Page 6 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
“Uhh—”
“I mean, what I saw of it before thescandal—”
I use my Attenborough voice again, hoping a joke will cut this off. “We do not speak of the scandal.”
But Mitchell doesn’t bite. “Maybe we should.”
He ignores my glare and keeps going.
“With everyone coming back, you could finish the doc like you always planned. You might even figure out what happened at the assembly last year. Find out who sabotaged you. Get some closure. It could be good for you.”
I don’t like this tiny spark of interest in my gut.
Even if I can see his point that the tree doc isn’t great, I abandoned the Legacy idea for a good reason. It would be humiliating to face them all again. Torturous to revisit the most intense year of my life. To tear open everything I’ve tried to keep closed.
I can’t—won’t—do it.
“It’d give you an excuse to talk to Reid,” Mitchell says casually.
I glare harder, and he grins wider.
My phone buzzes again, and the name that appears wraps a band around my ribs and squeezes.
Reid.
CHAPTER THREECLARATHEN
REID WAS NEW TOour school but already known. Rumors likegunning for state champion… the future of the sport…got to Woodhurst long before he did. When I caught him with my lens for the first time, the thinking—about angles and lighting and shot lists—all stopped and instinct took over.
For as many people who were excited about someone of his caliber joining our team, I’d heard even more were stressed that he was a lock for a coveted Legacy spot, which would leave only four left for the rest of us. But I hadn’t given it much thought. I’d been otherwise too consumed with all the ways my life was imploding.
Only, now, he had my attention.
Dirt crunched under my running shoes as I stepped to the side, locking on to his profile just as a break in the clouds streamed sunlight over his dark messy hair. He was wearing navy running shorts and a fadedblack shirt with the sleeves cut off, his tan, toned arms on full display. But I was more captivated with his stillness. His fixed concentration.
Something told me to go wide and capture the way the group responded to him.
The serious runners got quiet, focused as he approached. Several girls greeted him. But he adjusted his earbuds and kept his eyes on the trail. I’d only ever seen him talk to his stepbrother, Mitchell.
I was about to take another step toward him when a tug on my arm made my shot wobble.
“Clara? Hello?” Delaney had clearly been talking while I filmed, but only now were her words registering. “I get it, he’s pretty, but can you pause your stalking for a second?”
My scoff was light, my response automatic. “I’m not stalking, I’mdocumenting.”
Never stop shooting. Capture everything and the story will emerge.That’s what all the great documentarians said, and I intended to do just that until I was among them someday.
But my focus didn’t derail Delaney. “Orare you trying to act like you didn’t just tell me you hooked up withJoshlast night?”
Of course at that exact moment Kenji walked up to us. “I’m sorry, I think I just hallucinated—do you mean Josh West? As in captain of the team and chairman of the bros?”
Officially ripped from the moment, I looked at my two best friends. Delaney’s Disney-princess-like features were screwed up into raging disbelief and Kenji was shaking his head.
I whispered, “Could you two notyell?”
We were near the trail lot, far out of earshot from the rest of the cross-country team, but you couldn’t be too careful in Woodhurst, andI needed no one else toever find outthis information. I was still not even sure how Delaney got it out of me.
Thankfully practice was about to start, and it gave me an excuse to busy myself by putting the camera away. I had never been a particularly good runner, but anything was better than being home. I walked fast toward the group, but they both kept easy pace, waiting for an explanation I didn’t really have.
