After Obsession by Carrie Jones, Steven E. Wedel Read Free Book Online

about totems?” I ask.
    “A little.”
    “Yeah. It is.”
    “We should all have a spirit guide. It’d make life easier.”
    “Do you?” I ask.
    “No. Somewhere back up the line, on my mom’s side, there’s some Penobscot blood, but it’s too thin in me. I’m just a run-of-the-mill pagan. Not that I tell too many people about that. Folks around here are pretty conservative, in case you hadn’t figured it out.”
    I nod. I want to skip woodworking and stay here and talk to him, but Mr. Burnham takes the brush from my hand.
    “Wash up,” he says. “This is my planning period. I’ll put Aimee and your cougar away and clean the brushes after I write your note to class.”
    “You know who it is?”
    “Aimee Avery is the best artist in this school. Naturally she’s one of my favorites. You are aware that she has a boyfriend. Blake Stanley.”
    I give him a sheepish look that a blind man could interpret. “She’s the only person who really talks to me.”
    “She’s a nice girl,” he says as he writes a note on the back of a scrap of paper. “Who’s your teacher?”
    After woodworking, it’s off to the locker room to suit up for cross-country. At home, the Jets are on the field practicing for Friday’s game against the Chickasha Fighting Chicks. Beating the Chicks would earn the Jets a playoff berth. Will they win without me? Maybe. I decide I don’t want to think about it.
    The cross-country team gathers outside the field house and Coach Treat, a thin woman with mousy hair and pale freckles, outlines the route we’ll be running for the day. I don’t recognize the street names, of course, which means I have to stay with someone who knows where they’re going. It turns out that someone is Blake, who quickly jumps out ahead of the pack. I catch up and run along beside him.
    “I don’t know the route,” I explain. “The street names.”
    “It’s easy to remember once you’ve done it a few times,” he says. He’s not breathing hard. His words are punctuated by the fall of his feet on the pavement. Despite the chill, we’re all wearing shorts. I glance down at Blake’s pumping legs. They’re toned, but skinny. No real muscle mass. I can see the muscles of his calves flexing, but there’s almost no definition in his thighs. He’s all cardio and no resistance training. No squats.
    We run side-by-side for about forty minutes with no more conversation. We come around one last corner with a little convenience store with gas pumps on one side and a drug store on the other. The school’s field house is about two blocks away.
    “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I challenge. Blake gives me a look that says I’m stupid to challenge him.
    “Go!” He leans into it and sprints forward. I do the same. Behind us, the rest of the team shouts encouragement. It’s mostly generic, but every now and then I hear, “Go Blake!”
    I pass him easily, and now I can hear him panting. Then I can’t. He’s falling behind. Ten yards. Twenty. I race past the fence around the soccer field and see Coach Treat standing in front of the field house with the stopwatch in her hand. I think of the last yards between me and a touchdown that would send the Jets to the playoffs and find another burst of speed. I blow by the coach as she clicks the watch, her eyes following me as I start to slow down.
    Blake finishes a good four seconds behind me. I go back and reach out to shake his hand. He hesitates for a moment, then grips my hand. His breath puffs out in vapor clouds. I’m breathing a little hard, but not like him. The rest of the team trickles in. Coach Treat calls times and her student assistant records them. When everyone’s in, she calls me over to her.
    “Are you always that fast?” she asks.
    I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess.”
    “Alan, you’ve got a good chance of making the all-state team if you keep that up,” she says. “Good job.” She looks over the whole team, then calls, “Hit the