Stupid Fast - By Geoff Herbach Page 0,52

and stung my eyes. My muscles shook. Ants scrambled on the ground below me. How easily I could’ve killed them all, all those ants. I stood straight, put my hands on my hips, and breathed, and looked out over a thousand miles of Wisconsin and Iowa and Illinois. Then I jogged back down so I could run up that Mound again.

I ran until I was dry-heaving, spitting, breathing so hard, groaning, cramping up in my guts. At the top, I collapsed onto the ground, face down, sucking air. And then I rolled over and stared at the sky. Deep breath. Deep breath. Breathing is good. Lying in the dirt is good.

Believe it or not, the sky was blue. The few clouds up there were white, as you might guess. It was exactly what I expected to see. Jerri felt far away. Just a ghost of somebody I didn’t know. Andrew could take what he wanted from my room. It didn’t matter.

Everything was a thousand miles away. I relaxed on the ground on top of the big M. The sky was blue, as it should be. The clouds were white.

Then my phone buzzed in the pocket of my shorts. It was a text from Cody. Apparently, he’d sent it to all his honky friends:

party my place july 31 celebrate rein stones 16 bday. 7 oclock. no alchies!!!

I know he sent it to a bunch of honky friends because Karpinski, Jason Reese, and a number I didn’t recognize all texted me immediately:

legal to drive get some hookers

gonna be fun rein stone

reinstein is big boy now!!! :0

The first message was from Karpinski. I texted back and asked him to pay. I said “will be fun” to Reese. “who this?” I asked the other.

Abby was the response.

Abby Sauter sent me a text. My friend planned me a birthday party. I could run up a cliff like the Road Runner.

This is my life, Jerri. That’s what I thought.

CHAPTER 29: ALEAH

On the following Friday night, after managing to spend three solid days without saying a word to either Andrew or Jerri (actually, barely seeing them at all—this was the same strategy I used with classmates through just about all of eighth grade and freshman year—don’t look, talk, appear in front of them), Aleah and I watched this adventure movie with Nicholas Cage where he’s trying to figure out some mystery. I have no idea what else happened because Aleah invited me over not to watch a movie in the basement but to pretend to watch a movie. What she really wanted to do was lie on Gus’s giant beanbag chair and make out.

As we were kissing, she reached under my shirt and ran her hands over my skin, which raised all kinds of bumps, and I also put my hands under her shirt and touched her skin. I pulled her onto me, and we kissed until my mouth hurt and my lips were chapped, and I couldn’t see straight, and my legs hurt and my hips hurt and other stuff hurt, and I almost felt sick to my stomach because it was so great.

At around one, Ronald shouted down the stairs, “It’s about time for Felton to go home. There’s a paper route to be done in the morning.”

Aleah rolled off of me, and I stood fast because Ronald’s voice scared me and then I almost fell down because I was dizzy. Aleah almost couldn’t stand up because she was so twisted up. But we smiled at each other and didn’t say a word, and I ached and then climbed the stairs with Aleah right behind me.

Ronald squinted at my face as I walked out the door and said good night.

I biked home through the cool air, with blood running the right way through my body again.

It never occurred to me that I might ever actually have sex. The proposition had always seemed so totally remote and completely unreasonable. How would that ever happen? Suddenly, in one night, I knew how that would happen. Not that I thought Aleah and I were about to have sex or anything because I didn’t really want to. I was sure Ronald would walk down the stairs and see us and then I felt really terrified and explosive and crazy. Oh, man, Aleah.

At home, I could hear the TV on in Jerri’s room, and I went right to bed. But I didn’t go to sleep, not at all. But I guess I was asleep when the alarm went off.

***

On the