a long time. I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw a flash of neon. Suddenly, I heard the singing pick up again. I pressed on until I reached the top of the next hill, the one that would signal I was almost finished with this hellish terrain. I stood on at the top and looked down into the valley.
There at the base of the first hill in a small grassy valley was the rest of the team, dancing and laughing, the glitter on their cheeks sparkling in the sun. CamelBaks that I had assumed were filled with water were littered on the ground. The scene reeked of alcohol.
No one had run past that point. Possibilities swirled in my head but none of them made sense. Why waste all this time? Coach’s time? I couldn’t piece it together.
When I finally reached the group, I decided to keep going, to bypass them all and claim the number one spot. But as I ran past Lilly, she tugged on my sleeve.
“Slow down, Steckler,” she said. She smelled like Mom in the Dark Years, and her face paint was a messy smear. She looked so different from the girl I spent time with over the summer, the girl who cracked open my heart. “Have fun for once,” she said.
Jade came up next to Lilly and slung an arm around her shoulder. “We were wondering when you’d come back,” she said with a laugh.
I panted and tried to catch my breath.
“What . . .” I started
“Oh, no one really runs Longshot,” Lilly said. “Thought you’d picked up on that.”
I swiveled my head around to find it was true. No one else was sweating or red, exhausted from pumping air in and out of their lungs at a rapid pace. Instead they were sucking down liquor and passing around joints. A few juniors had paired off and were making out, pressed against trees.
“I don’t get it,” I said softly, still trying to catch my breath.
“It’s fun,” Lilly said. “That’s it. That’s the whole point.” She flashed me a smile and reached for my hand, but I kept my fingers limp by my side. Something boiled up inside me. Hatred for them all, for the disregard and lack of respect they had for the race, for Coach, for putting in the work, for winning.
I turned my back to them and started to make my way back to the finish line. I wasn’t planning on telling on them. I wasn’t planning to say anything. I just wanted to go home, to lie on my bed and tune the world out as I listened to Bach or Yo-Yo Ma or one of my science podcasts Ellie always calls a “snoozecast.”
“She can’t do that!” some dude barked. I turned and saw it was Calvin Parker, a senior with broad shoulders and a few first-place trophies. He was heading to Michigan for sprints. “She has to wait for us or else Coach will know. We’ll be fucked.”
“Dude, you have to stop her,” someone else said.
I heard the footsteps coming, but they seemed farther away, farther down the hill. It wasn’t until I felt a hand wrap around my arm that I even began to worry. But then everything happened so fast. Calvin grabbed me and tried to lift me off my feet. I resisted, lurching forward. It wasn’t enough, though. Calvin pulled, and I went tumbling back down the hill, head over feet, hitting rocks and roots all the way down.
I can’t remember much from the actual collision, just that when my body finally stopped spinning it was because something hard and cold struck my stomach like lightning. When I came to, I was lying curled up next to the rock, a sour stench climbing up my nose. I opened my eyes, or at least I tried to. Everything was blurry and out of focus. I flared my nostrils and caught a whiff of something putrid and off. A puddle of vomit lay next to me, green and runny.
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