“Of course not. It’s been washed.”
She took it warily. I think she was less worried about the headband and more worried about running with me.
Ever since we came up with the Jealousy Pact, we walk around the lake together most days. I catch up with her after my run, and we’d talk about school, gossip, news and the movies we watched together.
When I suggested her jogging with me, and she protested for fifteen minutes straight.I’m not athletic, I’ll slow you down, I’d rather walk with you after.
I said that I had few talents, but one of them was exercising. If she helped me with questions in maths, the least I could do was attempt to add years to her life span.
And here we are now — running around the lake while attempting to hold a conversation. Eve’s not as bad as I thought she’d be. A tortoise could overtake us, but at least we haven’t stopped for a break yet. Maybe the annual cross country race at school has been enough practice to prevent her from collapsing.
“Even my brother, Ben, is asking me questions,” I say as we curve around the south of the lake.
“He’s the second oldest, right?” Eve manages.
“That’s right. It was after you came over to watchThe Prestige. I told him you were a friend and all, but it’s strange, him suspecting us.”
Eve puffs, the concrete pounding under our feet. “Why’s that?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Because he’s my brother, maybe? Because … because he’s my family so he should know that I’m … that I’m not straight.”
That’s the second time I couldn’t say the G-word to Eve. I’ve never said the G-word to anyone, only in my head. But the evening in her bedroom, when we were discussing The Jealousy Pact, was the closest I got to saying it to someone else.
“Do you think you’ll tell him at some point?” she asks.
“Definitely. I mean, I shouldn’t be afraid to — my family is open-minded and all,” I say. “But they’re going to be surprised.”
“You can take as much time as you like,” she says, still puffing. Her eyes are on the fallen gum tree half a kilometre away. We’d agreed that would be our finish line.
“He brought it up at dinner, over the weekend,” I say now.
“Huh?” Eve says. I’d bet ten bucks she was thinking about how much she hates running.
“Ben. He brought us up at dinner. He said we were friends like I told him, but my parents interrogated me.”
That gets her attention. “What? Why?”
“They think a lot of my friends distract me from studying. They still like the boys, but they wish I were more responsible. More studious. I made them love you, though. I told them you were going to get a PhD.” Once, Eve and I talked about what we wanted to do after graduating high school, and she mentioned wanting a doctorate in English Literature. She waved her arms as she spoke about these authors she liked — Shakespeare (ugh), that Austen chick (eh), Dickens (was he teased at school for that last name?), Joyce and Woolf and Beckett (who?).
“Noah!” Eve shrieks. “You can’t say that. I saidI might.”
“And I told them you’d be valedictorian.”
“I will not. You’re putting all this pressure on me.”
“Sorry,” I say, not sorry at all. My parents were delighted. They went on a spiel about how if I started trying hard this year, I could do well in Year 12. “The point is that they like you, so they won’t object to you coming over all the time.”
“And watching another Christopher Nolan movie?”
“Hey,” I say. “You liked it. Don’t lie.”
“Eh.” She imitates my voice when I commented onPride and Prejudice, deepening her voice. Then she smiles. “Fine, fine, it was fantastic. A little unrealistic—”
“Don’t ruin this for me,” I warn.
Her smile widens before wincing. “Are we almost there?” she chokes out.
I try to distract her until we get to the last hundred metres. We’re almost walking, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, but I tell her we can stop early.
