The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand Page B

that’s what I looked like. A stark raving lunatic.
    â€œAre you taking up running?” Sadie asks.
    The idea is so preposterous that I almost laugh out loud. Even in those days when I used to run around after Sadie, I always hated it. I despised every aspect of running: the sweating, the huffing and puffing, the weird taste I’d get in my mouth, the way my shins ached afterward. I make it a rule to avoid physical exertion if at all possible.
    But what can I tell her, I was running away from the ghost of my dead brother?
    â€œSomething like that,” I mumble.
    Sadie nods like she’s confirming a rumor she’s heard about me. “That’s great,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about running again myself. I got this app on my phone that’s supposed to take you from the couch to running five K in like a month. You start out alternating running and walking and then end up running the whole time, by the end. It burns like five hundred calories per hour.”
    â€œThat’s what I’ve heard,” I say.
    â€œSo maybe we could run together,” she suggests casually, and fixes me with this strange stare, like she’s throwing out some kind of challenge.
    Uh-oh. Danger, Will Robinson. Red alert.
    â€œUh, sure,” I manage to get out. “We should totally do that. Imean, I’m kind of busy right now, but maybe in a few weeks. And I don’t know if it’s a great idea to run in the cold, bad for your lungs or something. Maybe in the spring. But then I have Physics Bowl, and I have to take a bunch of AP tests, and my schedule gets pretty hairy. Maybe in the summer . . .”
    Sadie’s eyes narrow.
    â€œOh, Lex,” she says then. “Whatever.”
    When we were in fifth grade, we went through a phase where we played this game called Whatever, which is where you’re basically trying to get rid of all your cards by lying about what you have, but if someone says whatever and catches you in the lie, you have to take the whole pile. Sadie was a master of that game, I remember. She could always pick out my fibs.
    She’s calling me a liar.
    â€œSadie . . . ,” I begin.
    â€œSomething’s going on with you,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. “You were scared, that night on the road. I want to know what you were running from.”
    I stare at her helplessly. “I wasn’t running from anything—”
    â€œWhatever, Lex,” she says. “What-ever. You’re in some kind of trouble. I can feel it.”
    Silence builds between us. I think, Of course I’m in trouble. Haven’t you been paying attention for the past two months? And: What do you care if I’m in trouble? We haven’t been close for years. It’s none of your business. But then the urge to tell somebody—the urge to get the past week off my chest—crashes over me like a tidal wave. Sadie’s still my friend. And she’s not like my other friends;she’s not super rational and scientific, and maybe she won’t jump to conclusions about my dubious mental health. She could be open-minded.
    She could listen.
    I do a quick survey of the shop. Counter Guy is nowhere to be seen, probably in a back room somewhere. The Jamba Juice is empty.
    â€œI was running, because . . .” I take a deep breath. “Because I thought I saw Ty. And so I had to get out of my house, for a while.”
    Sadie leans forward. Her eyes are absolutely serious.
    â€œOkay,” she says after what I swear are the longest sixty seconds of my life. “Tell me everything.”
    An hour later we’re holed up in my bedroom watching Long Island Medium . After I finished giving Sadie the basic details of the Ty-could-be-a-ghost story, she insisted that I bring her home and take her down into the basement to show her the mark on the wall from where I threw the phone at Ty, like she wanted to see the evidence herself,