The Geography of You and Me by Smith Jennifer E

Author:Smith, Jennifer E. [E. SMITH, JENNIFER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316254779
Publisher: Poppy
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

12

December was already six days old, and this was the first time that Lucy had seen it in daylight. Every morning she rode the bus in the dark, the sun rising around half past eight, when she was already inside the brick school building, and then setting again around three thirty, just as she burst out the doors and into the early dusk.

But today was Saturday, and though the light only broke through the clouds in thin patches, and though she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt underneath her coat, compared to the past few weeks, it still felt a bit like being at the beach, and she closed her eyes and tipped her head back to soak it in.

When the crowd around her began to cheer, her eyes flickered open again, and she squinted at the figures on the pitch, trying to make sense of it all. A girl from school named Imogen, who had an uncle that lived in Chicago, kept leaning over to explain the rules of rugby by way of football terminology: a try was like a touchdown, a fly-half was like a quarterback, a ruck was like a tackle. Lucy didn’t have the heart to explain to her that she didn’t know much about football, either.

The boys on the pitch were all wearing shorts, though it was the middle of winter, and their legs were pink blurs as they sprinted up and down the field, pausing to kick the ball at mystifying moments, hoisting each other in the air to try to catch a wild throw, forming knot-like scrums that were all kicking and shoving and never seemed to accomplish anything. The girls from school—friends of hers, she supposed, if you were using the term fairly broadly—sat on either side of her, their eyes darting back and forth, riveted by the game and apparently immune to the cold. Lucy did her best to keep her eyes pinned to Liam, but she kept losing him amid all the other boys in striped jerseys.

When the game ended, he came jogging over, and Lucy could feel the girls around her practically vibrating with the excitement of it all. He was a year older than them, a sixth year, and the rumor was that he had a good shot of making the Scotland Under-18 rugby squad, which was a training ground for the national team. When Lucy had asked him about this early on, he’d only shrugged.

“Sounds like a long shot to me,” he said, but she could see the way he glowed, and she knew it must be true.

Now she walked over to the edge of the pitch to meet him. His cheeks were ruddy and he was covered in mud, from his knees to his shirt to his face, which was positively freckled with it. He jokingly held out his arms for a bear hug, and Lucy laughed and ducked away.

“It’s hard to tell from your shirt that you guys won,” she said.

“Those other lads came off a lot worse,” he said, jabbing a finger over his shoulder.

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