“Don’t,” I said and, for some reason, reached out and squeezed his hand. It was warm and I wanted to keep holding on to it, but I let go. “My life right now is insane. And this can’t happen for me.” And then because I had a death wish, I added, “Right now.”
There was no going back with Chase. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was glad.
He smiled hopefully and nodded his head. “I’ll let you get back to it, then.”
He headed to the field on the other side of the bleachers so we wouldn’t technically be working out on the same track. I popped my earbuds back in and continued running, but my peace was shattered. There was no way I was going to find any rhythm with Chase in such close proximity and the knowledge that he thought I was beautiful knocking around in my mind.
CHAPTER 10
MY MEETING WITH HALEY was abruptly rescheduled with a terse text.
Haley: we need to meet somewhere else
Haley: there was some kind of leak in the theater room
The Heller basement was known for occasional flooding. There never seemed to be enough in the budget to permanently fix anything.
I considered our options. I couldn’t invite her over. Too many questions from my parents. And I wasn’t sure how April would react if she saw Haley, knowing who she was.
Me: We could meet at the coffee shop. It wouldn’t seem out of place if we had books out.
Haley: too risky
Haley: my parents will be out tonight if you can come to my house at 6
Going to Haley’s was the perfect way to learn more about her. I silently thanked whoever decided to underfund Heller’s maintenance department.
Me: I’m missing out on lasagna night, but I can make it work
Haley: ok
The drive to Haley’s took me to the edge of town. Here the houses were small but sparse. Apparently, the cookie-cutter neighborhoods like mine hadn’t reached this far to swallow the land and spit out tidy grids of streets and two trees per lawn. Haley’s house sat on a trim square of grass, somehow a comforting piece of civilization in the untamed prairie landscape.
I triple-checked the address before getting out of my car. The unfamiliar surroundings put me on edge. I didn’t know what I was walking into, and I mentally prepared for the unexpected.
Haley answered the door before I could lift a hand to ring the doorbell. She had probably been watching me look from my phone to the numbers on the mailbox and cackling at my unease.
“Thought you’d never get out of the car. A little too country for you?”
I scoffed. “Hardly. I just don’t enjoy ringing strangers’ doorbells. Probably residual PTSD from selling Girl Scout cookies to weirdos.”
“You would be a Girl Scout.”
Haley ambled to the kitchen without further invitation, so I removed my shoes and coat and set them neatly on the hall bench near the door before following. The smells coming from the oven awoke my inner hunger monster and it let out a growl via my stomach. Notes of garlic and butter hung in the air, calling to me like sirens.
“What are you cooking? It smells incredible.”
“I’m trying out a recipe for zucchini rollatini. We’ll see how it goes.”
The walls were covered in staged family photos and antlers. There wasn’t a trace of Haley’s personality anywhere. For someone so talented, it was odd that none of her pieces were displayed in her own home.
“You can have some if you’re hungry.”
My stomach leapt for joy. “That would be great.”
The framed photos grabbed my attention. Why were there so many different families, but so few of Haley’s own?
Haley noticed my confusion and said, “We have a lot of extended family that sends my mom photos. She likes to hang them on the wall, since we don’t have any recent ones.” She focused her attention back on her meal preparations. I added this fact to the list of things I knew about Haley for further consideration.
I thought of my own house covered in a timeline of photos of me and April. We didn’t have any family portraits from the last few years, either, but even my embarrassing school pictures kept finding their way onto the mantel no matter how hard I tried to hide them.
An awkward silence descended, growing more palpable by the second. I cleared my throat. “I can’t believe the theater room flooded again. I was wondering why we meet there and not the art room. You don’t do any performing arts, do you?” I asked.
“Nope.” Haley brought a pan out of the oven. “The art room is taken. So is the gym, the lab, and the library. Teams are assigned workspaces so we don’t interfere with each other.”
My mind began to spin. Had I ever noticed anyone odd in those spaces? Not really. It was a school and groups of students were clustered everywhere, working on team projects or studying for tests. Even most Saturday mornings the school was open thanks to play practice or business club meetings. The Red Court was hiding in plain sight and doing a damn fine job of it.
“I inherited the theater from my partner when I was an underclassman. She was a theater geek. Next year it will be yours, when I’m gone. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Not at all. It’s just funny being there again. I used to go there all the time when my sister was a student.”
Haley nodded and pulled some plates down from a cabinet. “April, right?”
My heart stuttered. “You know my sister?” I skated over each word smoothly, like it was a sheet of ice thin enough to fracture, pulling me down into the icy depths.
Did Haley have anything to do with her accident? April was a senior when Haley was a sophomore. There was a chance it could have been Haley. A chance, but I didn’t want it to be. The official story of April’s accident was in the news. Heller went through massive safety evaluations after the fact. My family was even present when the official reports were given to the school. As far as anyone knew, April’s accident was the fault of unsecured rigging in the theater catwalks.
“Not really. I was sorry to hear about her accident. My art class made cards for her when she was in the hospital.”
Would someone responsible for April’s accident make her a card? I had a hard time believing even Haley could be that callous. But I didn’t know her that well.
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s a psychology major and works at the physical therapy center. She’s doing really well.” Despite what the Red Court did to her. I was doing my best to temper the instinct to close off where April was concerned. It was a struggle to wrest even the smallest tidbits into conversation through the protective layers of loyalty to my sister.