Wait,I think.Wait for me.
Out loud, I say, “I’m right behind you.”
136.
once, that night
I unlocked Syd’s car. We hardly ever rode in it, but I knew the watermelon smell.
Hardly ever rode in ittogether, that was. It seemed she’d been driving around to deliver the manifestos on her own. No apple stickers onherglove compartment, of course. I popped it open. Inside, the last manifesto, rolled up and secured with a blue-and-gold hair tie.
I didn’t have Sam anymore.
I wasn’t sure about Syd, about Alex.
But I still had my team.
137.
now
Over the suspension bridge hanging above the creek, the wooden slats and ropes swinging with the momentum of my run. The water underneath is shallow, even after the rain.
The rocks beneath are slick and flat and hard.
You don’t have to fall far to break. You need almost no water at all to drown.
138.
once, that night
On my way back, I could see that everyone had begun milling around the bonfire in the lowering light. When Syd saw me, she called out, “Okay, everyone! Gather around! July’s got something for the girls’ team. And then Alex has something planned for the guys.”
She had dragged a picnic table near the bonfire and was climbing to stand on top. The girls gathered around, the boys behind them. “Come on,” she called to me, and I climbed up on the table next to her. The ground in the park wasn’t even, it was hillocky and patchy in places, and so the table felt unsteady.
Once I was next to Syd, she motioned for everyone to be quiet. After a second or two, they were. They remembered the beginning of the summer, when we were playing night games and she’d showed them she meant business by low-key humiliating that kid. Now we knew him—his name was Rowan Sharp, he was funny and medium fast, we’d joked around with him near the Gatorade cooler Coach Warren always brought to practice.
We all knew each other now. Didn’t we?
“Okay, everyone,” Syd said. “By now you all know that we have a lot of traditions. Some of them have been around for a while, like the bonfire and the jump. They’re part of who weare.” She gestured to me. “July’s going to read something. It’s called the Fall Creek Girls Manifesto. Once you’re one of us, that doesn’t end with high school. It goes on forever.” She motioned for me to go ahead and climbed down from the picnic table so that I was up there alone.
The fire snapped showers of sparks. The sky was nearing navy-blue dark.
Everyone was quiet.
I began to read.
We are the Fall Creek Girls.
We travel in a pack.
We run faster than fast, harder than hard.
Our feet push off the ground. Blood pumps in our veins and pounds in our hearts.
We know how to tear up a hill and how to fly past you when we’re tired. We’re not immortal, but we’re as close as anyone can be.
When we’re together, we turn heads. People pause, they watch, they look.
