Free The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen Page A

why he walked the track at night. She was too nervous to ask. “Are you ready for school to start?”
    She suddenly stood. Being this close to him made her heart feel lighter. He made her whole world seem lighter. But it was all a horrible illusion. “I’ve got to go.”
    “Where are you going?” he asked as she clomped down the bleachers in her heavy black boots.
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’ll walk you,” he said as he stood and followed her.
    “No.”
    “I’m not going to let you walk alone at this time of night.”
    She stepped off the last bleacher and walked across the track to the football field. She looked over her shoulder. “Stop following me.” Once she reached the middle of the field, she looked back again. “I said, stop following me.”
    “I’m not letting you walk alone.”
    That made her stop and turn to him. “What is the matter with you? Stop being so … so …”
    “What?”
    “Nice to me.” She lowered herself to the ground and sat cross-legged. “I’m sitting here until you go away.” This didn’t exactly have the effect she wanted. “Don’t sit beside me. Don’t …” She sighed when Sawyer sat beside her, right there on the fifty-yard line.
    “What is the matter with you?” he asked.
    She looked away. “My dad is sending me away to boarding school tomorrow.”
    “You’re leaving?” he asked incredulously.
    She nodded.
    He pulled at some of the grassy turf around them. Finally he said, “Can I tell you something?”
    “Not unless it’s goodbye.”
    “Stop being such a smart-ass.” That made her swing her head around. Her father and Beverly had been treading so lightly around her all summer that it was surprising to hear someone willing to call her on her attitude. “This past year, sometimes I would get up in the mornings and actually look forward to going to school because I knew I would see you. I would wonder what you were going to wear. I loved lunch because I could sit in the cafeteria and look out the window and see you up there on the bleachers. I’ve been looking for you all summer. Where have you been?”
    Her mouth gaped and she felt like punching him on the arm. He had a girlfriend named Holly who, despite being in Dulcie Shelby’s group Sassafras, was mostly nice. And they’d been going together forever. People even referred to them as a single entity. Sawyernholly. “What is wrong with you?” Julia said. “You and Holly belong together. You match.”
    “I’m just saying I’m sorry I never talked to you. I’ve always wanted to. I’ve always wanted …” His eyes went to her lips, and she was suddenly very aware of how close they were, of how he was leaning in toward her.
    His lips were inches from hers when she turned away. “Go away, Sawyer. Go back to your nice, perfect life.” She felt tears come to her eyes, and she wiped at them with the back of her hands. They came away streaked with her thick black eyeliner. The tears kept coming and she kept wiping her face, knowing she was making it worse. God, why didn’t Sawyer just go and leave her to her ugly misery?
    Sawyer very calmly took off his white polo shirt and handed it to her. “Go on. Use it.”
    She reluctantly took it and scrubbed her face with the shirt. It smelled like something green and fresh—like flower stems.
    When she finally stopped crying, she looked at the shirt in her hands. She balled it up, embarrassed. She’d ruined it. “I’m sorry.”
    “I don’t care about the shirt. Are you going to be okay?”
    “I don’t know.” And her eyes started watering again. “I don’t want to go away to school. But my dad doesn’t want me anymore. He has Beverly now.” The school had been Beverly’s idea, of course. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut about the cuts?
    “I’m sure that’s not true,” Sawyer said.
    She just shook her head. He didn’t understand, after all.
    He reached over to her and hesitantly pushed some of her crisp pink hair behind