Page 87 of The Design of Goodbye
He ran.
I didn’t chase him. If I let go of the railing, I would become a puddle on the hard, plastic floor.
December
chapter thirty
When I walked out of school Thursday, the clouds were thick with the promise of snow. My gaze drifted over to the bike racks as I followed my friends to the parking lot, hoping to catch sight of Liam. His bike was there, but he wasn’t. The last time we’d talked was yesterday morning, when he’d snuck out of my house, and Imissed him.
Likereallymissed him.
I’d seen him around, of course—during lunch, in the hallways, at the bike racks. When I did, those butterfliesalwaysappeared, and I had to physically hold myself back from going to him.
“What time are you and Sterling coming over?” Jules asked Claire as we weaved between a group of freshman boys.
“I can’t come until—”
A basketball came hurtling toward Jules’s head, and she screamed, cutting Claire off. Alex saved the day and caught it right before it hit Jules.
“Nice, man,” cheered Tanner as Jules wrapped her arms around his waist.
Alex laughed and threw the basketball back. A boy tried to catch it but missed, and I watched as he chased after it into the nearby forest.
“Seven,” Claire finished once we were safe. “I have to babysit my brother until six-thirty.”
Red-hot, fierce, unwanted jealousy filled me at their plans. Emotions were annoying like that—how uncontrollable they were. I didn’t want to hang out with them, but they hadn’t invited me and that hurt.
I swallowed back my emotions before asking, “Where are you going?”
“Dinner,” said Jules, excitedly skipping ahead a few feet. “Double date.”
Claire had a boyfriend now. Sterling Myers went to West Reed High School, but they’d met at a party last Friday night. It’d been love at first sight between the two of them, apparently.
“I mean,” started Claire, her expression full of fake sympathy, “we’ll, like, totally miss you, but you kind of need to have a boyfriend, so...”
“And I a girlfriend,” piped in Alex. “I’m being left out, too, Winters. Don’t be upset.”
I still was. I glanced at the bike racks again. This time, Liam was there.Boyfriend. I wanted it to be him.
“Earth to Madison?” Jules waved her hand in front of my face. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
Jules stopped walking and stared at me. If she turned around and saw Liam, she was going toknow, and then I would have to explain—
“Where should we go to dinner?” asked Claire, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Jules became uninterested in me.
Alex was staring at me, though. When we made eye contact, he glanced at the bike racks and thenwinked. Shit.
“What if we went to that new Italian place?” suggested Jules. “I’ve heard—”
A car backfired. We all jumped.
“Clay again,” said Tanner.
Clay Jones loved rebuilding cars, but he was terrible at it. He had to call a tow truck at least once a month to rescue his car from the school’s parking lot.
“So annoying,” said Jules. “Clay’s never going to get a girlfriend if his car keeps freaking us out every—”
