Second Thoughts by Cara Bertrand

was true, I suddenly realized, that she was not wearing pants. Thankfully, her long sweater covered everything I didn’t want to see, but the problem was, she was searching through her underwear drawer. And, on further inspection, it wasn’t
her
sweater she was wearing. I eyed her messy hair and slightly flushed cheeks.
    â€œIs he in the bathroom?” I asked. For possibly the first time ever, Amy blushed as deeply as I usually did, which answered my questionfor me. I didn’t even wait for a response. “Caleb,” I called, “if you’re not wearing pants either, please stay where you are.” I heard him chuckle from the other side of the bathroom door.
    â€œSorry,” Amy said, pulling out her underthings and holding them behind her back. She eagerly shared all of the details with me after the fact, but apparently being almost-caught in the act wasn’t as fun.
    I looked at the clock and did some mental math. Classes had ended not even ten minutes ago. “Did you guys skip final hour?” I asked, even more surprised about that than finding the two of them in our room. Amy was on her way to being Valedictorian. It wasn’t at all like her to skip classes, not because she was totally against the idea once in a while, but because she actually enjoyed going to them.
    â€œIt was just test review,” she muttered.
    I finally let out the laugh I’d been holding in and turned around so she could get dressed. “Right. Now could you please put some pants on? And we seriously need to get a ribbon-on-the-door system or something, so this doesn’t happen again.”
    â€œIf you’d gone to your study group like you’re supposed to, we wouldn’t need a ribbon!” Caleb shouted from the bathroom and Amy giggled. “And Lane, are you staying? ‘Cause I really need to get out of here…”
    I laughed again. “Only long enough to change my shoes. Keep your pants on…”—I spied his jeans half-hidden under Amy’s bed—“or not for a minute.”
    â€œWhere are you going?” a now fully clothed Amy asked as I sat on my desk chair to put on my sneakers.
    Shit. I had no excuse, because I hadn’t thought I’d need one. “A walk,” I finally said. It was the truth and, also, the only thing I could come up with.
    She eyed me speculatively, but all she said was, “Okay, then. And I am sorry, Lainey.” For some reason, she was more embarrassed about this than she should have been. I’d ponder that later.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I assured her. I grabbed my keys, phone, and earphones. “See you at dinner. You too, Caleb.”
    â€œBye,” I heard her say, with a muffled, “Later!” coming from the boy hiding in the bathroom, as the door closed behind me.
    S INCE IT WAS the middle of the afternoon on a regular school day, I had to be extra careful sneaking off campus. I’d already been wearing leggings and an Academy sweatshirt—not my best fashion day—so I took off at a light jog, as if I were just going for a run. Being on the track team in the spring, and dating Carter, it was something I did with enough regularity that it wouldn’t seem strange to see me trotting past the ponds and through the gates.
    I turned left on Main Street and continued running past the bookstore on the other side of the street, hoping no one would notice me. “No one” mostly meaning my boyfriend. The bookstore was usually empty this time of day, and it would be just my luck that he’d look out the front windows as I ran past. When I reached a particular spot in the trees that lined the street, I stopped as if to stretch but really just to make sure I was alone. Seeing no one, I darted into the woods.
    On a day I didn’t care to remember for other reasons, Carter had shown me this shortcut into the seemingly endless trails that zigzagged through the vast forest