Megan scowls at me and I get that feeling, the squiggly feeling, I push my fingers into my eyes.
The gym teacher grabs me by the elbow and barks at me, "You okay? You have low blood pressure or something?"
I run a hand through my hair. Issie stops stretching and stares at me. Everyone seems to be staring at me.
I feel a little ophthalmophobic, which is a very normal phobia, where people are afraid of being stared at.
"Yeah, I'm good," I lie.
Coach Walsh trains steely eyes on me and lets go of my elbow. "Okay, line up then."
We all line up except for this guy in a wheelchair, Devyn. He smiles at me when I line up, introduces himself. He has a movie star smile, just white teeth and charisma, big eyes, dark skin. He'd be perfect looking if he didn't have such a large nose, but the truth is it looks good on him, natural and powerful. He winks at Issie, who blushes.
"You can do it, Is," he says.
She rolls her eyes, twists her lip, and says, "As long as I don't pass out."
"If you pass out, I'll put you in my lap and wheel you across the finish line," he says, and it somehow isn't sleazy because you can tell by his eyes how much he cares about Issie, I instantly like him.
She blushes worse. Her face looks like she's already sprinted a mile.
I bounce on my feet, crazy happy for a chance to run, even if itis inside, even if the perfect, plastic, Megan Crowley is there, glaring at me. Ian stands next to her with a half smile on his face.
"Think you're a runner or something?" She flips her hair down and then back into a ponytail, which again accentuates her perfect cheekbones. "Nice shirt."
I shrug.
Ian wiggles his eyebrows. "She looks like a runner to me." His words don't seem real. They seem flat, like he's playing at flirting with me. This is probably a continuing side effect of my dad's death: the feeling that nothing is real. I touch the thread on my finger.
Megan arches a perfect eyebrow. "Maybe she ran in whatever little southern hole she crawled out of, but not up here. We're a different breed of runner up here. Plus, how can anyone possibly run on such short little legs?"
"Don't be mean, Megan," Issie says. "It's so much cooler to be nice."
Megan lashes at her. "Like you know what it is to be cool."
My hands close into fists and I try to think of something to say but all my words seem to be stuck somewhere near my heart. Then another voice comes from behind us, a low growl type of voice, full of deepness. I recognize it right away and the little hairs on my arm arch up into the air.
"Issie's beyond cool," Nick Colt says. He puts a hand on Issie's shoulder. She smiles at him. She's friends with the MINI Cooper guy? Are they dating? Please, God. Do not let them be dating.
He turns to perfect Megan. "You worried, Megan? Think she could be faster than you?"
Nick Colt smiles at her, but there's no warmth in it and it makes me shudder. It's the smile of a predator.
Okay, it's the smile of a really incredible-looking predator with a really nice jaw line, I shake my head to gel that image out of it. No, he has the smile of a bad driver, someone who makes my body scream, "Danger! Stay away!"
Wow. I am such a liar.
He has the smile of gorgeous. He taunts her a little bit. "She might be faster…"
"Yeah, right." Megan arches down to touch her toes. She moves like a cat, graceful, like she's thought about how each muscle will look as she moves. "Like she'd worry me."
Something like anger rises up from the pit inside me, dark and haughty. I am so not used to feeling that way. I'm not used to feeling anything except numb, but this Megan girl, she just does something to me.
The air in the gym cools down, getting fierce, like it's waiting for something to happen, like a fight. I am really not about to let something happen. I am not about to make the world more full of hate.
My dad used to quote Booker T. Washington to me, along with some other cool people. But it is the Booker T. quote that sticks in my mind right now. Booker T. once said, "I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
I fake smile, pretend I am a white-girl Booker T., and say in as nice a voice as I can manage, "I'm not trying to worry you, Megan."
She turns her face toward me, her eyes fierce and focused. "Good. You don't."
Issie grabs my elbow and gives me worried eyes. Megan pretends we suddenly don't exist and moves closer to a group of blond girls, the class cutie brigade, I figure. Nick and Ian eye each other, like dogs squaring off, measuring each other up. Ian looks away first, bending to tighten his laces.
Nick smiles at me, a much nicer smile. A real smile? "You've already made friends."
"Good one," I say, shifting my weight between my feet. "Ha-ha. Funny."
Issie perks up and locks her arm in mine. "That's right, Nick. Zara's doing fine. I'm her friend."
He nods. This time his smile seems even warmer, even more real. "Good, Issie. I should have known."
"Known what?" I ask, but nobody answers me. So I try a new tactic and whisper to Is, "Are you dating him?"
Her head jerks up. "Devyn?"
"No. Nick."
She starts laughing. "Nope. No interest there at all."
Devyn lifts his head to stare into Nick's face. He drums his fingers against the armrests of the wheelchair.
"You find out anything?"
Nick shakes his head.
The coach comes to the starting line and gives Devyn a stopwatch and clipboard. "You guys ready? This is serious stuff here. Run all-out. Do your best."
Nick leans toward me and whispers. His breath is warm against the side of my face. "He has a bet with all the other PE teachers in the county. If we don't have the best average time, he has to buy everyone strudel."
"Strudel?"
Nick raises his hands in the air. "I have no idea."
"The PE teachers are into strudel," Issie says. "I'm not sure why. It's so gooey."
"Gooey is good," Nick says, "Seriously?" I ask him. "You like strudel."
"I like a lot of things that aren't good for me." He smiles slowly at me. My mouth must be hanging open because he starts laughing.
"You made her blush!" Issie says. "Don't blush, Zara. He's just teasing."
Coach Walsh blows the whistle and we take off. A lot of the girls just jog, but Megan Crowley bolts, and I dash after her, hating how cute and long her legs look as she runs with a perfect stride, her feet swinging low and quick. Does Nick notice how perfect she is? Why do I even care? Megan turns her head and flashes a smile at me. It is not a friendly smile. What is wrong with that girl? What is wrong with me?
"Go get her," Issie huffs out. Her form is all off. She's loping and too loose, her arms flapping everywhere. "Don't wait for me."
"But…"
"I'm not much of a distance runner, more of a sprinter." She smiles apologetically. "More of a walker, really."
We haven't even gone a quarter of a mile and lssie's face is already red "Go. Catch her."
She smiles and waves me away.
Then she adds, "You know you want to."
I pick up my pace, easily catching up to Megan. I flash her my own version of the evil-Megan, super-unfriendly smile and pass her at the quarter-mile mark.
Let me just say that there's nothing better than running fast. There's nothing better than the way your legs feel when you stretch out to sprinting speed and you know that your lungs and heart can sustain it.
My running shoes pound over the red track and I start to catch up to the leading boys.
The gym teacher switches on some really ultra-urban hip-hop music, which almost breaks my stride because it has to be the strangest thing in the world listening to ultra-urban hip-hop in a gym in northern Maine. I swear, Maine is the whitest state in the nation.