Free Catch by Michelle D. Argyle

something as illogical and strange
as Ollie was better left behind. She hoped it wasn’t. That might
break her heart more than anything else … and she’d never even
kissed him. Not even close.
     
*
     
    At the zoo, Miranda texted Lions, Tigers,
and Bears to Ollie, but he didn’t answer. She kept looking
around all day to see if she could spot him, but by dinnertime
she’d given up completely. It was over, she told herself. She was
leaving in the morning, and it was over.
    That night, she went to bed with her heart
heavier than it had been in a long time. Once their parents were
asleep, she rolled over and told Julia everything that had
happened. Her sister listened intently, her eyes filling with tears
toward the end.
    “I can’t believe he hasn’t even tried to
contact you again,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Miranda. You have
the worst luck ever with guys.”
    “I know. I’m doomed forever.”
    Julia pulled her covers closer and wet her
lips. “I don’t know about that. You don’t really need a man to make
you happy, right? You’ve got college and stuff.”
    “Yeah, and who knows what will happen at
school. It just pisses me off, you know? Here I was finally getting
to an okay place after all that crap with Christian happened, and
this guy has to drop into my life. I don’t care if he stole stuff.
He means well, and I doubt he’ll keep doing it.” Her eyes went
distant and Julia’s face turned hazy in her vision. “I know
nobody’s perfect, but he seemed a lot like me. He didn’t want to
feel stuck anywhere, and I get that, you know? I thought it might
turn into something amazing, that’s all. I’m so not like Grammy.
I’m logical, but I want to be a romantic.”
    Julia laughed, and her face came back into
focus. “Oh, you’re a romantic. You’re totally falling all over this
guy and you’ve only known him for, like, three days.”
    “Yeah,” Miranda sighed. “I guess I am.”
    They talked for another hour and then Miranda
went to sleep. She dreamed about a big office building and a shiny
black desk. She dreamed about Ollie sitting in a chair at that
desk, his expression cold and harsh, and a picture of his
tyrannical father hung on the wall in front of him.
     
*
     
    The next morning, she packed up her bags. On
their way to the airport, she pulled out her phone and sent one
last message to Ollie.
    Airplanes. Last chance.
    He didn’t answer.

 
4.

    Miranda hated to admit it, but she cried the
first week away from home. None of her dorm mates seemed homesick.
They were all too busy loving their freedom. There were parties and
guys and alcohol to keep them distracted. Miranda couldn’t seem to
enjoy any of it. She called Julia almost every night and told her
about her classes, her professors, and her party-crazy dorm mates.
Julia listened and sympathized, and then gushed about Gavin.
Neither of them mentioned Ollie, although Miranda had to admit she
looked at her phone more often than she might have otherwise. He
seemed so far away, like a blip in her existence—something bright
and shiny and odd she’d found on the sidewalk one afternoon and
then lost.
    Walking to class, she looked around at the
trees changing to orange and red and yellow. No palm trees. No hot,
sticky days filled with casinos and hotels. She had to let him go!
It was harder to do than she thought it would be because she didn’t
know what had happened. It was one thing to have a boyfriend tell
her things were over and everything ended in a final bang. It was
another to have a barely-there relationship drift away from you
like a sailboat on the horizon. Once in awhile she thought she
might try to find it, but it had been long enough for him to
message her again, even if things had escalated with his
father.
    She was close to her class now. It was in a
building across from a pretty fountain she loved to sit near and do
her homework sometimes. She rounded the corner and headed into
class. Halfway through, her