Most Likely (Most Likely #1) - Sarah Watson Page 0,49
right, left. The moment that her results had popped up. Right, left, right, left. The realization that her score had not gone up. It had not remained the same. It had gone down. Ten points lower in verbal. Twenty points lower in math. Right, left, right, left. Her brain wasn’t turning off. Why wasn’t it turning off? Right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left. It wasn’t turning off because CJ couldn’t outrun this. She wasn’t good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough. The words looped in her head.
CJ ran harder. She shifted into a sprint without even realizing it was happening. Her coach would have yelled at her to slow down. She could never sustain this pace for an entire race. But this wasn’t a race and her coach wasn’t there. So she ran harder and harder. Faster and faster. Not good enough. Not good enough. She would run until she collapsed if that’s what it took to drown out the words. She could outrun it all if she could only go fast enough.
That’s when she heard the voice. “Hello?” it said.
CJ slowed. “Is someone there?” she called out.
This time she heard the words sharp and clear. “CJ? Is that you?” She recognized the voice immediately.
It was Logan Diffenderfer.
Ava couldn’t sleep. She was pretty sure she’d taken her Lexapro that morning, but she counted out the number of pills left in her bottle just to be sure. As long as the drug was in her system, she shouldn’t feel like this, should she? She paced her room and the cloud of gray paced with her. She wasn’t supposed to feel this sad over something as small as a fight with her mom. Except that it was so much more than a fight. It was her entire future. Maybe the way she was feeling was normal. She paced some more. She didn’t feel normal.
Ava took the chair from her desk and pulled it over to the closet. She stood on it to reach the shoebox tucked deep into the back on the top shelf. The box held photos and concert tickets and a Denny’s napkin from a particularly wonderful night with her friends that Ava wanted to remember forever. It’s also where she kept the postcard when she wasn’t painting it. The one with the picture of the church in Mexico City. She flipped it over and read the words she’d read a million times before.
Dear Baby Girl,
I’ve tried over and over to write this letter, but I don’t know what to say. I always thought this church was so beautiful. I’ve never seen it in person, only on this postcard that your grandmother kept with her until she died. It’s where she used to pray before she came to America. You have her eyes. I wasn’t expecting that, and it made all of this so much harder. For the brief moment that you were in my arms, I loved you. I’m so sorry.
It wasn’t signed. There was no name. No return address. Just a postmark from California.
CJ didn’t need to ask Logan why he was at the track in the middle of the night. It was pretty obvious that he was doing the same thing she was. So when he said, “Feel like doing a few more laps?” she said, “Definitely.”
After they’d fallen into a steady rhythm, CJ asked, “So… what problem are you trying to outrun?” She couldn’t see his expression in the dark. She only saw his head swivel in her direction. “Diffenderfer,” she said. “It’s the middle of the night. You’re not out here for fun. What’s up?”
“Nothing specific,” he said. “Just everything. You?”
He was being guarded. That was his choice, but she felt like being honest.
“I got my SAT scores and they’re not good enough. There’s pretty much no way I’ll get into Stanford.”
His head turned back toward her. “Sorry,” he said. Then he laughed slightly.
“Did you just laugh at my crap SAT scores?”
“No. No. That wasn’t about you. Sorry. It’s just… I’ll sound like an asshole if I say it out loud.”
“Say it.”
CJ’s legs were starting to feel the ache of running after a long period of time off. It felt wonderful.
“When you said you’ll never get into Stanford, I had this flash of… oh, what’s the word…”
“Schadenfreude,” she offered. “It’s an SAT word. It’s when you delight in another person’s misfortune.”
“Oh,” he said. “Then definitely not that. No. Not at all. Opposite, actually. I felt jealous.”