The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

Author:Mindy McGinnis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

28. JACK

We are running.

When Alex asked if I’d meet her at the track, I said yes without caring about the temperature, or that it’s supposed to snow, or that it was going to be dark in just a few hours—a fact Mom yelled after me as I rushed out the door, grabbing my coat. Alex was leaning against her car when I got to the school and we took a few laps without talking, our legs finding the same stride perfectly comfortable as we looped once, twice, and then again, our footfalls still the only sound passing between us.

When she breaks away from the track and shoots for a path into the woods I go with her, keeping the quiet intact. The path meets a gravel road and she follows it, me taking a wider stride for the beat of a second to draw alongside her. The road arcs slightly under our feet, the rise not visible to the eye but felt in the burn of my calves. I toss a glance sideways but she is lost in movement, brow furrowed and cheeks a blazing red from the cold.

The woods suddenly fall away on our right and she nudges my shoulder with her own, the first contact we’ve had the whole time. I follow her unspoken instruction, taking the grass-covered drive that leads to the last thing I expected to see.

A graveyard.

Alex stops, puts her hands on top of her head, and breathes in deeply. “Sorry,” she finally heaves.

“I can keep up,” I say, even though I’m sucking more wind than she is.

“No.” She waves one hand at the stones in front of us. “Sorry that I didn’t warn you I use a graveyard as a turnaround.”

I shrug. “It’s fine.” Our words are weightless, none of them carrying any of the importance they have in the past.

“Rest for a minute?” she asks, walking toward a bench. I nod and follow her, sitting near her but not next to her. The inches of air in between us could be filled with concrete. The sun is sinking and the last bits of warmth are leaving the air, letting the cold in. I scratch my nose, suddenly bothered by it.

“Sorry,” I say. “My nose itches.”

“It’s okay.”

“Doesn’t it mean someone is talking about you if your nose itches?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s if your ears are ringing.”

“That’s it. My dad always said if you pull on your earlobe the person talking about you will bite their tongue.”

Alex stiffens and I realize that I just said earlobe, and now we’re both picturing large red drops of Ray Parsons’s blood on the dusty floor of the church, his chain hanging from her hand.

“I hate that we’re talking about stupid things,” she says, kicking the toe of her shoe into the little pockets of snow scattered in the grass.

I grab her hand, breaking the wall between us and linking our freezing fingers. “I hate it too,” I say.

She looks at me for a second, her eyes roaming over my face in search of something.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.