Moonglass by Jessi Kirby Read Free Book Online

Those were short, steep hill s. Poles was a monster of a hill, though. All the way up, no flats or switchbacks or anything. A pure guts run. I breathed deeply through my nose, then bent to touch the ground, stretching my hamstrings.
    “All right, that’s it.” Jillian stood and shook out her legs. “Let’s go.”
    I set my jaw. Ashley gave me a nudge and a confident nod. Coach Martin blew his whistle, and we were off. The pack started at a slow, casual jog, but nobody spoke. Except for Ashley, who was on my right.
    “So.” She took a breath as our feet pounded the dirt road. “Where did you move here from anyway?” I kept my eyes on Jillian, who was a few runners ahead of us. “Pismo Beach. North of here.”
    “Oh,” she breathed. The pace was picking up already. Nobody had said anything, but I could definitely feel it and it was obvious that Ashley could too. “Why?” It was all she could manage at this point.
    “Dad’s job.” I looked sideways at her. She was already leaning forward, hard. Lurching actually. I continued, comfortable with our cadence. “Lifeguard supervisor. Runs crystal Cove now. It’s why I was down there.”
    “Oh. And … what about … your mom? What … does … she do?”
    I coughed and picked up the pace, hoping to just leave the question behind. I didn’t want to explain it here, now, to someone I barely knew.
    Ashley was breathing heavily now and had started to slump her shoulders forward and tilt her chin up. I looked from her to Jillian, who looked as comfortable as I felt. We neared the base of the hill, and the incline increased with every foot strike. I felt my legs want to speed up into it.
    “So?” Ashley huffed.
    “So what?” I replied.
    “What about … your mom? What’s … she do?” When she looked over at me, I saw her carefully applied makeup beginning to melt.
    “She’s away a lot. Hey, you mind if I pick it up? I need some momentum for this hill.” Ashley looked relieved and immediately stopped running. “Yeah. I think I’m going to save my momentum for the top.” She fanned herself. “I’ll catch up.” She smiled. “In a few hours.”
    I nodded and accelerated, then felt the bite of the hill as it rose upward steeply. The majority of the group had done the same, and we all shifted into work mode. I looked at the peak of the hill, then put my head down and let my eyes follow the dirt trail. It wasn’t often that I ran somewhere other than the beach, with its familiar sound of the waves rolling into the shore. Here, on this hill, I could only hear the crunch of our shoes on dirt and my breathing, which had become hard and steady.
    My legs and chest burned, and I thought about why I had lied to Ashley. It was a normal enough question. It just happened to be that the answer was one that would inevitably lead to shock, then pity, and then awkward moments as she tried to figure out where to go from that point in the conversation. It was nobody’s fault. That’s just how it was. It was a relief to be able to brush it off and not go there. It dawned on me as another advantage of starting over. I didn’t need to have those moments if I didn’t want to. I could say whatever, and nobody would be the wiser. A surge of energy pushed me forward, and I approached Jillian, who had pulled ahead of the group.
    She heard my feet and looked over her shoulder. She dug in a little more, despite our hard uphill pace. I matched it. When we were shoulder to shoulder, I looked over and nodded. Her eyes flicked sideways, but she didn’t acknowlledge me. The small snub was enough for me to decide I had to beat her. We leaned into the hill, at a pace that would be hard to hold the rest of the way. I picked it up ever so slightly and concentrated on controlling my breathing.
    When she matched me instantly, I started to regret the move.
    The two of us locked into a pace of hard resolve. My legs ached. My chest burned. I looked out of the corner of my eye, hoping to see a