At this point in the run, you’re heading back toward town, but in a different way from the way you came out. This is not an out-and-back. This is a loop.
A loop with a break, at the cliffs and the jump, before going on down back to the high school, near the lake.
I am on the return.
142.
once, that night
“What the hell was that?” Syd asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“You gave Ella the manifesto!” Syd said. “She’s not supposed to get that until she jumps.”
“I never agreed to that,” I said.
“You knew it was happening that way, and you never said anything until now.”
“I didn’t feel like I could.”
Syd scoffed. “Okay. Still. Then you singled her out to be special.”
“Youwere the one singling her out!” I said. “Didn’t you see her face?”
“I thought you had my back,” Syd said.
“I do—”
She shook her head. “We did everything together. Everything. We shared our clothes. You knew the freaking password to my phone. I always hadyourback.”
“And I’ve always had yours,” I said. Why was she speaking in past tense? Was she mad about the manifesto thing, or something else? Alex?
“I’m sorry I came to Flatrock that day with you and Alex.”Maybe that whole misunderstanding had been the problem. Had she been waiting all this time for me to apologize? I’d thought we were past it.
“That’s not it.” Syd turned around. Her face was hard, but behind it I thought I could see pain.
Then whatwasit?
“I know I spent most of my time with Sam this summer. Too much.” My words were tumbling on top of one another. I had to say them fast enough. If I found the right ones, I could say them, and if I could say them, I could fix this. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t very helpful with planning the bonfire.”
Syd shook her head. “That isn’t it, either.”
“Thentellme!” I said. “I know I haven’t been perfect. But you’re right. You’ve always had my back. And I’ve always tried to have yours.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious!” I was shaking with the unfairness of it all.
“Did you tell Alex I liked him?”
“No, I swear.”
Syd shook her head. “You couldn’t even dothatfor me. You aresodamn selfish.”
I felt like I kept blundering into different traps. “I thought you didn’t want me to!” Wasn’t that what she’d said the last time we talked about it?
“Stop.” Syd took a deep breath. “You don’t get it.” A breeze was coming off the lake, teasing tendrils of hair out from her ponytail. Her eyes were inscrutable, closed-off.
