Chasing Midnight (31 page)

O
kay.

It’s do-or-die time. Again.

Except this time I have a plan. Granted, it means me pushing a hundred-pound lawn mower up the hill all the way to Cale’s house. But it’s still something. The question remains—will I make it to my destination before I wimp out?

See, but now I have a purpose. A
real
one. This isn’t merely running for exercise or mowing lawns for money. This is about Cale. About getting him back. If he rejects me after this, then maybe we aren’t meant to be.

But at least I tried.

After running with Dad, I get dressed, eat breakfast, and start pushing the mower up the hill, hoping Cale’s the sleep-in-till-noon type of teenager most high schoolers are (especially the type who don’t have jobs or responsibilities or any chores to do that would require them to get up early). But you never know with him; Cale Blackburn isn’t exactly a typical teenager.

Call me a nerd, but I couldn’t resist wearing one-half of my Flyknits—it’s too awesome of a shoe to sit in my room, purposeless. So I paired it with my only other Nike and called it good, even if wearing two different shoes makes me look ridiculous.

When at last I reach Cale’s street, sweating and using a curse word or two, I practically cheer out loud when the incline levels out, grateful Cale doesn’t live all the way up on Sea View Drive. Once my breathing slows and I’m stopped in front of the Blackburns’ house, I feel my nerves fall in sync with my erratic heartbeat at the absurdity of what I’m about to do.

I have to take a deep breath to stop shaking.

Am I ready for this?

For the possibility of being humiliated just to impress a boy?

Not just a boy.

Cale.

How can I
not
try? After knowing what I know now, after having what I had and then losing it . . . I don’t have a choice. It would be too painful
not
to try.

At the end of his driveway where the lawn meets the sidewalk, I yank the pull cord on the mower. It sputters for a second and then starts up on the first try, purring to life. I take it as a good sign. Then, pretending this is just one of my usual jobs with no strings attached, I start up the Blackburns’ lawn in long, even strides, making sure not to go too fast. I plan on crosscutting it after the initial pass so it will look extra professional.

The lawn isn’t very big, so it only takes me ten minutes on the first pass. As I start to crosscut, I glimpse up for any sign of life inside the Blackburn house, for any hint of an interior light or some kind of movement. But the house remains still and my confidence shrinks smaller and smaller with each step, the mower getting easier to push with the longer blades of grass out of the way.

Did they go out of town? Hopefully they didn’t go out of town.

Halfway through the crosscut, Cale is still a no-show, intensifying the weight of my disappointment now plummeting to
the bottom of my stomach into a hard, immovable knot. Maybe he went on a bike ride. Maybe he’s a heavy sleeper.

Maybe he’s peeking out the window right now, feeling sorry for the pathetic-looking girl making an idiot of herself.

At the front corner of the grass near the base of a magnolia tree, I pivot the mower and start back in the other direction, when I think I hear something creak. My heart jumps and I release the power bar, bringing the mower to a lurching halt.

“What are you doing there?” Cale says from across the yard, standing on the edge of the porch.

Finally.

My heart has officially shifted into fifth gear as he nears the steps, his blond hair sticking straight up, a befuddled look on his sleepy face. It looks as though he threw a pair of basketball shorts on at the last second because they are inside out and hanging way past his knees. Though, with him, it’s a look that could very well be intentional. He’s wearing a gray shirt with a single, faded black circle silk-screened on the front, only two nonsense words this time:
WISH YOU.

Wish you
what?
I want to ask.

Instead I mumble out something like, “Oh, hi,” but hang back in shadows under the magnolia tree where my lawn mower remains a perfect obstacle between us.

He cocks his head sideways and stares at me as if trying to think up the right thing to say. Then he says it, accompanied by a teensy, crooked grin. “I didn’t know we hired a service. Did we?”

I shake my head, mortified. “Nope. I’m here on my own.”

“Okay.” He takes a step forward and then stops, scratching his head, messing up his hair even more. “Can I ask you why?”

I fan my hands out in front of me. “I wanted to show you what a crosscut can do for your lawn. Check it out.”

He smiles halfheartedly, like he’s not really sure what to do. Or say.

“See how good it looks?” I add, wishing he’d look less at me with that confused, bunched-in-eyebrow look, and more at the lawn.

He steps off the porch and walks toward me, stopping at the top corner of the lawn where I’ve already finished. He’s barefoot. “You’re right. It does look good,” he says, glancing across the crosscut second for a second. “How much do I owe you?”

Flip.

“I didn’t come here for you to pay me!”

He yawns and bites his lip. “Then why did you come? You could have told me this at school, you know . . . did you push that thing all the way here?”

I nod, too embarrassed to speak.

“Wow.”

Humiliation. Like a cream pie all over me—a direct hit in the face.

What am I doing?

His nonsense T-shirt looks back at me with its baloney message:
WISH YOU
.

“Wish YOU what?” I say, pointing at his shirt, trying to get the focus off me for a second.

He looks down and then back at me again, his long eyelashes fluttering against his skin. “It was supposed to say
YOU WISH.
It’s a mess-up.”

“Oh. That makes sense. But I actually like the mess-up better.”

“How so?”

“
YOU WISH
sounds like something a jerk would say,” I explain, thinking specifically of James Odera and the rest of the lucky ones. “But
WISH YOU
—I don’t know . . . it sounds open-ended. Hopeful, even, like you’re waiting for an answer rather than giving one.”

“Maybe I am.”

I feel my cheeks go red, the way he says those three words. “Well, are you?”

He smiles and cocks his head sideways. “That depends.”

“On what?”

But he doesn’t answer. Just remains standing there at the edge of the grass, as if it’s my turn to say something.

“Can I ask you a question?” I say, still afraid to come out from behind my lawn mower, afraid that if I move he’ll disappear like all my wishes did. Or that he’ll call me a loser and turn into James or another one of the lucky ones. Maybe in this life Cale is just like the others.

He laughs at me and yawns again, this time long and slow. I’m afraid he’s bored with me. “Go for it. It’s the perfect time for mowing lawns and asking questions.”

Ignoring the snark, I proceed.

Here goes nothing: “Eighth grade talent show. Do you remember it?” I ask, my voice faltering. The memory of that day still swims in my mind, but I’m not sure if it’s only a memory left over from my Struck life, or if the talent show moment had somehow happened in both lives.

“Yes, I remember it,” he says.

Just like that.

My heart thumps against my rib cage at his answer, making me wonder if it’s possible for the outcome of a certain experience to be so significant that it had to happen, no matter what. Were Cale and I always meant to know each other? Was he always supposed to be a part of my life regardless of which one I ended up with?

“Do you know what song I played at the talent show?” I speak more boldly now, assuming Cale knows I played anything at all. Assuming he paid as much attention in this life as he had in my Struck life too.

Maybe.

“Yeah. I think so,” he says slyly, as if he’s keeping a secret from me but doesn’t plan on revealing it any time soon.

I wait for him to name the song, to verify my hunch (and hope) that he noticed me back in eighth grade—even with my
crooked nose and creekside address and oil-stained fingers—in this life too.

But he’s holding out on me.

Doesn’t say anything at all.

Almost like he enjoys having something to hold over my head, like his stupid shirt. I want to grab him by the collar and demand an answer.

He remembers; I know it.
Cale remembers!

He squints at me, as if trying to figure out why in the world this detail matters so much right now. But it does.

It does.

“What’s going on down there?” he says, a smile cut into his jaw. Those squinting eyes camouflaged by impossibly thick eyelashes.

“What?” I say, forgetting for a second about the talent show. Forgetting about everything.

And then I realize he’s pointing at my mismatched feet . . . and snickering.

At me.

“Hey!” I say, trying to hide behind the lawn mower wheel. He comes toward me, a laugh bursting out of him every couple of seconds, like he inhaled nitrous oxide. He appears to get it under control and then as soon as he stops, he starts up all over again.

“Well, I’m glad you got your laugh for the day,” I say, trying to push him out of the way. “If you’ll excuse me now, I’d like to finish crosscutting your grass so you can see what a professional job looks like, and then I can be on my way.” I lean over the mower to start it up again, but stop when I realize his laughing has stopped.

I look up, wondering what’s going on.

“Where’d you get that?” he asks.

“What?” I follow his gaze downward to my feet. My
mismatched
feet.

Great. “You mean my shoe?”

He nods.

I feel like I’m in a bow tie and pleated pants all over again.

“It’s sort of a long story. But the shorter answer is I don’t know. It was in the bottom of my closet yesterday morning, but I couldn’t find the match.”

“Just one shoe.”

“Uh-huh . . . just one,” I say, wondering why he’s looking at me that way. Feeling my face burning in embarrassment. “A very sweet, very expensive one, too. What, are you the shoe police?”

“That’s—” but he stops talking, like he forgot what he was going to say. Like he lost all his wit.

I don’t know how to respond, so I try to explain. “I figured I might as well make good use of it, no use whining about only getting one free shoe instead of two. Why are you looking at me like that?” Seriously, he’s freaking me out a little.

“Hold on,” he says, running into the house.

Crap. I think I scared him off.

Does he seriously want me to wait? For what?

I crouch on my knees to inspect the grass, trying to decide if I should lower the lawn mower blade a quarter inch or not, trying to decide whether or not this whole chasing-after-Cale thing turned out how I wanted it to, though I guess it isn’t a terrible start . . .

I shouldn’t have worn the shoe.

That’s what did me in.

Not only am I stalker-lawn-mower freak, but I can’t dress myself either. No wonder he ran away.

“You’re never going to believe this.” Cale—right there above me again.

I crane my neck, squinting against the sun, surprised at his sudden return. “What?”

“Here, stand up,” he says, pulling me to my feet. I gasp when his hand takes hold of mine, slightly cold but firm.
Tingles race up my arms, my heart pounding. Not wanting him to let go.

He lets go. Then shifts his weight from one leg to another. I can sense his nerves briefly surfacing and then diving under again.

“What?” I ask, wondering what changed. Wondering why he seems so insecure now, like I have a leg up on him.

“This,” he says, shoving something into my hands.

I look down.

It’s a shoe.
My
shoe.

The other Flyknit.

“Where’d you get this?” I lean over to compare it to its match on my right foot.

He steps closer. “That’s the weird thing. It was in my room when I woke up too. On the edge of my bed.”

“Really?”

I can’t believe it. Cale has my other Flyknit? How is that even possible? I don’t know what to do. Or say. Or even how to act. This shoe has rendered me useless in every way possible.
Bird Lady, what did you do?

“You might as well have it,” he says, looking in my eyes. Blinding me with his. “Since it looks like it’s your size and all.”

“What? Are you sure? You can probably sell your half on eBay for some cash.”

“I don’t want to sell it on eBay.”

“Well—”

“Go ahead. Put it on.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling a tickle of excitement race through me as I fall to the grass and tear off my other shoe. It slides onto my foot perfectly—hugs it like a glove, even (according to the ads, that’s what it’s supposed to do). I’m wearing a million bucks, people.
All over again.

And I never want to take my shoes off. Ever. Again.

Cale watches me from the porch as I run up and down his driveway four times for a test drive, loving the feel of these shoes
on my feet again. He even joins me on the last lap, barefoot and all. I have to admit he looks pretty good running beside me in the sun, the light catching him in all the right places.

Other than my Nikes, he’s the best-looking thing out here.

“So, are you going to finish my lawn, or what?” he asks when we stop, leaning over to inspect my work. “It looks a little schizophrenic as is.”

“Yes,
yes.
Just trying to enjoy the moment, that’s all.”

“Well, then can I ask you a question?” he says. “To make things even?”

“What do you mean even?”

“You know—you mow my lawn, I give you a shoe . . . you ask a question, I ask you a question. That makes us even.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s get even, then. What’s your question?”

“Eighth grade. Talent show. Why didn’t you give up? Walk off the stage and tell them you were done? It’s what I would’ve done. I’ll bet it’s what most people would have done. Everyone but you. Why?”

I inhale, wanting to run into his arms, to tell him,
I told you so, I knew you remembered, I knew we were meant to be together in this life too . . .