The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand Page A

still picture Sadie from those days: scrawny and tan, her curly, float-away hair bleached almost white by the summer sun, wearing a clean but faded T-shirt handed down by one of her brothers, which was always so long on her it would flap at her knees as she ran. Sadie loved to run. She never walked anywhere if she could get away with running there. And because I liked her so much, and because she was my friend, I always ran after her.
    Until one day, when Sadie stopped running. She got a bike, and picked up a paper route from her older brother, so she could buy her own clothes when she started sixth grade. She started wearingmakeup, and smiling in a different way. She made herself over into a whole new Sadie.
    To be fair, I changed too, that year. I started hanging out with Jill and Eleanor and Steven. Sadie and I grew apart. It happens. As a sophomore Sadie had an unfortunate incident with shoplifting, which the entire neighborhood knows about but doesn’t speak of. She hangs out with the stoner crowd. I’m in the geek brigade. We’re still friendly, but our social circles don’t often overlap.
    Now she’s standing on my doorstep in a worn red plaid jacket and jeans with deliberate holes in the legs, her blond curls tucked under a black knit hat. She’s wearing gloves and too much eyeliner. I wonder why the stoners always feel the need to wear eyeliner.
    â€œLex?” she prompts, because I still haven’t answered her question.
    Oh, right. Jamba Juice.
    I can’t fathom what she wants from me, what she could be up to, but I also can’t think of a good excuse, and honestly, the idea of getting out of the house for a while appeals to me. So I nod and remove the rubber gloves.
    â€œSure,” I say. “Just let me get my coat.”
    Jamba Juice is deserted when we arrive. Big surprise. The guy behind the counter acts startled to see us, like we must have wandered in by mistake.
    â€œWhew,” Sadie breathes with a playful smile as she saunters up to the counter. “It’s a scorcher out there. I am parched.”
    She’s joking, but it doesn’t compute with Counter Guy, who puts down his phone mid-text and stares at us like this has to be some kind of punking situation, like any second now he’s going to spot a camera crew filming this.
    â€œI’ll have the Matcha Green Tea Blast,” Sadie says without even consulting the menu, like she’s here every day. “With the antioxidant boost.” She turns to me. “You get one, too, Lex. My treat. Got to combat those free renegades.”
    Free radicals, I think, but I don’t correct her. I order the same.
    â€œCan we sit anywhere?” Sadie asks Counter Guy after she pays. “Or do we need to wait for a table to become available?”
    He waves a hand across the empty shop and goes back to his phone, annoyed like we’re interrupting his free time. Sadie picks a table in the far corner, slings her sizable leather purse over the back of her chair, plops herself down, and goes right to her drink, which is, I should mention, about the same color and texture as fresh guacamole.
    This should be interesting.
    â€œSome people,” she says, “have no sense of humor.”
    I take a tenuous sip of the smoothie. It’s surprisingly good.
    â€œSo,” Sadie says after our smoothies are about a quarter of the way depleted. “I want to talk to you about something.”
    Here it comes. The “I’m so sorry” speech. The sympathetic squeeze of the hand. The “how can I help?” offer that I will actually feel guilty about when I refuse. The part where I will become Sadie’s new pet project.
    â€œI saw you the other night,” she says. “Running.”
    Oh. That. I blink up at her. I try to imagine what I must have looked like, out there without my coat on, tearing through our neighborhood like I was being chased by wild dogs.
    An insane person,