The Taking

by Kimberly Derting

  Tears stung my eyes. I wanted to ask her about how she could have ever hooked up with Austin in the first place and why she hadn’t come the other day when he had, but pride made those questions impossible. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was that things had changed, and how pissed I was at her, and that I wished, more than anything, we could just go back. . . .

  Back.

  To five years ago.

  And then, as if she’d read my thoughts, because, like any good best friend, Cat had always been able to do that, she reached into her bag. “I brought you something.”

  At first I didn’t get it, the significance of what she held, and then she told me. “It’s from that night. It’s the game-winning ball.” She stepped the rest of the way down from the steps and presented it to me. “We all signed it,” she said, her words getting all watery. “Hoping we’d give it to you as a team when you came back.” She ended on a strangled sob, until she was full-on crying.

  I took the ball from her, concentrating on it so I didn’t have to face the fact that mascara was streaking down her pink cheeks. The feel of the ball was so achingly familiar, yet so foreign, that I almost dropped it as soon as it was in my hand.

  I had always believed that, like any good pitcher, the ball was an extension of me. That I understood it in ways other people didn’t. I’d spent hours memorizing each tiny stipple in the surface of the leather, and the pattern of the stitches and seams. I knew when a ball had gone bad or the difference between a men’s and women’s ball even before I’d wrapped my fingers around it.

  This though . . . this felt strange. Right, but not right.

  Like Cat and me.

  I swallowed, and then swallowed again because I didn’t want to cry. I’d always been stubborn like that. I didn’t wear my heart on my sleeve the way she did.

  “I’m not saying we’re not friends, Cat. I’m just saying I can’t do this right now,” I told her. And I took my ball and went up the steps.

  As I opened the door to leave her behind, I faltered. Stuck between the door and the jamb was a brand-new, not-torn-up business card from Agent Truman.

  Goose bumps peppered my skin as I drew it out. I would’ve looked for him, up and down the street, but I didn’t want to risk facing Cat again, so I pocketed it instead.

  But even as I went inside, the question followed me: how had he known I’d thrown away the other one?

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER NINE

  I REMEMBER ONE TIME, DURING THE SUMMER between my fifth- and sixth-grade years, right before it was time for me to start middle school, when I cried a whole lot. I didn’t know why I was crying so much at the time, because I cried over pretty much everything: TV commercials, melted ice cream, a grass stain on my favorite jeans. But now that I think back on it, it was probably because I was so afraid.

  I was no longer going to be sitting in the same classroom day after day with the same teacher and the same kids for the entire school year. This year, and each year going forward, was going to be all about lockers and choosing electives and showering after gym class and school dances. It was about endless possibility.

  I would be embarking on a year of change, where everything was new and unexpected and . . . terrifying.

  That was how I felt now.

  This house and this family . . . it was all new but not new. Predictable yet unexpected. And utterly, totally, wholly terrifying.

  After Cat had gone I couldn’t shake that feeling. Seeing her again left me feeling squirrelly in my own skin. The stuff with my dad and the stalkery NSA agent made me question where I’d been for the past five years, but it was Cat . . . Cat, who’d driven all the way from Ellensburg to inform me that, whether I liked it or not, she intended to stay my friend, who had me wondering who I was going to be from this point on.

  It was strange to think that she and I no longer had a single thing in common. She had spent the last five years living life, hitting those milestones I’d missed, and maturing in ways I had yet to even comprehend.

  I wasn’t even sure what it was I was supposed to do now. The idea of finishing high school, even if it was only online, was nauseating, yet I knew it would have to be done if I ever planned to grow up—in either the literal or the figurative senses.

  The worst part of the whole thing, though, was that Cat had said the one thing Austin hadn’t. Sure, he said he’d hoped we could stay friends, but I knew the truth: he hadn’t meant it. Not the way Cat had.

  When I finally realized that there weren’t enough Dr Peppers and doughnuts in the world to drown my sorrows, I gave up on them.

  Frustrated, I stripped out of my juvenile T-shirt and pulled on a plain black one instead. And then, because I didn’t have any necklaces or batik scarves to make me feel less . . . sixteen, I took out the only real jacket my mom had gotten me. It had a canvas-like feel and pockets that gave it an almost military look. Not dressy exactly, but not a hoodie either.

  Nothing, though, could convince me to change my Chucks.

  That was how I filled the time between when Cat left and when school got out, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t watching the clock and silently counting down the minutes till Tyler should be home. Or that I wasn’t hoping like mad he’d come see me before I had to fabricate some lame excuse to call him first, because I totally would have. So when his car pulled up in front of his house—not that I was watching from the window or anything—I felt a surge of giddiness. Maybe this day was salvageable after all.

  I’d expected him to go inside first—check in with his mom, drop off his backpack, grab something to eat—all the things Austin used to do after school. So when he started toward my house instead, I got fidgety all over again. I wiped my palms over the front of my jeans, feeling stupid for being nervous all of a sudden. It was just Tyler, after all. What did I expect was going to happen?

  After consulting the mirror one more time and deciding I was as ready as I was ever going to be, I gripped the knob and warned myself to “be cool” as I stood in front of the door and forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. I didn’t want to scare him away with my eagerness.

  But Tyler didn’t come to the door. We had a thing now, and instead of knocking, I heard him tapping on my bedroom window.

  I raced across the house to my bedroom and saw him waving at me from the other side of my window. Trying to tell myself it was no big deal that he was here, I opened it and shot him my best I-wasn’t-expecting-you face.

  “Let’s get outta here,” he announced without any preamble.

  His invitation caught me by surprise, and my inner voice abandoned me altogether. I forgot all about playing it cool, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I even understood what that phrase meant. “Totally,” I breathed, before climbing over the windowsill and dropping onto the soft ground below.

  As if he was worried I might fall, Tyler reached out to steady me. He caught me by the waist because he didn’t know I’d done this a thousand times before. But I let him believe I needed his help. I let his fingers close around my hips and pretended I needed him to keep me balanced because I liked the way they felt. His hands. On me.

  “Thanks.” I took longer than necessary to stand upright, but eventually I had no other choice. I couldn’t let him think the leap—or his touch—had somehow crippled me.

  I’d been so focused on Tyler, and when he’d be home, that I’d nearly forgotten all about Agent Truman and his reappearing business card. But now that I was standing outside, in the open, I found myself searching for the dogged agent, for some sign that he was out here. Following me.

  Except then I saw Tyler, holding his car door open for me again, and I realized it really was just the two of us, that there was no one else. I sighed and let myself forget all about superspies and crazy dads, and everything else that had turned my day to total crap.

&nbs
p; “You look nice,” Tyler told me, flashing his incredible smile at me when he got in.

  “Thanks. Just letting my mom dress me up, like a Barbie doll.” I grinned slyly. “It was this or the holiday-sparkle gown. It’s pretty fancy. I think you’da liked it.”

  Laughing, he pulled his car away from the curb. “I think you made the right call. Not sure you’d fit in wearing a ball gown.” Tyler grinned. “But I like the new you.”

  I wanted to laugh, too, but instead I smiled weakly. The new me. That was the thing. I was the same; it was everyone else who’d changed.

  “Yeah? Where we going?” I asked. Surreptitiously, so he wouldn’t notice, I pulled my phone out and noted the time. It was 3:11.

  “I figured I’d get you out of the house before the neighbors start to think you’re some kind of shut-in or something.” He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel while he drove, and I wasn’t sure if it was a habit or if I made him nervous. I hoped it was that last thing, because I’d hate to think it only went one way.

  “Shut-in? I’ve only been home for five days, and I’ve barely been there. Pretty sure I don’t qualify as a shut-in.”

  He shrugged. “Then I guess I thought you might want to grab some coffee with me.” Cocking his head, he shot me a look. “Did they even have coffee in your day? ’Cause we could go someplace else. Maybe split a root beer float or something.”

  I shoved him. “Okay, smart-ass. Coffee’s good.” I laughed, and wondered if he’d watched the clock half as much as I had today.

  The coffee shop he took me to was cute, not a Starbucks or Seattle’s Best Coffee—the kinds of corporate places Cat and I had sworn off because Cat had convinced me they were “bastardizing” the coffee culture. Austin had gone along with our boycott because he liked making out with me, but I’m not sure why any of us thought getting our coffee from the Gas ’n’ Sip was any more humanitarian. It was a gas station, after all.

  After ordering, Tyler dragged me to a spot in the back where we found a table away from all the noise. It was quieter and less crowded than near the counter, where people were coming and going, and the espresso machine hissed, and there was the constant banging as the baristas replaced old grounds with fresh ones. Tyler leaned forward, over the top of his double-shot mocha, and studied me pensively. “I’m sorry about the other day,” he blurted out. “About how I acted when Austin came by.”

  My eyebrows squeezed together. My chest squeezed even tighter. I’d thought about it more times than I could count, but I guess I hadn’t really expected him to apologize. “It’s okay . . .” I started, and then realized the thing about Tyler was that I could talk to him. I’d nearly forgotten how good it felt just to be near him. How he didn’t act like my feelings didn’t count, and that I shouldn’t rock the boat. “It sucked, really. All this time I’ve been back, all I thought I wanted was to see him, and then when I did . . .” I shook my head. “It wasn’t at all what I thought it’d be. He was . . . he was a jerk. He didn’t really care about me or what I was going through; he just came over to . . . make himself feel better, I guess. He didn’t even ask how I’ve been . . . or where I was the whole time I was gone.” I looked across the table to Tyler, who was just sitting there, listening. To me. “And then you got home, and all I could think was how you would’ve asked me those things. But you looked so upset, and I felt like a jerk for not stopping you when you went inside.” He didn’t try to console me or interrupt me or tell me that I was wrong to have the feelings I had, the way Austin would have. He just let me unload on him, and it was so . . . freeing. I kept going. “And then today, I had such a shitty day, and instead of going home after school, you came right over.” I stopped talking when I realized I’d just confessed to spying on him. My cheeks felt like they might burst into flames, and I bit my lip before I said anything more incriminating.

  His expression shifted from wistful concern to amusement in a blink. He grinned at me, obviously not about to let my slip pass that easily. “You were watching me?”

  I made a face at him. “Whatever. I noticed you were home, that’s all. Not that strange, considering I live across the street, you know?”

  “And you just happened to be looking out your window at the exact moment I got home. . . . That seems a little strange. C’mon, admit it. You were waiting for me.”

  “Uh, no,” I insisted, perfectly fine with the fact that I was lying through my teeth. “I was looking out the window, and I happened to see you. The end. But it’s awesome you think I have nothing better to do all day than to sit around thinking about you.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his smile so wide, and his dimple so deep, he looked positively full of himself. When had little Tyler grown into this guy who oozed such confidence? And how could I have ever thought of him as little? “Okay,” he allowed, but there was nothing in his tone to suggest that he believed a single word I’d said. “If you say so.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but my cheeks got even hotter. Lifting my plain-old ordinary drip coffee to my lips, I took a sip, hiding behind the cup for as long as possible.

  “It was hard . . . seeing Austin again. Seeing how much he’s changed and knowing the things I know . . . about him and Cat.” And then I set down my cup again and confessed, “But it was worse today. I saw Cat.”

  I didn’t know if this was too weird to share all this with him. Even though I felt something—whatever it was—for Tyler, I couldn’t ignore the history I’d had with Austin. Austin had walked away from our past years ago, but it didn’t stop the weight that had settled deep in the pit of my stomach, that felt heavier each and every time I thought of what we’d once had together.

  Tyler was great and all, but he was just a distraction. A really adorable distraction.

  At least that’s what I told myself.

  “I know.” He set his phone on the table between us as if he was confessing something with it. “She called after she saw you, to see if I was out of school yet. She was crying, and I think she just wanted someone to talk to. She said almost the same things about seeing you.” He shrugged and leaned forward again. His voice was shades more thoughtful than it had been when he’d been teasing me about watching him.

  It was what made me feel comfortable confiding in him—that serious way of his, that quiet maturity. “She said you hadn’t changed a bit. I guess that made it worse for some reason, because she said she wanted everything to be the same as before. She . . .” He paused and frowned, and I wondered if he was recalling his conversation, filtering parts of it and deciding what he should and shouldn’t tell me. Holding back. “She wishes her and Austin could undo what they did.”

  My heart lurched. I wished for that too. So badly it was probably written all over my face.

  I looked at Tyler, sitting across from me with his messy hair and concerned expression. He watched me without judging me, or asking anything from me I wasn’t capable of giving, or making me feel guilty for not acting a certain way or believing things I couldn’t believe. He was just here to help me figure out who I was and how I fit into this new world I’d been dropped into.

  I hated that I found it harder and harder to hold on to my feelings for Austin, not to let them be eclipsed by these new and uninvited feelings Tyler had stirred in me.

  “But they can’t, can they?” I admitted. Emptiness filled my chest.

  He shook his head. “They’re not bad people, Kyra. It wasn’t an accident, them getting together, but it wasn’t malicious either. I was there. I was young, but I was around when it happened. Austin was a wreck after you vanished.”

  Tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked to keep them at bay. Tyler’s hand reached for mine, to where I clutched the warm coffee cup as if it were the only thing in the world keeping me tethered to the ground at the moment. He stopped himself, right before he touched me, his fingers hovering so close I had only to twitch to close the gap between us.

  And I wanted to. To feel his touch again. To let our fingers int
ertwine. To let him comfort me the way I longed to be comforted.

  It wouldn’t take much, and when I saw the way he was watching our hands, too, I could see him offering me all that and more. He wanted it as badly as I did.

  I cleared my throat, inching my coffee just the slightest bit closer to me and creating a chasm between us that felt unbreachable. “So what happened then? How could they have just forgotten about me? How did they end up . . . where they are . . . together?”

  His hands stayed where they were. “I can’t say for sure, but if I had to guess I’d say it was all the time they spent together—searching for you, talking about you, waiting for you. You were the glue that held them together at first. You were what kept them from drifting apart. And later, when they realized—when everyone insisted—you weren’t coming back, I think they stayed together because it was . . . easy.” Regret washed over his face. “It might not have been love back then, but it is now.”

  His words sliced me, not because I hadn’t known the truth. Of course I had. I’d known from the moment Cat had answered Austin’s phone that night, when I’d realized they’d gone away to college together. But hearing him say it out loud, and maybe because I knew it wasn’t any easier for him to say than it was for me to hear it, was more than I could stand right now.

  I shook my head, blinking furiously, trying to tell him to stop without words because my voice was lodged deep in my throat. And he did. He fell silent as I struggled to gain some of the composure I’d lost.

  That was when my gaze landed on the boy in the corner, the one sitting at the table with his back to the wall, facing us. I stopped shaking my head. Stopped moving and blinking and breathing.

  It was him again. The boy from the gas station, and from the bookstore too.

  Just like this morning at the Gas ’n’ Sip, when I’d been standing at the counter to pay, he wasn’t looking at me or anything, and he didn’t appear out of place in the quaint, brick-walled coffee shop. But he was there nonetheless, and I had the strangest sensation that it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d been at all of those places, the only three public places I’d been without my parents since I’d been back.