She stopped, and for a long—I mean a really long—time we were both quiet. I thought that was it, that I’d pushed her away, too, like my dad. But then she laughed. “Okay, well, just because you say we’re not best friends anymore doesn’t make it true.”
I looked up, and I saw the person she was now. The person Austin went away to school with . . . and was probably living with. That he was definitely-positively-for-sure in love with, because how could he not love Cat. She was everything I wasn’t, and just because I had no idea what was cool anymore, I knew that this Cat was the epitome of all things cool, right down to her knee-high, lace-up boots and her knotted batik scarf.
I loved her even while I hated her. “You might not want to be my friend,” she declared vehemently. “But you will always, forever, be mine. So don’t be stupid, of course I was planning to come here and see you.”
Cat blurred out of focus. 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?
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.