Free Latitude Zero by Diana Renn

off their game.
    But he was riding his main bike, with the green handlebars. That bike should have been fine-tuned and ready to ride.
    “Or he could have been sick,” my mom went on, reaching for a Mexican blanket on the floor and folding it neatly. She was weirdly obsessive about that blanket, a threadbare souvenir she’d bought on a trip to Mexico approximately one hundred years ago.
    “But when he beat Jake in Colorado at the junior nationals last summer, he had strep throat
and
a sprained wrist,” I pointed out. “If something were wrong, it would be serious.”
    “Well, maybe it was. Like a bad reaction to something.” She paused. “Like drugs.”
    “God, Mom. Can you give it a rest? You and Dad are always assuming drugs and bike racing go hand in hand. They don’t. El Cóndor rides clean. Everyone on Team EcuaBar does.” Team EcuaBar was actually created to counteract the doping stigma. Several years ago, Preston Lane had bailed out a struggling, upstart cycling team, then added the junior development team. Combined, they’d be “the pure team”—a new generation of untainted cyclists.
    “I know. ‘Pure energy, no additives.’ Just like the energy bars. It all sounds good. Still”—my mom shrugged and set the Mexican blanket on the arm of the love seat—“the scrutiny of crowds, his sponsors, the media, his team—it seems like so much pressure.”
    I wanted to buy my mom’s theory. If he had reacted badly to some drug, then I was less responsible. But I just couldn’t believe Juan Carlos was doping! He visited schools. He was deeply religious. His faith, his training, and his natural talent all combined to make him win.
    If he had doped, only drug tests could confirm that. Or an autopsy report if he died.
    If he died . . .
    I curled up into a ball on the love seat, drew my mom’s wool Mexican blanket over my head, and tried to shut out the world.
    If he’d crashed because of the domino effect of my swerve, I was, in some way, responsible for his hospitalization now. An invisible fault line connected our crashes.
    And if he died? I would be responsible, too.

11
    A RHYTHMIC scratching and snapping sound startled me awake—I must have drifted to sleep on the love seat.
    The scratching was on the porch screen. I didn’t know what the snapping was.
    I remained frozen under the Mexican blanket, suddenly thinking of that guy in the woods, and the snaps of the underbrush as he had chased me.
    “Tessa!” a girl’s voice called out. “Are you awake? Didn’t you hear the doorbell?”
    I emerged from under the blanket and sat up to find Kylie and Sarita outside the porch. Kylie was scratching the screen with a twig to wake me up, and Sarita was loudly snapping an enormous piece of gum. Behind them, parked at the curb, was the Fingernail: Kylie’s ten-year-old maroon Ford Taurus. The car had earned its nickname due to its uncanny resemblance to a press-on nail. It was our portable home away from home, where we’d had heart-to-heart conversations, taken crazy road trips in search of New England’s best ice cream, and collectively consumed about a billion lattes.
    All that stuff suddenly seemed a lifetime ago. Even my friends standing there didn’t seem real. Sarita’s black curls were damp against her brown skin. I could see the tie of a bathing suit halter around Kylie’s sunburned neck, and her auburn, pixie-cut hair looked recently towel-dried. They smelled of chlorine and coconut sunscreen. They’d been having a normal summer day. I wished I’d been on their ride.
    “Oh my God! What happened to you?” Kylie pointed to my arm and leg bandages.
    “Long story.” I limped to the front door and let in my friends. They joined me on the porch, where we took up our usual perches: Sarita sprawled on the chaise longue, Kylie cross-legged on the ottoman, and me, curled up on the love seat.
    “Nice necklace,” said Sarita. “I’ve never seen you wear crosses or anything like that.