I think about Jace, his college friends, and his strange alliance with Wesley. “I have to go.” I turn away and tell Ryan we should head back.
Jace doesn’t show up for dinner after practice. As soon as I’m done eating, I head over to the Wilders’ house and walk through the front door without knocking. I see Jim in the kitchen getting a beer and I wave as I jog down the stairs.
When I burst through Jace’s bedroom door, he’s standing in front of his closet in nothing but black boxer briefs and socks. Shit. He looks far too good and it’s incredibly distracting. My gaze lingers on the muscular curve of his bottom for a moment before I plop myself on his bed and cross my arms.
“Alright, buddy. I want answers. Now.”
Jace watches me carefully. “What’s going on, Pep?” he says quietly.
I point my finger at him. “Don’t even pretend to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Jace sits on the very edge of his bed, as far from me as possible. He rubs his hands over his face.
“What do you want to know?”
“Are you dealing drugs?”
“Yeah, a little,” he says slowly. “But don’t worry Pep, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Not that big of a deal? Jace, I’ve never given you a hard time about stuff you do, but this? It’s just stupid. Why would you risk a football scholarship?” That’s not the only question I have, but it’s a starting point. And it should get his attention.
Jace shrugs. “It’s just some easy money on the side, Pep. I’m training for football all the time. I don’t have time for a real job.”
I just stare at him. He has to know how stupid he sounds.
Jace leans back and my eyes go straight to his abs. “Look Pep, this is one of the reasons I keep you at a distance. You don’t need to be a part of this.”
I ignore that statement, for the time being, and ask another question. “And Wes? What does he have to do with it?”
“He got himself into a little trouble dealing last year, and I helped smooth things over. That’s how I got into it in the first place. Now, it’s just easy cash. I know the guys I’m dealing with, and it’s a pretty straight forward thing we have going on.”
“What do you mean he got himself into some trouble?” I swirl my bracelets around my wrist as I process the information.
“The guy he was buying from was picked up, and Wes thought his name was going to get dropped. He called me to make sure it didn’t.”
“Huh?”
“Nevermind. Wes and I hadn’t been close for awhile, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him to get fucked over.”
That part, I get. The rest of the details, I’m not exactly following. I suppose they aren’t so important. “You told me not so long ago that you didn’t do drugs. Were you lying?”
Jace runs his hand through his hair again. He stands up and paces around the room. It’s impossible to focus on anything else but his half naked body. Why can’t he throw some clothes on, for goodness sake?
“No, not really. I tried some shit a few times, but I hadn’t done much in a while when I told you that. Recently, well… I’ve been partying a little more than usual.” Jace looks away when he says this and I can tell there’s more behind that statement.
I shake my head, unable to process this information. In some ways, it rips me up that there’s this whole side of Jace I knew nothing about. But on the other hand, I know this isn’t all that out of character for him. Jace has always been all about power and control. Even as a little kid. He’s always had it, and this is another way to hold onto it.
Jace’s phone rings from the bedside table and I glance at it. Madeline. Of course, they had a date tonight.
“Just a sec,” he murmurs before answering.
“Seriously?” I ask, trying to hold back any emotion. We’re in the middle of an important conversation, and he cuts it off to talk to his fuck buddy? Until now, I thought I came before the girls he slept with. Did that change when I kissed him?
“Hey,” he says in the phone. I can hear her muffled voice on the other line.
I don’t stick around to listen.
Things aren’t the same with Jace after I confront him. After we kissed, we could at least
pretend
like things hadn’t changed. Sort of. Temporarily, at least.
But now, I feel like I don’t understand him anymore. This time, his controlling nature doesn’t explain his actions – instead, it’s like he’s out of control. Orgies, regular drug use, dealing. . . it’s too much.
I know Jace, and if he decided to deal, he’s not bothering with small bags of pot. I don’t doubt for a minute he moved right into more serious stuff. Brockton’s a college town, and there’s plenty of partying. CU’s known for it. His unexplained absences from dinners, the out of town trips, and the college friends - it makes sense now. He’s got a whole little secret life that I am not a part of. And I don’t want to be.
Our morning car rides are awkward. I simply can’t relax and be myself with him anymore. He knows it too. We don’t bother pretending. Jace doesn’t make it to dinner all week, and I decide to arrange rides with Ryan in the morning, telling Jace he doesn’t need to pick me up.
I’ve always known Jace and I were different. I like to play it safe. I have just what I need with running, my few friends, Gran, and Dave. I could accept that Jace had his own little world that wasn’t for me. Until now.
I know it’s time to snap out of it when the district meet arrives at the end of October. My equilibrium has definitely shifted with the absence of Jace in my life, but there’s no reason it should impact my running.
We meet in the school parking at seven the morning of the race to take the bus as a team. When I step on, I see that Zoe is already sitting with Charlie. They look quite cozy. I scan through my memories of the last week and realize that they have definitely been acting differently towards each other. Hmmm. . .
Taking a seat near the back, I slip on my head phones and prop up my pillow, hoping to remain anti-social for as long as possible. I close my eyes and snuggle against the window.
When the bus starts to move I feel someone sit in the seat next to me. A shoulder brushes mine. I pull out my head phones and look at the intruder. Ryan is leaning his head to the side looking at me. “Hi,” he says.
“Did the headphones, closed eyes and pillow not send the right message?” I tease.
“Sorry. I was sitting near the front, but I saw you way back here and wanted to see what was up. You feel okay?”
I’m not usually anti-social like this so I suppose it does cause suspicion. “Yeah, Ryan, I’m good. Thanks though.”
He watches me for a moment, unsure whether to leave or not. “So, you ready for the first meet in our championship season?” I ask, encouraging him to stay.
He smiles. “Yeah, I guess so. You’ve done this course before, right?”
I start telling him about the course. Last year, we had an early season dual meet on the District course. I was in the lead and took a wrong turn. “Hopefully it’ll be better marked than it was for the deal meet. But I’d pay attention during the walk through just in case. There are lots of sneaky turns!”
Ryan laughs and tells me that the same thing happened to him once but he was able to back track without losing the lead.
I watch him as he talks. His sandy brown hair is long enough to tuck behind his ears. The shaggy look is endearing. Ryan is
classically good looking in a boyish way. He’s even cuter when he smiles, which he does a lot while he’s talking. I find myself leaning closer towards him. The hard layer I’ve been wearing the past couple of weeks starts to soften a little. I feel, I don’t know, warmer, in his presence.
The next thing I know, Ryan is shaking me gently. I blink my eyes open, and find my head is resting on his chest. I whip my head up, thankful there’s no drool running from my mouth. “Sorry!” I exclaim.
“We’re here,” he tells me. I look out the window. Several other school busses are parked around us and groggy teenagers are wandering around in shorts and sweatshirts.
“Whoa. Guess I was tired. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan reaches out and squeezes my shoulder.
During warm-up, I ask Zoe about Charlie. “Finally!” she answers. “I was wondering when you were going to get with the program!”
“Sorry. I’ve been in my own head lately,” I admit.
“We kind of got together last weekend,” Zoe tells me.
Apparently he was helping her study for AP bio and then he asked her to stay to watch a movie, and one thing led to another, and they crossed the line from friends to friends who make out. Now they apparently cuddle in public too.
“He’s taking me on a real date after the meet. I think we’re just going to dinner or something. But it’s kind of weird changing my mindset.” My mind immediately jumps to the changes happening between me and Jace . . . and me and Ryan. “It’s like I must have had these feeling buried for him and now that I’m not suppressing them I think of him totally differently. I’m not sure how we kept it platonic for so long!”
Platonic
. I hate that word.
We’re heading over the last hill of the course, finishing our warm up, when I see Brockton Public’s junior varsity football team running at us. Shirtless. And covered in blue paint. They have letters painted on their chests and are screaming and cheering.
“Do they know that we’re just warming up?” Jenny asks.
We gape as they swarm around us, jumping in the air. How do they have so much energy? “Red Bull,” Zoe answers my unasked question.
The guys start organizing themselves in two lines and we can make out what the letters on the chests spell. One line says “Brockton” and the other says “Pepper.” It’s quite impressive. And I know who organized it. Jace is at a college visit in Michigan this weekend, but only he would be able to get fifteen high school boys to cheer at a cross meet first thing on a Saturday morning.
As we jog back to the team tent, I see Gran standing on the sideline by her chair snapping photos of the football team running beside us. She’s by Zoe and Claire’s parents, and some other parental types who look familiar. I wave and she gives me a double thumbs up and a toothy grin. She’s decked out in our school color, royal blue, from head to toe. She’s even got a blue winter hat and blue high top Nikes.
It’s a cold morning and I can see my breath. I wear a long sleeved shirt underneath my singlet, a blue headband that covers my ears, and gloves. Hopefully the shirtless fans won’t get hypothermia.
We huddle in a circle with our arms over each other’s backs.
Claire’s my co-captain and she usually leaves it to me to give a pep talk before our team cheer. She surprises us when she speaks up.
“I’m not running in college so this
could be my last cross meet. I hope it won’t be, because I know that we can qualify for State as a team. I just want to tell you all that being on this team has been my favorite part of high school. So, thanks. Anyway, I hope you guys all run your hearts out today because I really want my last meet to be the State championship.”
We just barely missed making State as a team last year, and Claire missed making it individually by two spots. If there’s anyone to dig deep for today, it’s her. And I think even Dorothy knows it.
We scream our cheer and jog to the start line. Because there are so many teams, only two of us can toe the line. Claire is next to me, Chloe and Jenny are in the row behind us, and Dorothy with our two other varsity runners are behind them. It’s going to be a messy start with all these girls.
“Runners, take your mark . . .” BOOM! The gun goes off and I sprint forward to get away from the crowd. Normally I wouldn’t go out this hard but it beats getting trampled. The sound of the fans cheering is a blur as I keep my elbows to the side to prevent getting knocked over.
The crowd quickly thins out and the path narrows before entering the woods. Settling in with a pack of about ten others, I take stock and recognize all of the runners from other meets. There are three or four who could give me a good race, including Kendra Smith who placed second at the Aspen Leaf Invitational. But I’m feeling fairly confident that I’ve got this.
Coach Tom is standing at the top of the first hill. “Settle in, Pepper! You look great. Stay right there!” The plan’s to run in the lead group until the top of the last hill, about 800 meters from the finish. No matter how good I feel, I’m supposed to stay with them. Coach thinks 800 meters is plenty safe to allow me to break away, since I’ve got a decent kick.
I focus on staying behind the three girls in front of the pack who are setting the pace. Followed someone else’s lead isn’t in my nature, and it’s hard to suppress the urge to burst through them and take off.
One of the shirtless entourages is lined up along the side of a straightaway when we come out of woods towards the end of the first mile I the 3m1 mile (5 kilometer). They scream and cheer while running alongside us for about 100 meters before slowing to a stop. We’re running close to a 5:30 pace so keeping up for more than 100 meters isn’t exactly easy, all things considered. I smile at the guys, and I almost wave, before realizing it would be sort of an insulting demonstration of my lack of effort to the other runners who aren’t holding anything back.
We’re about halfway through the race when we pass by the starting line and a roar of cheers. There are fans scattered throughout the course, but most people have congregated by the start/finish area. I see Gran bouncing up and down in her bright blue outfit and I grin at her.
“Go, Pepper, go!” She screams.
A couple of girls start dropping back until there are only five of us in the lead pack. Coach Tom is at the edge of the field when we reenter the woods for our final loop. He must sense my impatience because he yells, “Keep it steady, Pepper. Right at this pace.”
Watching the ponytail of the girl in front of me sway back and forth, I try to relax. But my legs are itching to go faster. The cold air is refreshing, and the fans’ energy is contagious.
When we pass by the 2-mile marker, I find myself moving in front of the other four girls. I don’t consciously decide to drop them. Maybe they just slowed down. But once I see that there is no one beside me or in front of me, I drop the hammer.
I fly up the last hill, which has always felt like a steep mountain when I’ve raced this course before. I hardly notice the boys’ team cheering for me at the top of the hill. I’ve never been high, but I’m pretty sure it must feel something like this. It’s like my body has just taken over and I can’t be stopped. I keep going faster, and the slight burn in my chest and ache in my legs only drives me to push harder.
I accelerate down the hill and into the large field, where hundreds of people are on their feet cheering. The finish line is just ahead, and the clock above it with the ticking time is a blur. It doesn’t even matter what my time is. This feeling alone is amazing.
I burst through the finish line with a huge grin on my face. I can hear the announcer. “Pepper Jones is the district champion. And in a new course record of 16:48, ladies and gentlemen . . .”
It’s my fastest time ever, and not just on this course. I’ve never run a 5 kilometer cross country course in under 17 minutes before.
I make my way out of the finish area so I can cheer for the rest of the team. Claire and Zoe are racing right next to each other and I cheer like a maniac when they run by me. They cross the finish at the same time, and I watch them give each other an exhausted hug before collapsing to the ground.
“Pepper!” Ryan runs towards me and lifts me up in the air to twirl me around. “That was incredible!”
I laugh. “Hey! Put me down, you need to conserve your energy!”
“I don’t care. I’m inspired. That was the most badass run ever.”
When he lets me go, Charlie scoops me up for another hug that lifts me off the ground. “I’m proud of you, Pepper.”
After the boys race, we find out that both the girls’ and the boys’ team won Districts, claiming the individual and team titles. Rollie invites everyone over to his house to celebrate. The runners who aren’t on varsity come as well, and there must be at least fifty people crowded into the den in his basement.