the giant silver ball, one leg raised behind me like a ballerina, when a voice cuts through the air. “You could get arrested for that, you know.” My foot wobbles a little when I realize whose voice it is. “Or fall and break something.” I look to where our team is huddled to one side of me. His hands are shoved in his pockets. “Twist an ankle maybe.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t jump this time,” I say.
Asher climbs over the fence until he’s a foot away from the ball. “Jump.”
I stare at him, at his arms stretched out for me.
“Do you trust me?”
I don’t say anything, just let myself fall off of the giant silver ball, until I’m safely in his arms, my feet barely hitting the sand.
He looks at me like I just fell off of a ten-story building.
“You came.”
“First record-break of the season.” He smiles and looks at me conspiratorially. “Of course I came.”
Maybe it’s the way Ellie’s drink is making my skin prickle and my head slowly detach from my shoulders like a balloon on a string, but instead of pulling away like I know I should, I wrap my arms around Asher. His body stiffens against me, and he doesn’t move for a second, but then his hands rest on my back, and he’s squeezing me. Suddenly, this night feels complete. And that’s scary, because the one thing I can’t guarantee in my life right now is Asher Marin.
73 DAYS AFTER
Asher
The cafeteria food is questionable sometimes. Like just now, I ate a “fried vegetable.” As if they couldn’t be bothered with identifying which vegetable it was when there are a million out there. Spoiler: it was a pickle. I nearly puked in the middle of the cafeteria, and it’s possible that Ryan will never come here with me again. Is a pickle even a vegetable? Is it legal to vaguely label food like that?
On the table my phone buzzes, and my mom’s face appears in the middle of the screen.
“Hi, sweetie. Could you do me a favor?”
I’m expecting her to tell me not to go to parties, or to remember to take my laundry out of the machines so no one steals my clothes, but she surprises me when she says, “Can you run up to the lake house?” She lets out a sigh. “There was a big storm last night. Dad’s worried one of those limbs could have come down. The trees along the house are in rough shape. We should have had those limbs all cut at the end of the season.” I didn’t notice anything about the state of the trees this summer, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I had other things on my mind. “Kris and Tom are out of town and you’re closer than us.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Can you go tonight?”
“Tonight?” It’s already eight o’clock. “I sort of had plans.”
“Please?” Her voice is pleading. “It’s only a few hours. You can be back in time to go out. You’re all up until two a.m. anyway, right?” She laughs, but it sounds more nervous than amused. “Just take a quick look through all the rooms to make sure the roof didn’t leak, and then you’re free. I’ll mail you a gas card.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
By the time I leave the dorm it’s almost nine thirty. I shove a change of clothes, protein bar, and a bottle of water from my mini fridge into my bag, in case I decide to spend the night. I hadn’t thought about how close the lake house was to school—maybe I could take friends up there one weekend. Maybe some friends from the team. Would I invite Sidney? Would I have to? I wonder how weird it would be for her to know her teammates were hanging out at her house—our house—without her.
It’s weird that we have this shared thing. It feels a little like we’re a divorced couple, and the house is our kid. She was right about that—how awkward it would be going to the house if things went south between us. Except that she’s the one that forced that situation into existence.
Driving to the lake in late fall feels so strange. The grass has lost its brightness, and the trees are all in their deep yellows and oranges, some of them with leaves already shed. It’s like going to an entirely different place. All of the signs that usually mark the sidewalks with the announcement of fairs and festivals