“I need to go check on the anteater!” I yelled, backing away from them. Water dripped from the hood of my poncho and down my face.
“Are you crazy? Come on, she’ll be fine. I’m sure the others have put her away by now.” He reached for my hand but I spun away and began to run.
I couldn’t see very well through the rain but I heard the carousel music in the distance and followed its sound. Seth caught up with me just as I passed by the carved horses that were going up and down around their never-ending loop. Someone must’ve abandoned the carousel during its test run that morning to take care of the real animals.
Seth steered me away from the large metal structure. “You and your anteater,” he mumbled.
I smiled at him but kept walking. We splashed our way through the zoo until we came to Heeboo’s enclosure.
“Looks like she was put away.” Seth held his hand up, shielding the rain from his eyes as he searched.
I took a breath of relief but then saw a movement in the corner. “No. She’s there.” I rushed around the side and into her pen. I was glad Seth had followed me because it took the two of us to herd Heeboo and her shivering baby into the covered house. The roof still wasn’t fixed so it would probably be a little leaky, but she’d be fine.
Seth latched the door closed and took my hand. “Come on, we need to get inside somewhere, too.”
Together we headed back toward the staff building. The rain was coming down so hard I couldn’t see two feet in front of me.
“Over here,” Seth said. We ran across a section of sloshy grass and Seth pulled us under the protection of what I realized was the tunnel over the train tracks. The tunnel was about twenty feet long. We walked to the middle of the tunnel and sat on the dry ground. I could hear the rain pounding down above us. I struggled out of my plastic poncho and placed it on the tracks next to us. Seth did the same.
“We seem to have a water theme going on lately,” Seth said. “You just want to see me in a wet T-shirt, don’t you?”
I gave him my best effort at a smile but it was hard. My chest was quivering from the cold and my head was pounding. I pulled my knees up to my chest and stared out at the rain. Water dripped from my hair down my cheeks and I wiped it away. It kept dripping and I kept wiping. And then it was more than water, it was tears, soaking my cheeks with warmth.
“Maddie?” Seth said softly. “What is it?”
I shook my head and buried my face in my knees.
“Are you hurt? Are you cold?” He scooted closer to me.
I wasn’t sure what I was. Overwhelmed? Everything that had happened was suddenly hitting me hard. “My best friends hate me,” I began.
“Why? What happened?”
He would hate me, too, when he knew that I hadn’t been truthful. “I just wanted to be around someone who I felt like myself with.”
“What?”
I was mixing two trains of thoughts. Of course he wasn’t following.
“They hate you because you wanted to feel like yourself?” he asked.
“No, they hate me because they want me to believe something I’m not sure is true and because I’m different.”
“Different than what?” he asked.
“Than how I used to be.”
He placed a hand on my arm. “You seem the same to me.”
Those words brought a new wave of tears. “To you, I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
And he never would unless I told him. But I couldn’t. How could I when everyone else in my life was abandoning me? Or using me? I needed him. I sat up and wiped my cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” Seth said.
I leaned back against the curving cement wall behind me. “I know, and I will … soon.” Then he would have to decide if money changed everything, like it had with my friends. No, I wasn’t going to let my money change things. I was going to fix things with my friends. I had to.
I looked down at our feet. Seth wore green Vans and I had on an old pair of black Converse. They were shoes I had before my shopping spree. I always wore them to the zoo. The left shoe had a small hole in the toe and my sock was soaked.
Seth bumped my foot with his. I answered back.
“Tell me a story,” I said.
“A story?”
“One that you’ve written.”
“Let’s see … ” He leaned his head back against the wall, too, and looked up as if in thought. “There once was a girl named Maddy.”
“I thought you said you didn’t write stories about depressed teenagers. Only messed-up adults.”
He laughed. “Messed-up adults and completely normal teenagers.”
“So this is definitely not about me then.”
“Not at all. My Maddy spells her name with a Y.”
I smiled. “Oh, right, sorry. Go on.”
“Like I was saying, there was a girl named Maddy who was smart and fun and a little weird.”
“Hey,” I said.
“What? Are you taking offense on Maddy’s behalf?”
“We share a name, I’m feeling defensive of her.”
“A little weird is a good thing.”
I looked at him. “You think so?”
“Weird is the new cool.”
“So what happened to weird Maddy?” I pressed my feet up against the train tracks in front of us.
“She met a guy named Leth.”
“Leth?”
“Yes, and Leth asked her out on a date.”
“Why?” I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or this was all part of his teasing persona he wore so well.
“Why what?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he promised to right a wrong from a crappy birthday she had.”
Right. My crappy birthday that resulted in a lottery win that he knew nothing about. “Isn’t Maddy going away to college soon and doesn’t want to leave behind loose ends?” I asked, my heart suddenly beating hard.
“Loose ends? Well, when you put it that way, I think you’re right. Leth wouldn’t want to take her out if she thought of him like that.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just … I have a plan and … ” I needed to stay on track with it. It was the only thing holding me together at this point when everything else around me seemed to be crumbling.
“Why are you sorry?” he asked. “It was just a story.”
Why was I so stupid? Now I’d hurt his feelings and I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t meant to let myself get that close to him. A rumble of thunder made me jump.
“I’m actually surprised by your lightning statistic,” he said, probably trying to lessen the awkwardness I’d created. “I thought the odds would be less likely. I mean getting struck by lightning is the go-to phrase when people are trying to say something is impossible, right?”
“No, they use it when they’re saying something else is impossible,” I said. “For example, people might say, you should try to win the lottery. And someone else would say, you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than win the lottery.” I met his eyes.
A crack of lightning lit the tunnel. Seth broke our gaze to look out at the rain. Wind whipped through the openings, making it a literal wind tunnel. A shiver went through me.
“We can probably find a warmer place. Do you want to make a run for it?” Seth asked. “I’m sure you can defy those odds at least. Everyone else is probably in the staff building.”
I was being selfish. I didn’t want to leave this tunnel. I wanted to stay where the rest of the world seemed like a blurry nonexistent place. Here I had him all to myself. Here he was sitting close, our legs pressed together, our shoulders touching. I wanted to say, Tell me the rest of the story about Maddy, I do want you to take me out. I wanted to forget about my pact with Blaire and Elise, and everything I’d been planning for the last six years. I quickly stood. “Yes, we should go.”
Seth stood, too, slower than I had.
He held out his hand and I stared at it. I placed my hand in his. It was the only part of my body that now felt warm.