Ryan hesitated and I waited for another complex answer, but a voice in the hall surprised us both. Mr. Ludwig. I held my breath, sure he’d come in, but he passed by, probably for supplies that Ryan or I should have been refilling. When I looked back at Ryan I saw him exhale, then look at his watch. “Jury’s still out,” he said, pushing off the counter. He landed gracefully on the floor, and I imagined that whatever sport Ryan was into, he was probably very good at it. “We should go,” he said. “This”—he gestured toward the chapel, then back to where we stood—“is between us. Not to worry. But be careful.”
Then he left, the door shushing closed behind him.
I stayed in the prep room a few more minutes, collecting myself and wondering why I’d never really noticed Ryan before. Of course, I knew he was around, spoke to him almost every shift, but I’d never really noticed him.
I wondered what he thought of me.
One thing was certain: Ryan was right, it wasn’t smart to snoop around at the wakes. I’d have to find another, less risky way, though I felt like for once I was close to hearing something useful. I was frustrated that I missed the end of what that woman Betty or Carmen had been talking about. Robert Killiam’s research. I’d never know what it was; I’d already searched high and low on the Internet. There was nothing there.
I went back to the break room, trying to study for real this time, but I was preoccupied with things that chemistry and calc couldn’t begin to eclipse. Ryan. The stuff we’d talked about. The way he’d felt so close to me.
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why, but it had pierced the layers of busyness I’d tried to wrap myself in, bringing back memories of Jack and all the things I was trying to forget. Or at least ignore, for now. Like the day he found me by my locker soon after I’d come home from Kansas.
“Walk you home?”
He’d startled me and I jumped a little, my heart racing as it registered that it was him. Jack. I turned, holding tightly to the books I’d pulled from my locker, and found him watching me, his head tipped slightly to the side, smiling.
“Sure.” I leaned back into my locker. “Let me just get my stuff together.”
We left school, walking side by side down the wide cement steps. It was my third day back in Ashville and I was still feeling like my old life had broken in half and been haphazardly glued back together. Even things that shouldn’t have changed had—my walk to school, my friendship with Tasha, the places I liked to go. They were all colored by what had happened and what I’d learned that summer.
I felt especially awkward with Jack because I’d been thinking about him too much. For months. I’d replayed the day I ran into him in Kansas so often—the way he called to me in the park, looked at me, told me he’d broken up with his girlfriend—holding on to it like some kind of desperate touchstone so that now, back in Pennsylvania, I worried that I’d blown it all out of proportion, read things into it that weren’t there.
“Tell me about your summer in Kansas,” he said, smiling down at me as we started toward my apartment. “Did you like it out there?”
“Not at first,” I said, still unsteady, unnatural, though I’d walked beside him, seen his smile and those brown eyes a hundred times. “My aunt just kind of dumped me off at her apartment. I didn’t know anyone …” I paused, thinking about how bored I’d been. “I moped around for a while, kind of hating it. Then I decided to get a job.”
“Oh yeah? Where’d you work?”
I told him about the coffee shop and the people there, feeling more and more like myself, talking to the Jack I’d always known as we walked. He asked me about the town and we swapped stories about how the Midwest was different, pausing only when we reached my apartment.
I hesitated, thinking about asking him in, but knowing that even I didn’t want to be there, in that half-packed apartment.
“Do you have to go?” he asked.
“No.” I smiled, relieved. “Definitely not.”
He smiled back and we continued down the block in a comfortable silence, leaving my building behind.
“Soooo,” he finally drawled, teasing. “Is that where you met your boyfriend? At work?”
Immediately any ease I’d felt evaporated. I sensed Jack looking at me but couldn’t meet his eyes.
“No,” I said, watching my feet scuff along the sidewalk. “We met in a class I took at Lennox U.”
I flushed at the idea that Jack knew about Lucas. He couldn’t know what had happened between us, but I did and somehow, being here with Jack now made all of that seem so wrong.
“Ooh, a college guy.” Jack was still teasing, but it sounded a little forced. “I thought he looked older.”
I didn’t answer, wishing I could say it was nothing, but that would be a lie. And I didn’t want to lie to Jack. “We broke up,” I said finally. “Before I left.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I told him, finally looking up. “But I’m not.”
He held my gaze for an extra beat and I could feel something pass between us. Jack smiled a little but didn’t answer.
We were in the preserve by then; leafy trees, still fully green, shading the path. I thought he might ask more about Lucas or the class, but he didn’t and I was glad. Instead, Jack told me about his visits to the Midwest, the schools that he’d seen, until he stopped near a clearing, watching me with an expectant smile.
“Do you know where you are?”
The leaves of the Japanese maple towering over us were just starting to turn purple at their edges. In another month they’d be bright orange, and when you were up in the tree, the sun filtering through them as it sank low in the sky made it feel like you were inside the sunset. “Of course,” I told him, shielding my eyes to search the branches.
“It’s gone,” he said.
I looked at him, eyes wide, surprised how sharp my disappointment was.
Jack smiled gently. “I felt the same way. Even climbed up to be sure.”
I squinted back up into the tree like he might be wrong and the old wooden platform that we’d used as a fort would be there, waiting for us. It had been ancient when we’d found it, leftover from when the preserve had been private land. We were nine that summer.
I looked back at him and shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Bummer.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, circling to the other side of the tree.