Free The Lost & Found by Katrina Leno Page A

meant my mother had been dead for four days and the local funeral parlor was putting pressure on us to make a decision. I knew this because they called at least once a day, feigning sympathy for our deceased loved one and saying things like “Sometimes the best way to begin the healing process is to go through with the burial rites.”
    I was still angry with my grandparents, but I was beginning to understand their reasoning.
    Bucker and I had been talking a lot, exchanging multiple messages a day and debating the pros and cons of driving halfway across the country to meet each other while attending to our own complicated quests.
    Just a few minutes ago I’d gotten this:
    Maybe we can actually call it a quest, though? I think that would help. I think that would make it cooler.
    I’d responded:
    I think that would make it nerdier.
    I felt my phone buzz now and took it out to find a picture he’d sent me: Gandalf in full wizarding gear. I wondered if Bucker was maybe a forty-year-old man with a sizable collection of Games Workshop armies. (I mean, not that I was complaining. I kind of liked that idea.)
    I wrote him a message:
    Are you more down with regular Warhammer or Warhammer 30,000?
    He wrote back immediately:
    It is Warhammer 40,000, and none of the above. I obviously like the Tolkien series the best.
    I was drafting him a reply when the doorbell rang. I found Arrow on my doorstep in running clothes. It was seven o’clock in the evening and getting dark. She had a nylon backpack with running clothes for me, spandex shorts and a sports bra and a thin tank top. She pulled my hair into a ponytail and handed me a terrycloth headband.
    â€œI don’t particularly feel like running,” I said. I sat on my front steps and laced up my sneakers. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.”
    â€œI usually run with Addison, you know. But she’s away for the summer. I don’t like to run by myself. Safety in numbers.”
    Arrow had always been very concerned with safety. She watched a lot of crime shows on basic cable.
    We ran.
    I hated to run, and after only thirty seconds it was a struggle to convince my legs to keep moving. Arrow mightas well have been in the bathtub for how relaxed she looked.
    â€œYou’re doing great,” she coached. “Just focus on the next step. You can always, always run just one more step. Don’t think about anything except for that next step.”
    But what was the next step? Did I agree to have a wake for my mother? Did I want my last visual memory of my mother to be her lying in a casket? Or did we have a closed casket?
    My knees protested the exercise, and my lungs started to burn. I was out of breath and we hadn’t even been at it for two minutes.
    â€œDecrease your speed, but
don’t stop
,” Arrow instructed.
    I decreased my speed.
    I missed Addison.
    â€œThe goal is to keep your heart rate up while finding a maintainable pace,” Arrow continued.
    â€œI think my maintainable pace might be
stopped
,” I said. I decreased my speed again. I’d developed a sharp kink in my left side. I held my ribs while I ran.
    â€œIt takes practice,” Arrow said. She was running backward now, facing me.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I gasped. “It must be really annoying to have to go so slow.”
    â€œI don’t mind,” she said. She turned sideways and started doing weird skip-steps.
    â€œAre you not even breaking a sweat?”
    â€œI don’t sweat that much,” Arrow said, shrugging. “Butyou know, Frannie, we all have our things. I’d love to be able to draw.”
    â€œI’m not even that good at drawing,” I said. “I hardly do it anymore.”
    â€œYou’re not doing anyone any favors by selling yourself short. You’re an amazing artist.”
    â€œMaybe,” I said. I was panting.
    Arrow smiled and said, “Come on. Let’s go back.