LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      From a block away, Danielle DeMarco realizes that she’s missed her bus. It is too quiet, especially for a Monday. Nothing in the air but the typical morning sounds — chirping birds, the click click click of rising automatic garage doors, the tinny rumble of empty trash cans being dragged back up driveways.

      Late to school, starving for breakfast, utterly exhausted. Not such a great way to start off the week.

      But Danielle still thinks last night was worth it.

      She’d been asleep for two hours when her phone rang. “Hello?” she asked, her word wrapped in a yawn.

      “How can you be sleeping? It’s only midnight.”

      Danielle checked that her bedroom door was shut. Her parents wouldn’t like Andrew calling so late. They still referred to him as her friend from camp, despite the million times she’d corrected them. As if boyfriend was a tongue twister. Or maybe that was the thing they worried about, because Andrew was a year older. But for someone her parents lumped in the same category as her best friend, Hope, they certainly had a lot of rules about when, where, and how Danielle could spend time with Andrew.

      That had been the hardest part about coming home from Camp Clover Lake, where they’d both worked as counselors this past summer. They’d lost the freedom to hang out when they wanted, talk when they wanted. There were no more nights of Andrew sneaking through the dark and scratching the screen in the window above her bed. No more taking the paddleboats out to the center of the lake and waiting until the breeze brought them back to the dock.

      Summer already felt like a million years ago.

      Danielle pulled her comforter over her head and kept her voice low. “Lights out, campers,” she teased.

      Andrew sighed. “I’m sorry I woke you. I’m just way too amped up to sleep. I’ve got tons of adrenaline stored up from the game and no way to get rid of it.”

      Danielle and Hope had watched from the stands that afternoon as Andrew was stuck in a perpetual warm-up routine on the sideline while the football field got torn up by other players’ cleats. He’d bounce on his toes, do jumping jacks, or run a sprint of high-knee lifts to stay warm. After each play, Andrew glanced over at the varsity football coach, fingers laced around the face guard of his gleaming white helmet. Hopeful.

      She felt terrible for him. It was the fourth game of the season, and he hadn’t seen one minute of playing time. What would it have mattered, giving sophomores like Andrew a chance? Mount Washington was losing by three touchdowns at halftime. The Mountaineers hadn’t won a single game.

      “Well … I thought you looked cute in your varsity jersey,” she said.

      Andrew laughed, but Danielle could tell by the dryness that he was still upset. “I’d rather not get called up if I’m not going to see any playing time. Just let me start on JV. It’s humiliating, standing on the sideline, doing absolutely nothing while we get our asses beat game after game. I could have had nachos with you and Hope in the bleachers for all it mattered.”

      “Come on, Andrew. It’s still an honor. I bet there are a ton of other sophomores who’d kill to be on varsity.”

      “I guess,” he said. “You know, Chuck got to play the whole second half. I wish I were big like him. I should do more weight room work and maybe try those nasty protein shakes he’s always chugging. I’m way too skinny. I’m, like, the smallest guy on the team.”

      “You are not. And anyway, why would you want to be like Chuck? Yeah, he’s big … but it’s not like he’s in good shape. I bet you could run circles around him.” Danielle was pretty sure Andrew knew she wasn’t crazy about Chuck. Andrew once told her that Chuck had a special shelf for his cologne bottles, which he displayed proudly, and wouldn’t leave the house without a splash on. Chuck would even put some on before he’d go lift weights in his garage. According to Andrew, Chuck was really grossed out by the smell of sweat, even his own.

      Andrew considered it. “That’s true. The dude does eat crap. I don’t think Chuck even knows what a vegetable is, unless it goes on his Big Mac. No wonder he can’t get a girlfriend.”

      They both laughed at that.

      It had taken Danielle a few weeks to understand the way Andrew and his friends acted around each other. The guys were super competitive, but especially Chuck and Andrew. Everything between those two was a rivalry — grades, new sneakers, who could reach the water fountain first. It seemed to Danielle like normal boy stuff for the most part, but every so often, Andrew would take some stupid “loss” really hard. Danielle was also competitive, and while she sympathized with Andrew’s pangs of defeat, she also never pitted herself against her friends. She didn’t even want to think about how sucky it would have been if she or Hope hadn’t both made the swim team.

      That said, Danielle did take special pride in knowing that, when it came to the boys having girlfriends, she’d tipped the scales in Andrew’s favor.

      “Hey,” Andrew said. “Guess what I found out today. Even if I don’t play a single minute this season, I’ll still get a varsity jacket.”

      “You’ll look hot in it,” Danielle said. It was kind of a silly thing to say, but she knew it would make Andrew feel better.

      “I don’t care about the jacket. It’ll just be cool seeing you in it this winter.”

      “You’re sweet,” Danielle said, blushing in the dark. It would be cool to wear Andrew’s varsity jacket, at least until she could earn her own.

      “Will you stay on the phone with me a little longer?” he asked quietly.

      Danielle fluffed up her pillow, and she and Andrew clicked through their respective televisions together, as if their remotes were in sync. They laughed at the bizarre late-night infomercials that populated the cable channels in the middle of the night. Spray-on hair. Home gym contraptions that could double for medieval torture devices. Skin remedies for swollen, zitty faces. Diet pills based on ancient Chinese secrets.

      Danielle fell asleep with her cell pressed to her ear, images of before and after flashing in the dark. Her battery died around four thirty A.M. Her alarm died with it.

      For love, or something pretty close to it, she missed the bus.

      Danielle reaches for her phone to call home, when she spots a notebook lying open in the street, pages fluttering. She picks it up. Using it to shield her eyes from the orangey sun, she sees, at a distance of roughly three blocks, her school bus bouncing along to the next designated stop. She missed it, but not by much.

      She lowers her chin and stares out the tops of her eyes.

      A second later, she’s running.

      Her body isn’t warm, and she worries about possibly pulling a muscle. Chasing down the school bus definitely isn’t worth a stupid injury that might keep her out of the water. But after a few strides, Danielle slips into a comfortable rhythm. A pleasant heat ignites her pumping arms, her whirling legs.

      The school bus stops for a car pulling out of a driveway. Danielle quickly closes the gap. “Hey!” she calls out when she gets close enough to recognize the students in the back windows. “Hey!”

      But

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