Chapter 18

After school, May hid out in the bathroom waiting for the halls to clear. She had a feeling Ethan might try looking for her, and she was doubting the strength of her resolve to brush him off. So, she leaned against the wall, head back and eyes closed, waiting for 2:45 when it would be safe to leave. Emily was there with her, sitting on the small couch that was near the sinks.

They lingered in silence, and May found it surprisingly restful. After a time, she opened her eyes to check the time, and saw Emily had a far-away expression on her face.

“What are you thinking about?” Emily flinched back to reality at the sound of May’s voice.

“Oh! Um…," Emily blushed a little.

The way she hedged told May everything she needed to know. “Emily! You know the mirror is messing with you just like it did to me! You have to stop thinking about my brother.”

The way May regarded the mirror now was as though it poisoned anything it touched, making it all unnatural and wrong somehow. The only antidote to it would be to gouge the infected portions out of her life, and she thought that Emily would need to do the same thing, too.

“No, I don’t!” Emily’s response was uncharacteristically sharp. “You know I’ve liked him for a long time. I don’t have to try and pretend like I don’t just because the mirror made me like him a little bit more.”

“'A little bit more'? You were never off in dreamland thinking about him before.”

“Oh, and how would you know that? I’m not even allowed to talk about him with you.”

May had unknowingly stepped into a landmine. “What are you talking about, you mention him all the time!”

“Yeah, and whenever I do, you tell me to stop or you make weird faces.” Emily was actually angry now. “I’ve sat and listened to you alternately whine and gush about the boys you like, but you won’t do the same for me.”

May was totally taken aback; she had no idea Emily had been holding all that in. It made her angry in return that she would just wait until she was ready to burst before making any mention of her discontent.

“Wow, I’m sorry.” May said sarcastically, “I had no idea I was such a horrible friend! I won’t make you sit here with me and my selfishness anymore.” She pushed herself off from the wall, and left the bathroom, fuming.

Where had all that come from? May was just trying to save her friend from the torture that she was now enduring, and here Emily was, wanting to feed the monster! And to go on acting like May only ever wanted to talk about herself; forbidding Emily to talk about the boys she liked… it was ridiculous!

So Emily had only ever really like Jared-- of course that would make it difficult when it was time to talk about boys! What did she expect out of May? For her to say, Oh, I know! He’s just so hot. Do you want me to steal some of his underwear on laundry day? All in all, she had thought she had been very diplomatic about Emily liking Jared. Now she was just mad.

Making her way through the parking lot and toward home, the stomping of her feet gradually softened to regular footfalls. She was beginning to see that she could have handled things a lot differently back there with Emily. It didn’t have to turn into a fight like that with her storming off… but for some reason it had, and now she felt too embarrassed to go back and talk to Emily.

May hated having to apologize and make up after things like that. Now instead of discomfort over her anger, she felt guilt and stress over now needing to call Emily and patch things up.

Blah! She thought. She wasn’t depressed or suicidal, but she was thinking of how nice it would be to just take a break from existing for a little while. All of her emotions from the past week were very wearying. To just be blank; to be nothing, to feel nothing. The thought of it seemed very appealing.

The last time she had felt this way, going for a jog had really helped. So, she decided that when she got home she would head off for another one, straightaway. Then the thought dawned on her that she could kill two birds with one stone. She didn’t know if Ryan would be out running again today, but since he said he was training, it seemed to her that there was a good chance he would be. She could “accidentally” run into him again (not quite so literally this time), and she could begin work on her distraction from… that other problem, whose name she didn’t want to think about.

Once home, she got into her jogging clothes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then headed off again along her favorite route. It seemed to her to be about the same time she had set off yesterday, so she hoped she could run into Ryan at about the same point. When she got to the part on her run when the path went up the incline and joined with the levee path, she paused and hid behind a tree, watching for Ryan to be coming in the distance.

After a couple minutes, she started to feel foolish. She didn’t even know if Ryan was out running today at all, let alone where and when he had started. She could be waiting a really long time. Just as she decided to finish her jog and forget about running into Ryan, she caught sight of him coming around a bend about sixty yards back.

The surprise of actually seeing him coming sent her heart into over drive, and she realized she would need to get going right now. She took off jogging again, being careful to make it appear as if she hadn’t seen him. Her thoughts were racing; she hadn’t thought this plan through past this point.

Just keep jogging, she assured herself. Don’t worry about what happens next. Ryan would almost certainly be the one to say hello to her, since he was a faster runner, and was coming up from behind. May decided just to let things unfold naturally from there. No need to hyper-orchestrate things.

Looking back to see where he was would give her away, and she wanted to be able to act surprised to see him whenever he did say hello. The suspense was killing her, and she couldn’t understand why she was feeling nervous now. She had never felt nervous around Ryan before. But then again, she had never set out with intentions to… to what? What did she intend to come of this Ryan distraction? Did she want to make herself be obsessed with him, instead? Did she want him for a boyfriend? Did she want to make him chase after her? She really didn’t know. She was acting blindly at this point, because in truth she was still pining after… Ryan’s cousin.

Her heart fluttered at the passing thought of the boy, and she quickly shoved it to the back of her mind. Footsteps were approaching her fast from behind, now. It must be Ryan; no one else had been on the path.

The sound of his footfalls got louder and louder until May realized he was actually speeding up, and passing around her left side. He showed no sign of slowing or stopping.

“Hey.” He called back flatly, as he passed.

The cool reception caught May off guard. She stopped dead in her tracks, she had really been expecting him to at least sound pleased to see her. What was wrong?

Sprinting now to catch up to him, May called out, “Ryan! Wait up!”

He glanced over his shoulder and obeyed, but didn’t say anything.

When she was a few strides behind him, she called again, “Ryan, is something wrong?”

Now it was his turn to stop, and he surprised her when he asked, with accusation in his tone, “Why did you break up with Ethan?”

“What?” She spat out in surprise.

“I talked to him after school and he told me you broke things off.” Ryan waited for her response.

“Well, yeah. I wouldn’t say I ‘broke up’ with him, since we were hardly going out, though.” May didn’t understand why it would be anything to Ryan.

“He really, really liked you.” Again with accusation.

“He did?” May tried to shake off the way that knowledge warmed her inside. “Look, I’ll tell you what I told him. It was just a bad idea to begin with, and I shouldn’t have pushed it on him.”

“I talked to him yesterday when you asked me to, and he told me all about it then. To hear him tell it, you didn’t push anything on him. So why did you end it?” Ryan asked again.

May felt defensive at Ryan’s forcefulness. She had never seen him like this before. “I’m not sure I understand why you care.”

“Just tell me honestly, is it because of the private stuff I told you about him yesterday?”

“What?! No!” May answered loudly. Those things had never crossed her mind except to make her even more endeared to him.

Her immediate shock at his question seemed to assure him of her sincerity. His countenance immediately softened, and he now looked apologetic. “Ah, I’m sorry May… I just thought…” he trailed off, embarrassed. “Well, I thought that you might have like, used me to get at information that left Ethan vulnerable, and now he is hurt because of it.”

“What the heck?” May was shaking her head. “Seriously, is there something about me that I’m not seeing? Why do people seem to so easily assume bad things about me?” She wasn’t addressing Ryan specifically, just the universe in general. But Ryan answered anyway.

“No, May, it’s not your fault. I’m sorry, it really is nothing about you.” Ryan put his hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her. “I have a real thing about people keeping confidences. I made a huge, wrong assumption based on the strength of my peeve with people who betray them.”

“I believe you,” Ryan looked relieved as she said this. “But that only accounts for one of the three times in the last day that people have been miffed at me for things I was truly innocent of!”

“I can’t speak to those others, but seriously, let me re-emphasize to you that it was my flaw, not yours, that made me think that. Now I feel like such a jerk.” He looked like he was going to be sick.

It was May’s turn to comfort Ryan. “Flaw?” She nudged him playfully. “Ryan, I’m pretty sure that you are a mortal and so you must have flaws somewhere, but I’ve never seen a-one of them. To think that people should be trustworthy isn’t a flaw.”

“Well, it can be when taken to extremes. But thank you for the compliment.” They were both happy, now.

Ryan re-started the conversation, “So, another rough day then?”

May looked at him in askance.

“Jogging to clear your head again?” he prompted.

“Oh! Yes.” May nodded, wondering how again it seemed she was going to be dumping all her problems to Ryan. “Actually, it’s been more of a rough week. I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the last five days.” She laughed at herself derisively. “I really don’t know what’s with me lately.” That last part was a blatant lie, but she didn’t want Ryan to think she was always this crazy. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?” Ryan furrowed his brow.

“You have been very nice to me, and I really appreciate it. You are always kind, but I needed it more than usual this week, and you seemed to sense that.” She wasn’t trying to puff him up; it was true.

Ryan was clearly uncomfortable being complimented. “Well, to make up for just now when I wasn’t so nice… do you want to do something with me tonight?”

May smiled. This would be perfect. She was happy and calm when she was with Ryan, and happy and calm were a combination of feelings she hadn’t had together for too long. “Yes!”

Ryan laughed at her eager answer, “Don’t you want to know what I have in mind?”

May felt a little embarrassed for showing her enthusiasm so freely, but didn’t care enough to be coy now. “It doesn’t really matter to me! I’m sure anything you want to do would be fine.”

“What if I wanted to go help out the parks and recreation department by sanitizing all the public restrooms?” He asked with a serious expression.

“I’d fake a medical emergency and boogie on home.” May answered quickly, with a face to match his. A short game of chicken commenced as they both tried to keep their poker faces in place.

Finally, Ryan buckled with a small half-smile. May grinned triumphantly. “Alright you win,” he said. “I need to finish my run, but how about I pick you up at seven?”

“Perfect. I’ll bring my rubber gloves!”

As Ryan ran off, she started her jog up again. See? A nice jog always makes things better.