The Jock Trap

Chapter 4

The walk home didn’t take long. Though the wind had picked up, Finn’s jacket was surprisingly warm, and when zipped up as far as possible, I could barely feel the cold. I did feel kind of bad about taking it, seeing as I was the one who’d been stupid enough to forget mine in the first place, but I also figured he owed me.

Earning me a zero on my biology test was surely worth at least one cold walk home.

I expected it to be awkward, which was partly why I’d been so reluctant at first. We may have been in detention for weeks already, but at least there I didn’t have to make the effort. It was fine to work in silence, simply trying to make it through the hour until I could escape. Scraping gum was an excuse not to talk.

But here, things were different. Conversation was expected, and I hadn’t anything in common with Finn for six years.

And yet as we trekked further away from Reagan’s house, toward the street where we both lived, I realized I had been wrong to worry. Finn was entirely at ease, keeping pace beside me as he detailed stories about other disastrous parties. It was difficult not to laugh along when he started telling me about the time Sophie Hansen and her boyfriend had walked in on her parents having sex in an upstairs bedroom, or the time Jason O’Connor’s dad had come home early and angrily declared the party over before ten o’clock.

With each anecdote he shared, I was beginning to realize something. The flawless image I’d assumed was a true reflection of the popular crowd was perhaps not all that accurate. They had their moments, too. Just like everybody else.

Even Finn.

We had been walking for about fifteen minutes when we turned onto our street; the time was coming up for midnight, and most of the houses were darkened. Finn lived on the opposite side, a few houses down, and it was his that came into view first: an average-sized house not unlike my own. A lantern flickered on the front porch, but the rest of the windows were dark, and the sound of our footsteps seemed unnaturally loud.

Our conversation had trailed off comfortably at the start of the street; I expected Finn to just say his goodbye and break off toward his own gate, leaving it there. But he didn’t.

A few steps before his house, he smiled, gesturing toward the brick wall that enclosed his front lawn. “You know what that makes me think of every time I go past it?”

As we came to a stop, I looked over at him. “What?”

“The time when we were kids, and we thought it would be a good idea to have a contest to see who could run along it the fastest.”

It all came back to me at once; I hadn’t thought about it in years, and there it was, already laid out perfectly in my head. As if it had only happened yesterday. “You mean the time you got too competitive and started sprinting so fast you fell off and broke your elbow.”

I could still hear his scream in my head when he lost his footing, toppling sideways and landing arm-first on the sidewalk. And I could definitely still hear the sickening crunch as the impact had cracked right through the bone.

“I wasn’t competitive,” he said, grinning. “Just committed. Go hard or go home.”

“Go hard and end up in the hospital, actually.”

“Minor detail. Anyway, that was a battle scar. I was proud of that cast. Half the kids at school believed me when I told them I’d broken it fighting off dragons.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You were such a liar.”

“Not a liar.” He shrugged. “I’d just call it a bit of exaggeration. Wasn’t doing anybody any harm.”