They'll Never Catch Us

by Jessica Goodman

  “Is she . . . okay?” someone asked.

  I opened my mouth to respond, to shout, No, but no words came out.

  “She’s awake. She’s breathing.” Lilly stooped beside me and pushed my hair out of my eyes. She looked at me with a tender mix of horror and concern. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered. She turned away and motioned for Jade to come over and squat beside me. They each wrapped their hands around my arms and pulled me up so I was sitting on the rock.

  Lilly asked me a series of questions that sounded garbled, like we were underwater. But I remember trusting her. Whatever she said, I trusted her.

  “She ruined it,” someone muttered, off to the side.

  “Dude, you could have killed her,” Lilly said to Calvin.

  I shook my head, but that hurt more than anything. I must have winced because Lilly took my hand in hers and started speaking. “I think you have a concussion.” She looked me up and down. “Some bruises, too. Bad ones. But you’re gonna be okay.”

  “What are we gonna tell Coach?” someone asked.

  Calvin widened his stance. “That she fell and we took care of her, that’s all.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lilly said. “Look at her!”

  “The terrain is wild and super steep,” Calvin said. “He knows that. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re just trying to save your own ass,” Lilly said.

  “Lilly, come on. You’re captain. You think Coach is going to be okay with this happening on your watch?”

  Lilly turned to me, crumpled on the ground. “Shit.” She bent over and took my hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, Stella.”

  Everyone was quiet and started packing up, stuffing portable speakers and glow sticks into their empty running backpacks, and before I had a chance to do or say anything, everyone was racing again as they sprinted the final mile back to the finish line.

  I followed behind them, forcing my body to move. I kept my gaze on Lilly as she looked over her shoulder, making sure I was still moving. I was too broken to feel the shame of finishing in last place and didn’t even mind when Coach slapped me on the back so hard I thought my knees would give out.

  “Next time, kid,” he said, totally unaware of what had transpired.

  That day showed me the whole team thing was bullshit. It was impossible to rely on anyone but yourself. I thought I could keep it a secret. I really did. But a few days later, Coach called me into his office and asked me why I was stumbling at practice, why I seemed out of it. I broke down, wet, sloppy tears spilling down my face.

  “Stella, spit it out,” he said, arms crossed. “Did something happen at Longshot?”

  I nodded but the words were caught in my throat.

  “Look, I know the seniors can be a little rough on you,” he said, his tone sweetening just a bit. “You can tell me, Stella.” I looked up at him and his eyes were kind for once, like he cared about me as a person, not just as a number, a pair of fast legs.

  “Calvin,” I started. “He pushed me on the course.” I tried to find a way to tell him about the drinking, the party, the way no one else seemed to care that they were all wasting their precious time sucking down alcohol and twisting their bodies to the beat of the music. But something stopped me. Coach didn’t need to know all of that.

  “Calvin Parker?” he asked, like he couldn’t believe it.

  I pulled up the back of my shirt, so he could see the purple bruise that had spread across my skin.

  Coach cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “I’ll have a word. Take tomorrow off, and I’ll see you Monday ready to rip, got it?”

  But everything changed after that. No one spoke to me at practice for the rest of the year. Not even Lilly. I was a leper.Coach’s girl.

  Mom and Dad freaked when Coach told them what happened and there was a heated meeting between them, the Parkers, and Principal Pérez. But we all knew Calvin would only get a slap on the wrist. After all, his dad is Detective Parker—the same guy who still runs the police department even though he bungled the cold cases.

  Calvin was forced to skip a meet and a few weeks of practice. By the time he got back on the course, his PR had dipped, his focus rattled. He still got to go to Michigan but he only lasted half a season before they cut him from the team. Heard that one through whispers on the course.

  It was only last year, when Detective Parker was questioning me about Allison Tarley, that I realized he still held the whole thing against me.

  12

  ELLIE

  A soft glow emanates from Johnson Tavern, the restaurant at Ellacoya, on Wednesday night when I arrive to meet Mila. We had been assigned to work on a history project together, which kind of broke the ice on the whole I told you I had an abortion even though I barely know you thing.

  “Why don’t you meet me there after my shift and we can figure out what we’re gonna do?” she said, leaning over my desk earlier today.

  I really didn’t want to run into Tamara, but Mila was looking at me with those big, hopeful eyes, and I realized none of this was her fault. I said yes. Maybe I wanted to punish myself for being the other girl or torture myself by being in Tamara’s presence on her turf. Or maybe I was just tired of fighting. I don’t know. For whatever reason, that’s how I end up walking toward Johnson Tavern just after dark.

  The night is crisp and chilly, and I bury my fingers deep inside the fuzzy pockets of my fleece. The resort is quiet since it’s midweek. Even though fall is peak season for city people to come up and leaf peep, pick pumpkins, and drink cider, no one ever seems to do so before Friday. Suckers. They miss out on all the stillness. The way the trees rustle gently in the night. And how the moon hangs low, rolling out its blanket of stars like a canvas.

  As I approach the restaurant, I tilt my head up and listen for the faint sounds of cutlery bumping up against itself, plates hitting reclaimed farm tables, and benches scratching against the wood floor. The big gray building is warm and inviting with high ceilings and thick rafters. Raised beds full of gourds and pumpkins line the porch next to rocking chairs filled with guests waiting for their tables.

  I’ve been here a few times with my family over the years, for Mom’s birthday or Father’s Day. But Bethany’s parents had a standing reservation. Every Friday at seven p.m. until they moved. I joined them a few times, always marveling at the mounds of smoked fish her mom, Sally, ordered to start. She would slather a piece of dark toast with a creamy trout dip, dotting the mountain with a spoonful of bright red roe.

  “Heavenly,” she’d say with a full mouth, before reaching for a glass of white wine. What was a luxe breakfast in our house was her starter.

  Bethany didn’t get along with her mom for the usual reasons. She didn’t let Bethany have a cell phone until high school and grounded her when we dyed Bethany’s bangs pink in eighth grade. But I always liked Sally and her husband, Doug, both of whom worked at some fancy law firm over in New Paltz. They were normal. Simple. They always came to our cross country meets, and patted Bethany on the back even when she didn’t place, which was often. “As long as you had fun, kid,” Doug would say. And she did. That’s why Bethany ran. She never expected to beat me, and I never expected her to move a million miles away.

  She broke the news to me on the last day of school in the spring, appearing at my locker with her green eyes ringed in red, like she’d been crying.

  “My dad’s being transferred to Ann Arbor,” she said in her high-pitched voice. “We have to leave next week.” It was all she could say before she broke into tears.

  I don’t remember much about the conversation, just that it felt like all the air had been let out of my lungs. Later, we sucked on Popsicles in my backyard, dipping our toes into the pool. “I wonder what your new friends will be like,” I said as a sticky red trail dripped down my thumb.

  “What new friends?” she said, pushi
ng her aviator-style sunglasses up her nose. “I’ll be too busy missing you.” She knocked her shoulder with mine.

  “Ugh,” I said. “Please don’t go.” I sniffled to try and stop the tears from coming.

  “You’ll be fine,” she said. “By this time next year you’ll be best friends with Tamara Johnson, dating some hot senior, and lapping your sister on the cross country course.”

  “I just want you to stay.”

  But when we said goodbye in her driveway a week later, Bethany seemed excited, not sad. Someone from her new school had DM’d her, she said. The girl was her “welcome buddy.” I tried to be happy for her. I really did. Especially as the summer progressed, when she would only respond to my texts late at night, after a day full of tubing or hiking with her new friends. She was never available to talk on the phone. I only let her go when she finally called me back, days after I had taken my second pill from the doctor in Newburgh.

  “About time,” I said, scoffing into the phone.

  “Oh, come on, Ell,” Bethany said, her voice annoyed and far away.

  “I really need you,” I said. “You’re supposed to be my best friend, but you’re never around. I just . . . I need you, okay?”

  “What could possibly have happened?” Bethany asked. But before I could answer, she said, “One sec, Ell.” I could hear her cover the phone and laugh to someone else beside her. “This’ll only take a minute,” she said to someone else. That’s what broke me.

  “This will not take a minute, B. It’s like ever since you moved away I’m a ghost to you.”

  “Jeez, when did you get so needy, Ellie?” Bethany’s voice sharpened and I knew then that our friendship would never go back to the way it had been, that there was no way I was going to tell her about the abortion.

  “Forget it.” We hung up and haven’t spoken since. After a few weeks of school without an anchor or a best friend, I can finally admit it sucks.

  Especially now.

  I plop down on a bench outside of Johnson Tavern and wait for Mila, trying hard not to think about Bethany and her mom shoving smoked fish into her face.

  “What are you doing here?” I turn my head and see Tamara standing at the kitchen’s side entrance, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Her braids are tied in a thick, tall coil on top of her head and she’s wearing her server’s uniform, a chambray button-down and high-waisted jeans.

  “I’m waiting for Mila,” I say. “She said to come by. We’re partners for AP US History. Sorry, I . . .” I stand and start to gather my things, my cheeks hot with shame.

  Tamara’s mouth puckers but she doesn’t ask me to leave. She takes a step toward me. “Look,” she says. “I just want to say that I get that things must be tough for you since Bethany left, but that doesn’t mean you can go around getting drunk and making a scene. You were such a mess at homecoming.”

  My face burns and I try to find the words. But I don’t even know what they are. Your boyfriend’s an asshole who was cheating on you all summer seems to be the most appropriate. So does I was his willing sidepiece and now I feel like shit about it. But it’s easier to lie. “You’re right,” I say. “I’m really sorry. I guess I’m just kinda lonely without a best friend anymore.”

  Tamara crosses her arms over her chest. “That must be really tough.”

  I know she means it, too, because she’s never been without one. She and Julia have always been a unit, and once they took Raven into the fold, that was that.

  “I seriously hope that was a one-time thing,” Tamara says. “No one has time for that garbage.”

  “It was,” I say, quiet.

  “Well, good thing you’re hanging out with Mila now. She’s the best. We take all our breaks together. Maybe we should all go for a run together sometime?”

  Having to lie to Tamara over and over again turns my stomach. I don’t know how Noah does it. But, well, yes, I do. I’ve seen him do it every damn day. I learned what a great liar he is over the summer, one Wednesday in July. He and I were supposed to close down Sweetwater Lake for the day, which led to some messing around in the lifeguarding shed. Noah had pushed me up against the wall of floats and his hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my thighs, creeping into the bottom of my bathing suit. That’s when we heard her.

  “Noah?” Tamara called. She was just outside the shed.

  “Shit,” Noah whispered into my neck. He stepped back and I could see the fear in his eyes. “Get yourself together,” he said. “Quick.”

  Shame crept into my stomach but I did as he said, pulling on my jean shorts and smoothing down my hair. Noah emerged from the shed first and I could hear him greeting her in a bouncy voice. I followed him out of the door.

  “Hi, Tamara!” I said, smiling wide. “Haven’t seen you much around here this summer.”

  Tamara’s eyes narrowed and she looked at me quizzically, then to Noah, then back to me. “Yeah, Ellacoya’s been super busy this season. We’ve got weddings every other weekend.”

  Noah nodded and we all shifted awkwardly in the silence.

  “What were you guys up to?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Noah shrugged. “Closing up for the day. We had to retie a bunch of the buoys, so it took a while. Right, Ellie?”

  My insides melted and I wanted to dissolve into air, to tell Tamara the truth. But I lied, just like Noah. “Yep.”

  Tamara winced. “Ugh, that’s so annoying,” she said. “If you’re done, we were gonna go to Sweet Tooth for cones. Wanna join?”

  “I should be getting home,” I said, avoiding Noah’s gaze, his relief. She didn’t push it and they left me alone to lock the shed with shaking hands, trying to figure out why it was so easy for Noah to lie. He’d been able to pull an excuse out of thin air, like it was nothing. But I did too, I realized. Wasn’t I just as bad?

  Now, outside Johnson Tavern, Tamara looks at me with those same inviting eyes. I just want to tell her the truth. The main entrance opens with a creak and Mila appears in her hostess uniform, a linen blazer and the same high-waisted jeans as Tamara. “Chef gave me a doggie bag,” she says. Her face is flushed from the warm dining room and she’s carrying a small paper bag with the Johnson Tavern logo stamped on the front.

  “Ooh, I hope it’s the chicken livers with apples,” Tamara says. “Or the burrata and beets. Both are in season right now. So good.”

  Mila laughs. “Smoked trout, actually. With the pumpernickel bread.”

  Tamara brings her fingers to her mouth and makes a kissing noise. “A classic. Bethany’s mom used to get that every week, right, Ellie?”

  “Mm-hm,” I say. “She loved it.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to share,” Mila says. I force a smile, but my stomach sinks. I can’t believe this is my new life. One where I blurted out my biggest secret to my competition, who is also becoming friends with my secret ex-boyfriend’s actual girlfriend. How did this happen?

  13

  STELLA

  Ellie’s already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her phone in hand, when I rush down the stairs on Friday morning. She’s wearing one of her I look cute outfits, a cropped sweater over a short denim skirt, even though it’s too cold for bare legs now.

  “You’re awake,” I say with genuine surprise.

  Ellie sips from a mug in front of her and doesn’t look up from her phone. “Coffee’s still hot,” she says.

  “You know I don’t drink coffee on race day.”

  “It’s Longshot,” she says, as if that changes anything. “It’s not really a race.”

  We went through this last year, Ellie’s inability to understand why I still don’t partake in the ridiculous ritual of running a mile, partying, then running a mile back to Coach with boozy breath. At least no one tackled me last year. That’s what happens when you become the best, when people get scared of you.

>   I look at Ellie closely as she scrolls through her phone. Worry lines form between her eyes and she’s wearing more makeup than usual. Something’s off but there’s no point in asking. She won’t tell me.

  “You look like a clown,” I say. Ellie lifts her gaze and her mouth, painted pink, puckers, like she’s bitten into a lemon.

  “You’re mean.”

  “What else is new?”

  “God, you know, sometimes I wish I had a sister who was actually nice to me,” she says, anger rising in her voice.

  “Well,” I say. “You have me.”

  Ellie snorts. “Fucking hell.”

  “Come on. I’ll drive you.”

  When we get to school, I weave into the only parking spot left, and unfortunately it’s right next to Julia’s rose-gold SUV.

  “So tacky,” Ellie says.

  “Seriously.”

  Ellie pretends like she’s going to puke and then laughs. I relax, relieved that being sisters means it’s always so easy to get over a fight, to toggle between annoyance and intimacy.

  Julia opens her door and makes a grossed-out face when she sees us. “Well, if it isn’t the loony tunes,” she says. “Cute, right? I made that up.”

  “So cute,” I say. “Just the cutest.”

  Julia smiles in a satisfied way that makes me uneasy. “Excited for Longshot?” she asks.

  “Sure, Julia,” I say, trying to move past her.

  “I mean, we know you’re the only one who runs it,” she says, shaking her blown-out hair over her shoulders. “But I guess you need the practice these days, especially if you’re going to try to get Georgetown to pay attention to you instead of Mila.”