Played. Liz Fichera
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because that nickname seriously had crossed my mind for Riley Berenger. “Nope. Not me.”
She pulled back. “Smart?”
“Nope.”
Her voice grew louder. “Thorough?”
I smiled down at her. “Bingo.”
“But that is so...lame.”
“I thought it was perfect for you. The perfect nickname.”
“Thorough is for grandmothers and computer manuals, Sam. A girl doesn’t want to be nicknamed Thorough.” She rolled her eyes and looked away. “I thought for sure yours was Pink Girl.” Then she reached for her name tag and peeled it off her sweatshirt. She crumpled it up and slipped it into her pocket.
“So which one was yours?”
“I’m kind of hungry. Are you?” she said, ignoring my dumb question since her pink ink on my name tag made it pretty obvious which nickname she’d chosen for me. I was Complicated, though? What did she mean by that?
“What do you have?”
She reached into a pocket in her sweatshirt. “One water bottle.” She reached into her other front pocket. “A slightly broken granola bar.” And then she reached inside her pocket a third time. “And one stupid pinecone.” She threw it as hard as she could into the slanting rain.
“Nice throw.”
“It’s a gift,” she said.
I looked down at her as she continued to stare straight ahead. Riley’s neck was long and pearly white, almost translucent. For some reason my eyes landed on the skin just below her ear and stayed there. I swear I could see her pulse move, and it stole my breath for a second. I did a mental headshake. But before I could stop myself, I said, “You know, you’d be a lot prettier without that hat.”
Silence. She turned to me, unamused.
I swallowed, hard. I had no idea why I’d said that. It just popped out. Suddenly I was a fashion expert?
But it was true.
“I’ll shut up now,” I said.
Riley nodded and looked away. Instead of making stupid small talk, we listened to the rain.
13
Riley
Sam was seriously starting to freak me out. Why did he say such things? I knew he was a little odd—well, I really didn’t know that to be a hard fact, but I had heard that he acted strangely.
Scratch that.
More like it was what I’d observed.
Sam often sat by himself in the cafeteria. I knew this because I sat alone sometimes, too. And when you sit alone, pretending to study the math book beside your sandwich or doodle in the corners of your notebook, your eyes tend to scan the whole room beneath your eyelashes. My attention was usually drawn to other loners like me. There weren’t many of us but, if we wanted to, we could have started a club.
The one thing that stood out about Sam was that he didn’t mind being alone. He wore his aloneness like a badge, challenging anyone to mock him. No one ever dared to look at him funny or anything. It was sort of a mutual unspoken understanding, which I suppose you could negotiate when you were well over six feet tall and, maybe, two hundred pounds. Even the biggest senior boys kept their distance from Sam. One time I’d sketched his face in my notebook because I liked the way his expression never seemed to change and yet it said everything.
And now he sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my shoulders like we snuggled all the time. Like we were best friends. And he’d said that I could be pretty. What kind of boy says something like that after insulting you a half-dozen times? None that I knew—not that I knew many.
But Sam Tracy was indeed a strange boy. He wasn’t like my brother’s friends, and it wasn’t just because he was Gila or Native or Native American or whatever he called himself, either. He was just different from all the boys I knew. He didn’t say much, and when he did he didn’t waste time with too many words.
We sat staring out at the rain for what seemed like an eternity, grateful for our little patch of dryness and the heat radiating from our bodies. Then my stomach grumbled.
Weakening, I peeled back the wrapper to our only food source. I wasn’t ready to eat pinecones. “What some?” I pointed my granola bar at him.
He shook his head. “Nah. You eat it.”
“We can share.” I pulled back the paper and broke the bar in two.
Sam lifted his hand. “Better not eat it all at once.”
“Seriously?” My voice got higher. “You seriously think we’ll be here that long for it to matter?”
He looked up at the tree, considering my question. “Maybe.”
So I halved the half and stuffed the other half back in the wrapper. “For later,” I said.
Sam took his piece and chewed it slowly, his lips making a perfect circle, which looked really strange on him.
I did the same, trying to savor each morsel like he did. I closed my eyes and tasted the tiny bit of chocolate, a sliver of almond, a breath of dried cranberry and then crunchy honey and oats. It was probably the first time I had ever truly tasted a granola bar, despite inhaling at least two after every dance practice for the last two years. “Not bad,” I said when I allowed myself to swallow the last bite.
“I would rather have had your macaroni and cheese.” There was a smile in Sam’s voice.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“True,” he said.
“Now for the water. Pretend it’s champagne.”
“Have you ever tasted champagne?”
“No,” I said, popping open the cap. “This is pretend.”
“Then I’ll pretend it’s a chocolate shake.”
“Yum. Even better.” I passed the bottle to Sam. “You first.”
First he raised his hand, motioning for me to take it, but I insisted. “Just a sip,” he said, finally tipping the bottle to his lips. And a thimbleful was all he took. Barely enough for a bird. “Now, you.”
I took the bottle and it took all my willpower to drink just a sip. I could have swallowed a gallon. “I guess if we get desperate we can suck the water off leaves, right?”
“I hope we don’t have to.”
Lightning flashed all around us and the mountain lit up like a birthday cake. A few seconds later, the sky cracked open even louder than before and I jumped. “This storm is freaky,” I said, my knees curling into Sam. “And it feels like it’s getting colder.” He pulled me closer.
“We’ve got to do something to pass the time,” Sam said. “Or we’re really going to go nuts.”
“Damn straight,” I said, almost leaping into his lap when the lightning cracked again.
“See? You’re not as perfect as you think. You even curse.”
“Who said I was perfect?”
“No one needs to.”
“You don’t really know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Humph,” I said, slightly taken aback. “Well, since you’ve got me all figured out, tell me something about you.” I paused, just as lightning filled the sky again, turning everything all silvery-gray. Like a camera flash. “Tell me something no one else knows.”
“No,” Sam said quickly.
“Why