Today is Matty’s long-run day. He’s been building up to this all summer. Twelve miles. Six out, all the way up North Shore Drive, to Route 73, continue on where it turns to Main Street, through town, passing the restaurants, the shops, the breakwater. Main Street will become Route 1 and he’ll keep running, almost to Rockport, practically to Camden! The turnaround point is at Glen Cove. Then the whole thing in reverse.
Thoughts of Hazel and the kiss buoy him through miles one and two. Around mile three and a half the rain stops and the sun struggles out from behind the clouds. At a stoplight on Main Street he sees a girl in a car who reminds him of Claire. He runs in place and looks more closely but the girl whips her head around and begins talking to the driver of the car, a grandmotherly woman in a pink shirt. He’s not even halfway and already he’s hallucinating. The light changes, and he keeps going.
He turns around at a red house with a turret when his watch tells him he’s hit six miles. Behind the red house he can see the water winking at him, and he considers finding a spot for a dunk. But, no. He’s stronger than that. He’s tougher. He turns around.
Because Main Street through town is one way, he’s facing traffic on the return trip. Some guy yells, “Run Forrest run!” at him out of the window of a car.
Mile seven. What if he did the kissing wrong and Hazel was laughing at him on the inside? What if now, driving down to Portland with her granddad, she’s texting all of her friends in Nashville to tell them about their awkward encounter?
Mile eight the shirt comes off. He tucks it into the waistband of his shorts.
He’s positive he did the tongue part of the kissing wrong. He’s not sure if he should have used more tongue or less tongue, but definitely erred on one side or the other. Mile nine he spends trying to re-create the kiss in his mind to figure it out. Wasn’t Hazel’s tongue venturing intoMatty’smouth first? Yes, for certain it was. So maybe he had been right to allow his to travel as well.
Women. It all seems so difficult. What’s the point, really? Then he thinks of the way Hazel’s skin felt, the sides of her face in his hands. The way she looked back at him when she said,I’ll see you around, Matty McLean.That right there. That’s the point.
Miles nine, ten, and eleven are hell on earth.
One mile to go. He passes a yard on North Shore with a sprinkler set up in the yard. Yes! Shamelessly, he runs across the yard, tilting his face up to take in some of the water. This respite is enough to propel him all the way home. He consults his watch and calculates his pace. Just under seven minutes per mile average. Solid.
He drags himself inside. In the playroom he sees an abandoned game of Clue. He fills a water glass in the kitchen and finds his mother still sitting at the table, her hair even wilder than it was when he left. She’s squinting hard at the screen of her laptop. Otisis lying at the very far edge of the room. Usually he sits on Louisa’s feet as she works. His eyes are open, and wary: they follow Matty. No sign of the pancakes, but obviously he’s not going to bring them up again.
“Mom? Where is everyone?”
Louisa looks up distractedly. She looks awful. The skin under her eyes is gray. “I don’t know,” she says. “Upstairs? I’m not sure. I’ve been working. Matty? Could you run up and grab me the bottle of Tums from the medicine cabinet? My stomach feels terrible. Thank you, sweetie. I’m sorry I yelled at you—I’m just. I’m just tired.”
“That’s okay,” says Matty. “I get it.” On the way back from the bathroom he conducts a quick search of the upstairs. Claire’s bed is empty. Abigail is lying in her bed readingBridge to Terabithia.
“Go away,” she tells Matty, not unkindly. “And close the door behind you please.”
Matty closes the door. He delivers the Tums to his mother, and fills a glass of water for her too. She looks up and says, “Oh, perfect. Thank you, sweetie. Breakfast soon, I promise.” He doesn’t mention that it’s almost time for lunch. He slides open the screen door—Otis slinks through—and lies down on the porch swing, utterly spent. He closes his eyes and thinks about Hazel.
He should get up and eat something. He’ll do that in a minute. Peanut butter. Apples. A big glass of milk. A slice of Pauline’s famous blueberry bread, if Claire hasn’t snuck away with all of it. Or maybe his mom will make those pancakes after all. But probably not.
He might just close his eyes first.
He wakes with a start who knows how much later. Louisa is standing over him with her hands on her hips.
“Where’s your sister? I can’t find her.”
Matty blinks and sits up. “Reading. In her room.”
“Not Abigail. Claire. I don’t know where Claire is.”
“Maybe in the downstairs bathroom?” Claire has been knownto spend inordinate amounts of time in the half bath near the kitchen, hoping to pick up useful secrets.
“She’s not anywhere.” Louisa rakes her hands through her hair. She bites her lip so hard it turns white. “I wouldn’t blame her for being upset. I was just trying to concentrate and—”
Her sentence stops there, cut by an ear-splitting wail. Louisa and Matty both jump and start toward the sliding screen door. Before they get there Abigail flies through the door and onto the porch. She is still in her pajamas, and her hair is almost as crazy as Louisa’s.
“What happened?” says Louisa. “Where’s Claire?”
Abigail holds up her copy ofBridge to Terabithia.“I don’t know whereClaireis.” Tears are running down her face in rivulets. “But Lesliedied,Mom.”
“Oh geez,” says Louisa. “Holy hell. You scared me to death, Abigail. We can’t find Claire.”
“Shedied.The rope they used to swing to Terabithia broke and—” Abigail cannot go on. She holds the book to her chest and gives in to the grief.
Oh, brother,thinks Matty. He really, really, really needs his dad back.
