Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,14

He liked me despite my everyday weirdness. Or at least, he tolerated it.

So say you’re nine, and your best friend tells you that he’s going to Disney World with his family and suddenly you realize that if he gets in that station wagon, he’ll never be the same. He’s so excited, parading around in his mouse ears and talking about the Tower of Terror like it’s his life’s purpose, but you just know something bad is going to happen. You can see the vigil at the elementary school, and you know that your grandmother will try, and fail, to hide the newspaper from you, the one with the article about the horrific ten-car pileup on Interstate 95. So you warn him. You scream at him that he can’t go. You even go to his house late at night and let the air out of the tires of his parents’ station wagon.

Of course, doing that means they have to get the wagon towed to the gas station so the tires can be inflated again, and when they do leave, two hours later than planned thanks to some stupid prankster, they arrive in Orlando safe and sound. They have a lovely trip and return home with a slew of pictures and one former best friend who thinks that you are a complete nutcase and never comes within ten feet of you again.

Well, unless it’s to pretend to offer you his hand to hoist you onto the boardwalk.

Evan Sphincter and I used to be best friends. A lifetime ago. Back when he didn’t have rippling muscles that made all the girls line up for him. And okay, maybe it wasn’t just that one incident that forced us apart. There were probably a thousand and one incidents where I acted weird or said something weird or looked weird, and each one drove that wedge between us deeper and deeper.

I tried to be normal. I tried to blend in, to not make waves. But this thing affected me every moment of every day. So I learned not to get too involved with anyone. Every year it got easier. Over time, pretty much everyone had discovered Crazy Cross was not someone to associate with.

I don’t really know why I wanted to go out for track that year. I loved running, and I was damn good at it, but I’d always shied away from organized sports. I guess I thought it was something normal people would do. Like lifeguarding. I think I’d gotten cocky, managing to keep that same future intact for three whole months. Managing to be not just a lifeguard but also a good one. I’d surprised myself this summer. When I’d penciled my name on the sign-up sheet for tryouts, I had this new, invincible feeling, like, I can do this. I thought all that Crazy Cross stuff was finally behind me.

Wrong.

I tried not to think of Emma as I started the mile, but of course I did. I couldn’t shake the vision of her small limbs sprawled on the sand, lifeless.

Normal. Yeah.

Anyway, I was a good runner. If I’d been normal, I bet I could have been a great one. I ran steadily, navigating around the few late-day beachgoers with umbrellas and chairs. The other runners lagged behind me; even with the headache from hell, I was on track for a record. I wasn’t even out of breath. A couple of hot girls in bikinis grinned at me. I’m not bad-looking; I’m tall, with thick black hair and an okay build, maybe not as good as Sphincter’s, but I always got looks from girls. After a minute or so, though, my charm wore off. I’d develop a tic or nervously go off in one direction or another, blowing it. This accounted for me being seventeen and never having gotten to second base with a girl. Even my first base was on account of an error; I’d been running on the boardwalk late one night, which I sometimes did to calm my mind, and when I stopped at the fountain to get a drink, a drunk girl must have thought I was her boyfriend because she grabbed me and kissed me.

Kissing soft lips, blond curls in my eyes

The image lit a fire under me. My pace quickened even more. It was the second time this afternoon that I’d had that memory. How could that be real? The picture was so strong I got lost in it. I forgot everything, even the simple rhythm of