Slow Motion by Jennifer Pierce

Author:Jennifer Pierce [Pierce, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789651409
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2021-01-20T22:00:00+00:00

16

“Do you think this blizzard is actually going to happen?”

Max stopped in the middle of the street and tilted his head up toward the sky. Lucie snapped a picture. His silhouette against the bare, gray-brown skeletons of the woods and the wintery sky in the distance, almost a pale lilac.

“Everyone was panicking at work this morning. We were already sold out of bread and milk when I left,” he said.

“I hope they cancel school tomorrow,” Lucie said. “If they do, let’s go sledding at Pembroke Hill. We haven’t done that in years.”

They moved to the edge of the grass as a truck rattled down the road, spreading salt all over the potholed pavement. Smoke drifted out of the chimneys. Owen could taste snow in the air. They continued to the edge of the neighborhood where the woods began, sipping coffee from the travel mugs they’d filled up at Declan’s house. The ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, duller now than weeks ago when they’d glowed like jewels around gray roads and white steeples.

“Stop posing,” Lucie called to Max and Declan, who had walked ahead of them and paused to pose, smiling, atop a pile of leaves. “I want these to look more candid.”

They laughed and Lucie took a picture, catching them in the moment. Scarves and hair fluttering in the gusty air. All that faded color at their feet.

Lucie sat down on the remains of an old stone wall to look through the pictures she’d already taken as Max and Declan kept walking. Owen sat beside her, looking over her shoulder. Lucie was in the same photography class as Angela, he remembered. He wondered what she was doing for this assignment. They hadn’t spoken since she’d called him after the gala.

He felt like he was still holding his breath, waiting for her to destroy him somehow. He’d heard that she’d broken up with Dillon and tried to stop wondering what that meant.

“You’re quiet today,” said Lucie.

“Just tired,” Owen lied.

She looked at him, shut her camera off. “Is everything okay? You haven’t seemed like yourself in a while.”

“I’m just stressed about school and college applications,” he offered, which wasn’t entirely a lie this time. Just an omission. The Walcott decisions were due to come out within the next few weeks and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Lucie gave him a sympathetic smile. “Did you apply to Enfield yet?”

“I did.”

“Me too.” Lucie stood up and reached her hand out to Owen, pulling him to his feet. Leaves crunched beneath their shoes as they started walking, following Max and Declan. “So there’s nothing we can do now, right? We just have to wait.”

“That’s the worst part.” That and keeping so many secrets.

“You put too much pressure on yourself,” Lucie said, frowning a little. She’d told him that so many times but he’d never seen her look so serious about it.

“So you’re just not stressed about this at all?”

“A little,” Lucie admitted. “Who wouldn’t be? But the way you’re always pushing yourself … it seems like it’s more than that.

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