Page 67 of Come Find Me
“Did you know Hunter was Elliot’s boyfriend?” I ask between bites.
She shakes her head. “I should’ve realized it. But he was only there the one time, and Elliot didn’t even introduce him to me. I didn’t think he was someone important to him. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“He never mentioned him?”
She looks up at me and stops chewing. “I never asked. We were the new kids, and I was trying to, I don’t know, find my own people. I was too preoccupied with myself to notice what was happening in the rest of my house.”
She stares out onto the ballfield, picking at her food.
“What are you thinking about?”
She bites the corner of her lip, doesn’t look at me when she starts talking. “Marco told me there were rumors…about you and…” She moves her hands around, like she’s begging me to fill in the blanks instead.
“Me and what?” I say.
Her eyes cut to the side. “Some girl.” She clears her throat. “Liam’s girlfriend?”
My stomach sinks. “Abby,” I say. “Are you asking me if it’s true?”
I narrow my eyes, trying to understand where she’s coming from. Whether she really doesn’t trust me, or if she’s asking something more. “It was a mistake,” I say. “And it was after. Much after. Do you know what it’s like? When you’re stuck in this world, and you can’t see anything past it?”
She looks my way again.
“It was like that. She was missing him, and I was missing him, and I was there.” I didn’t tell anyone, but apparently Abby did. I’m surprised. Then my stomach twists—if Marco knows, others know, and that means the police probably know. As Abby’s friend, Clara must know, and I wonder how many people in our house have heard it, too. My parents, even? I close my eyes from the guilt, just thinking about it. Is this part of my cloud of suspicion? That I was secretly jealous of him, because ofAbby?
“It was one time,” I say. “One time, when I was feeling really bad, and I regretted it right away.”
She doesn’t answer at first, just leans her head back, face tipped up to the gray overcast sky. The food is done. She closes her eyes. “I know what it’s like.” Then she looks straight at me. “I regret so much.”
I force the last bite down my throat, but my stomach rebels.
I don’t want to think about Abby. I don’t want to think about the case the police are building against me. I don’t want to think about Kennedy hiding out in the shed behind her house while life as she knew it fell apart just steps away.
We have hours to pass, still. Hours to keep thinking of everything we did wrong in the past, everything we might be doing wrong now. I want to blow off some steam, and we’re suddenly in the perfect place for it. “Hey, I have an idea.”
—
Inside my trunk, I still have my baseball gear, from spring practices and games. Kennedy shoved it all to the far corner when she loaded my trunk with her brother’s things, transporting everything back to her house earlier this week.
“Can you play?” I ask, sliding on the mitt. It’s worn and broken in, and it feels like a second skin to me by now.
“Soccer was more my thing,” she says. “But I’m a quick learner.”
I hand her the bat. “Let’s see what you got, then.”
She stands in the batter’s box, waiting for my pitch. She hits the first few I throw, one angling off to the side, another popping straight up so I have to run almost all the way back to her just to catch it.
“If you want more power,” I say, “think more about the step than the swing.”
She nods, taking some more practice swings.
After a few more pitches where she lunges for the ball as it heads her way, I jog over to show her what I mean. “You’re swinging on the defensive,” I say. “Here.” I stand behind her, my hands on her hands, gripping the bat. I don’t even think about it at first, how close she is, her hands under my own, until I feel her tense up for a second.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling back.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Show me.”
So I do, my arms folding around hers, stepping and swinging until her body does the same, in synchrony. I step back, watching her as she takes the swing on her own. “Perfect. You got it.”
