Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,12

pretty hard to get lost here. Unfortunately. It’s a vacation town, so during the summer, the hotels and apartments fill up and the roads swell with people, but starting in October, the place empties out and tumbleweeds blow through. Then it’s just us regulars, and everyone knows everybody else, and everybody else’s business. Unfortunately.

My high school is on the mainland, in Toms River. But Coach Garner, who has been in the position for forty years, lives on the island, and is about as athletic as a bar of soap, can’t be bothered to go the nine miles inland to the high school to hold tryouts, so every year he holds them on the boardwalk. There are mile markers, but running on boards can be challenging. Still, the view is nice, so people don’t complain.

When I got to Fourteenth Avenue, at the southern terminus of the boardwalk, people I recognized from school were milling about in their singlets and shorts, stretching against the pilings and fence, looking serious. The You Wills told me to go home, to go anywhere but here, but I ignored them and the dull ache they were causing in my head.

The first person I saw when I climbed the ramp was Evan Sphincter. His real name was Evan Spitzer, but when he opened his mouth you knew a bunch of foul crap was going to come out, so I used the other. Not to his face, though.

It took me a minute to recognize him because he looked different, and not in a way that I’d have liked. Maybe it was the tan. No, it was more than that. He’d never been ugly, but he’d never been a movie star, either. His face had always been kind of round, but now his jaw was chiseled. Once upon a time, he’d been kind of thick around the middle, with doughy arms and legs. Now he had muscles. More than muscles. He looked like the spokesperson for home gym equipment. Unreal.

“Hey, Crazy Cross,” he said, reaching down like he was going to help hoist me up onto the boardwalk. But it was all an act. The second I’d reach for his hand, he would pull his away and run it coolly through his highlighted hair. I didn’t have to pay attention to the You Wills to know that. And—highlights? What kind of dude got platinum highlights?

I just said, “Hey,” and pretended I didn’t see him wiggling his fingers at me. His forearm muscles were bigger than my biceps. When the hell had that happened? He’d been a jerkwad since fourth grade, but now he was a built jerkwad. Fantastic.

Sphincter jogged across the boards to his dad, who had a terminally serious face. The guy never smiled. He was holding a stopwatch and looking at it like he wanted to kill it.

Runners will make a path for you as you walk to the other side of the boardwalk.

Yep, they parted like the Red Sea. When I turned back toward Sphincter, he was already surrounded by a bunch of hot girls. They swarmed around him like flies. Just completing his journey toward being a total one-eighty from me, I guess. Not that I was jealous or anything. Okay, yeah, I was.

Some guys I recognized from school stretched along the fence, refusing to make eye contact with me and instead checking out the fresh meat. There were a few cute girls, ones I’d never seen before, who might not yet have been aware of Crazy Cross protocol. I was wondering how long it would be before they kept their distance, too, when another memory bubbled through.

You will stretch your quads and hamstrings and then you will hear …

I was just starting to relax and stretch my muscles when a tiny redhead’s words floated over on the breeze. “Hear about the little girl who died on Seventh today?”

A guy was with her. He said something about an ambulance.

Then she said, “One of the lifeguards went completely nuts. They had to drag him away in a straitjacket.”

I wanted to slither between the boardwalk planks. “Hey, wait,” the girl said. I turned away but from the corner of my eye saw her pointing in my direction. Whispers were exchanged. “Him?” the guy asked. Then they both laughed. The guy said something that sounded like “Figures.”

Great. At this rate, I’d be lucky to make it out of high school without the words “Crazy Cross” printed under my yearbook picture.

I turned back toward Sphincter and saw him breaking