Free Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher Page B

change. “So how are the Chiefs doing this year?”
    “I know you told me not to ask …”
    “Or the Rams? What’s your favorite team?” She was grinning like a funhouse clown.
    “I just thought maybe you’d talk to me.”
    “How about baseball? You like the Cardinals?” There was a defiant smirk on her lips. Obviously, her life was still a closed subject. We started walking back to the road.
    “Hey, Sage?”
    She turned and gave me a real smile. “Yes, Logan?”
    “You’ve got leaves on your butt.”
    We didn’t talk all the way back to town. It wasn’t the serene silence of earlier. It was heavy. It was like our thoughts had congealed and were hanging in the air like humidity. I wanted to thank Sage for listening. And I almost wanted to holler that she could trust me and tell meher secrets, to let her know that I was worthy of her confidence.
    Maybe Sage was thinking her own heavy thoughts.
    When we reached the highway, Sage turned to me. “I’m going the other way. See you at school.”
    “Yeah.” I felt like I was standing on a stage somewhere and it was my turn to speak but I’d totally forgotten what to say.
    “Logan, I …” Sage’s jaw was frozen open, like she’d been paused. She stood there, immobile, for close to a minute. There was something frightening about her posture. It was almost like she was fearful of some impending disaster. She looked as if something horrible was happening. There was no reason for it; I was the only person nearby.
    “Sage?”
    She spun on her heels and silently walked away.

chapter ten
    T HE FEW STORES in Boyer put up their Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. The town council erected the faded Nativity in Vets park, political correctness be damned. The first week of December, I made nearly three hundred dollars shoveling walks when we got a foot of snow. I turned half of it over to Mom and saved the rest for gift shopping.
    The football season ended with a surprising victory over Higbee, leaving Boyer with a 2–8 record. Tim and Dawn continued to be seen together.
    December marked the time when I shucked my self-destructive obsession with Brenda for a self-destructive obsession with Sage. I still spent every morning hanging out in the lobby, but now Sage joined me, snacking on vending machine food and making fun of the other students. We’d walk to bio together and spend the whole hourgiggling and poking each other under the table. Mr. Elmer threatened to separate us more than once, but he never did.
    Sage had a different lunch hour, but we’d run into each other between classes. I’d find little notes in my locker, pink stationery covered with smiley face stickers, wishing me a good day. After school, Sage would walk me to the track, or the gym, or my bike, often under the scowling gaze of Tammi. But that was where it ended. Once we left the high school grounds, Sage vanished. No walking me home. No heading out for a bite to eat. No going over to Jack’s to watch monster movies on Friday night. It was like we were in a long-distance relationship, even though we lived less than five miles apart.
    It’s not like Sage forgot about me after school. Two or three times a week, she’d call me at home, asking forced questions about biology and trying to get a rise out of me by saying she was phoning from the shower. Mom never commented on her frequent calls, though she would gaze at me slyly over the top of her
Soap Opera Digest
. It was obvious Mom thought I’d landed a new girlfriend. But when I invited Sage over for an innocent study date, she’d always change the subject.
    I should have been happy, or at least resigned. Sage was a good friend. I enjoyed hanging out with her. If that was all there was, then that was all there was.
    But that was not all there was. Because sometimes she’d let me hold her hand, provided her sister wasn’t around. She’d place her hand on my knee and leave it there for most of first hour. She pinched my butt