They'll Never Catch Us

by Jessica Goodman

  “Yes, yes, I thought you might call.” I crane my neck to hear Pérez’s side of things, but Mom walks farther away, through the door, and into her office. “Well, yes, I can understand . . .” Then she shuts the door.

  “Who’s that?” Ellie drops her bag on the floor and climbs up on the stool next to me.

  “School.” I take a sip of the smoothie and let the cold freeze my throat.

  “Are you coming today?” she asks.

  I can’t tell what’s worse, walking through the halls with icy stares piercing into my back, knowing everyone thinks I’m a monster, or staying home and letting everyone assume I have something to hide.

  Ellie picks at her already-chapped lips, flicking a white piece of dead skin onto the floor. She’s all nerves and live wires. I want to tell her things are going to be okay. To protect her like I know big sisters should. I can’t let go of the feeling that I failed her this summer, that she was so alone when she needed someone the most.

  The door to Mom’s office opens and she comes out, clutching her phone to her chest. “You’re going to school today, Stella,” she says. “Lauren wanted to keep you home, but I convinced her it’s best for you to be there. It’s not like they’ve arrested you. Plus, you’ve got regionals coming up. You can’t miss another practice. Neither of you can.” She throws on a fake smile.

  By the time we get to school, my numb sense of calm has been replaced by a pit of dread. The stares are worse than they were last year and no one even hides their whispers as I walk through the halls. I try my best to ignore them, but I catch snippets of conversation.

  “I heard she threatened to kill her in those text messages.”

  “She would do anything to win.”

  “Mila just wanted to be her friend.”

  “They should have locked her up last year.”

  My ears ring and I clench my fists at my sides. I want to yell at everyone and explain that I didn’t do it. I want to scream that I was working out at home that morning—and that I miss Mila. Shit, I’d do just about anything to know what happened to her. That’s the worst part—not knowing. But unleashing my anger will only make things worse. I know how everyone will react. I know because I’ve seen it all before.

  It was the last meet of the year, the postseason, just-for-fun race that took place every December. Coaches from all over the county would trot out their best players and invite scouts to come to get one last look at us, the potential prospects, the slabs of meat up for slaughter.

  Coach used to say it was a way to send the teams off for hibernation so we could emerge eager and hungry in the spring for track and field. But I always hated it, how we were paraded around. The coaches would always hang in one corner, talking shop about whose form was best, whose endurance would last in the NCAA, who recently puked on a practice run in the woods. We were prizes to them. Cattle to be raised and shipped off to colleges, to better boost their high school fundraising numbers, the districts’ college admissions stats. It wasn’t for us. It was for them.

  That day was cold, even for December, and I hopped up and down to keep my body temp up, noise-canceling headphones suctioned to my ears. Our race wouldn’t start for another ten minutes, but I knew I had to stay warm if I wanted to stay loose. That’s when I saw the coach from Langston out of the corner of my eye. He was known for being an asshole with a penchant for screaming at his runners. His mouth was curled in a snarl and he pointed a stubby, angry finger at one of his girls, a junior, Allison Tarley. She came in fourth at State, but she could have nabbed second if she had run her best time. Big Ten schools were eyeing her but there was a rumor going around that her coach was pushing her to go further, to try to make Nike’s elite training program, to go pro. Her bottom lip quivered and she kept her head down as he yelled close to her face. Allison looked smaller than when I saw her at State. Frail. Almost gaunt. A funny feeling crept up my spine and I shivered to keep it away.

  Ellie said something beside me and I pulled down my headphones.

  “That guy’s such a dick,” Ellie muttered.

  I nodded in agreement but snuck a look at Coach Gary. He’d pulled similar shit before. With Raven and Lilly Adams, runners who had potential but never quite met it.

  Soon, they called the varsity girls to the starting line and we all hopped on the balls of our feet, finding warmth where we could. I took my stance and when the whistle sounded, I let my muscles do the rest, taking me into the lead. I don’t remember much from the beginning of the race or how I wound up in the final moments of the thicket, neck and neck with Allison. But what happened next is burned into my brain. As the finish line appeared in the distance, she said something under her breath, just loud enough so I could hear.

  “I hate this. I hate it all.”

  I blinked a few times but knew if I turned to her, it would ruin my time, it would throw me off. So I kept running, kept moving, kept winning.

  But she spoke again through choked, panting breaths. “Before we get to the clearing, I want you to take me out,” she said. “Hurt me. Make it so I can’t run. I need to get out.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  Her words startled me, a ghastly shock of pain and fury and understanding all wrapped up in one choked-out plea. I thought of her coach and how desperately some of us need to run like we need to breathe, while others dread every single race.

  “Do it,” she said. “Come on.” But Allison didn’t slow, and neither did I.

  I kept my gaze forward, focusing on me, my time.

  “Stella,” she panted. “I need this. I’ll say it was an accident.”

  There was hunger in her voice. A pain that shot through my veins and pierced my ears. I recognized it because I knew the feeling myself. I wrestled with the options, of what to do, what to say.

  But it didn’t matter. Allison’s mind was already made up. Just as we approached the clearing, only a hundred yards from the finish line, Allison closed the space between us. She gritted her teeth and steeled for impact as she crowded my path and forced her body into mine. I tried to stave her off, to stop the damage, but as she veered into me, her foot caught on something and she tumbled off the trail. The crunching sound was loud enough to cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up straight and to crack open my heart wide enough to swallow me whole.

  A high-pitched wail rang out and I was alone, stumbling across the finish line.

  I didn’t know that Allison’s bones were so brittle, she would break her collarbone. Or that she would be rushed to the hospital. I never could have predicted that she wouldn’t follow through on her promise and that she would end up pointing her finger at me. How could I have known that her coach would pressure her to press assault charges?

  Parker brought me in for a marathon questioning session a few days later, after Allison filed her suit. But once it was just him and me across from each other in that small, cold conference room, I realized Parker wanted to talk about more than just Allison Tarley.

  “You have a history of violence, Stella,” he said, his hands folded neatly on the table between us.

  I didn’t say anything, just tried to focus on a water stain on the ceiling and wait for Mom and Dad to arrive with a lawyer.

  “You always find yourself tangled in these things, don’t you?” he said. “A few years ago, you almost ruined my son Calvin’s life, his future. Thank goodness he was able to stay at Michigan. Sure, his life as an athlete is over, but at least he’s on track to graduate.” He sneered at me, baiting me into admitting something, anything.

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Stella Steckler? Why can’t you just leave your competition alone?”

  I opened my mouth to defend myself, to tell the truth, but then I remembered what happened the last time I did that, with Calvin. Everyone would blame me anyway. So I stayed silent until Mom and Dad finally burst through the door.


  “We’re leaving,” Dad said, a public defender by his side.

  Allison eventually dropped the charges, but I had to write a formal apology to her and her coach. Pérez suspended me for a week, and it was only a month or so before I lost my spot at Georgetown. The order to spend the summer at Breakbridge came in the spring.

  Allison became a sad news story while I was branded violent, aggressive, a monster. She knew it was easier to blame me than endure the wrath of her abusive coach. I became a warning of what can happen when girls get too competitive, when we want too much.

  In a way it was okay. Allison healed quickly and finally got the courage to ditch track in the spring. And I learned how much I could take, how I could survive even if I lost everything. I learned I was a warrior. I was indestructible.

  But in all the other ways, it was a disaster. After Parker realized he wasn’t going to nail me for this act of aggression, he hung around Edgewater High. He stationed himself at our practices, popping by every few days just to check in. He never spoke to me, only watched from the sidelines, hands clasped behind his back as he paced up and down the sidelines.

  “A petty, petty man,” Mom said after he drove past our house on a random Wednesday night. “You’d think he’d get over what happened with his son and leave you alone. Why does he feel like he can torment you like this?”

  I shrugged and mumbled a response. “I don’t know.”

  But I did know. Because before my parents got to the station, before Allison walked away from the charges, Parker stared at me with those dark, menacing eyes and said only one thing. “You girls are all the same.”

  I kept my mouth shut but I knew what he meant. You girls. The obsessive ones. The focused ones. The ones who have enough grit and determination to break things and crush people and rip worlds apart. The ones who call bullshit when things aren’t fair. The ones who speak up and demand better. The ones who don’t fit into neat little boxes.

  There were girls like me at Breakbridge. Girls who kicked and screamed and worked their muscles until they became hard as steel. Girls with steady eyes and stoic faces who took pride in the pain, the ice baths, and the wall sits. Girls like Shira Tannenbaum and Allison Tarley who would do anything to run away from the lives that caged them in.

  Parker had dealt with so much agony in his line of work—so much death and uncertainty. And he had also dealt with girls like us. He had seen us repeat our mistakes, lunge at other victims, break skin and draw blood. He had seen us all march toward the same goal: self-preservation.

  But I was the first one who touched his family, who threatened to destroy his son’s life—even though Calvin was the one who should have paid. And for that, for his son’s mistakes, I was to blame.

  23

  ELLIE

  I watch for Stella out of the corner of my eye, but as the minutes in our lunch period tick by, I know she’s not coming. I send her yet another text, my fifth of the hour.

  Where are you??? I’ll come eat with you, just tell me.

  She doesn’t respond and I’m left alone at the cross country table with both seats next to me empty. The rest of the team has shifted down, toward Noah and Bader. Their voices are hushed, but I can hear fragments of conversation. They’re talking about Mila, about Stella, about what they think she may have been capable of.

  “I heard Parker questioned her for six hours,” Julia says. She looks down at her palms and picks at a few spots of red paint probably left over from art class.

  “I don’t know, dude,” Bader says. “She’s fucking feisty. Bet she murdered her somewhere in the woods for even talking to Georgetown.”

  I glance at Noah, wondering if he’ll defend Stella, if he’ll say anything at all. But he just shrugs and stares down at a bag of chips. “Who knows, man.”

  I blink back tears and fight the scratching, raw feeling in my throat.

  “I heard Parker found another lead,” says Tamara. “Something about Mila’s dad, maybe.”

  “Damn, this is about to get extremely Unsolved Mysteries,” Bader says, grumbling into his hamburger. “Next thing you know, they’ll be saying Kendall Fitzwater is back in town.”

  I can’t listen to this much longer. I’m zipping up my bag and gathering my things when someone comes up behind me.

  “Hey.” I turn to find Raven standing behind my chair, her bare freckled arms hanging limp by her sides. “You okay?” she asks.

  Julia’s staring daggers our way, but Raven doesn’t seem to care. “I’m fine,” I say.

  Raven tucks a stray piece of red hair behind her ears. “You know,” she says, “just because your sister’s a mess doesn’t mean you are, too. I should know.”

  My mouth drops open in shock. Was that supposed to be nice? To make me feel better? I push my chair out and a screeching sound echoes through the cafeteria. Heads turn and there’s a hush that fires up my insides.

  I know what everyone’s thinking. They want to see if Baby Steckler is really just like Stella, if that dark and stormy DNA is as strong as it seems. But I won’t give in. I won’t let them win.

  I stand and take a step closer to Raven. Her cheeks flush and she backs up, timid as always.

  I lean in so our foreheads almost touch and grit my teeth. “Fuck you, Raven.”

  Then I rush to the door and exit into the science wing, gasping for air, for freedom. I check my phone again, looking for Stella, but no word. I decide to try her locker and make a right when I reach the end of the hall, heading toward the junior row. There’s a group of students circled up, right where Stella’s locker is, and my stomach sinks. What now?

  “Move,” I say, pushing a bunch of freshmen out of the way so I can see the damage. When I can finally get a good look at Stella’s locker, I gasp. Scrawled across the metal, in dripping red paint, is just one word. MONSTER. Around it, someone has taped up printouts of the news articles from last year. The ones about Allison Tarley.

  I shake my head, tears stinging my eyes, and lunge toward the lockers, ripping down every piece of paper I can. I ball them up and throw them on the floor. Muffled, nervous laughter rings out behind me, but I don’t care. I know I have to save Stella, to shield her from this. I wipe my palm against the paint, but all that does is smudge it, make it look messy, like blood. I think I might throw up.

  I turn around at the gawkers. “What are you looking at?” I yell. “Get out of here.” Everyone rolls their eyes and the group breaks apart, heading to their next classes. Then I see Stella, leaning against a doorframe across the hall. As she steps closer to me, her face is still like stone.

  “Stell—” I start.

  “I’ve been called worse,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

  That’s when I remember the red paint I saw on Julia’s hands at lunch. “It was Julia,” I say. “We have to tell someone.”

  Stella purses her lips. “The last thing I need is to tattle on someone right now. Why don’t you go wash up.”

  * * *

  —

  The next time I see Stella is on the track during all-girls practice at the end of the day. The wind has picked up and whips my ponytail around my face when I turn to see her jogging out from the locker room. Her eyes are narrowed and she looks determined.

  “Are you okay?” I whisper.

  “Of course.” Then she clears her throat. “Let’s huddle up for stretches.”

  A few of the girls’ mouths drop open, as if they can’t believe Stella Steckler is actually going to put on her captain hat and pretend to lead everyone.

  Julia makes a grossed-out noise under her breath and Raven winces. But still, they walk toward us. Tamara doesn’t say a word.

  I half expect Stella to make a speech about how she’s innocent and how everyone is full of shit, to unleash her temper onto the team. But that’s not her style, at least not right now. Today she’s showing,
not telling, and she keeps her cool, calling out hamstring and quad stretches as if this were a regular sort of practice.

  Coach Gary watches from the sidelines, rubbing his temples every so often and shifting his weight from foot to foot. Dude has no idea how to deal with anything besides doling out orders to win. I wonder if Parker and Pérez told him to stay back, to let Stella hang herself.

  “All right, it’s mile repeats day,” Stella says, a joyful lilt in her voice. “We’ve got regionals on Saturday and I don’t know what you all have been up to. Let’s get this shit into gear.”

  The team looks at one another, confused at the prospect of taking instructions from a monster, but I hop to my feet and follow Stella toward the course to take off on our first fast mile. She smiles back at me with her eyes and I know she’s waiting to see what everyone does, if they have enough spunk to say no, or if they, like her, want a distraction. If they want to win.

  “Fuck this,” Julia says. She throws up her hands. “Coach!” she calls out. “Coach Gary!”

  He looks up from his clipboard on the sidelines and walks over to us with reluctance.

  “Why is she still here? I’m not taking orders from her,” Julia says.

  Coach throws his clipboard down on the ground. “Yes, you are.” he says, his voice nearing a bellow. “Because I said so. Because you’re a goddamn team. Because one of you is missing. And because we have a huge meet this weekend, which many of you seem to have forgotten. Do I really have to remind you that if you win this one as a team, you qualify for the State championship? Not just as individuals, but as a goddamn team. Don’t you want that? You know who would? Mila.”

  Julia pales and looks down at her sneakers. Next to her, Raven’s eyes widen and she chews on her bottom lip.

  “So if I were you, I would listen to Stella for one day and hustle.” A stunned silence spreads over the group and Coach speaks again. “What do you want me to say? That you should do it for Mila because she’s not here to do it for herself? Sure, let’s go with that. But come on. You’re all young and selfish and you know what? That’s fine. Do it for yourselves. Get yourselves out of this place. Find a pathway out of here. No one else will do that for you.”