“Here,” I said, grabbing one of her feet that was kicking in space as she tried to hoist herself over. “Maybe if I give you another push?”

“Yes!” she said. “Great idea. You’re a genius at this.” I held on to her foot, and she pushed off my hands and was able to swing one leg, then another, over the sill. She fell over the window with a thump that I could hear even from the ground. “Ow,” I heard her mutter from inside.

“You okay?” I called up.

A second later, her green head appeared in the window. “Fine!” she said. “Thank you so much! You saved my life. Or at least my hair.” She smiled at me, and then disappeared from view. I figured she’d gone to wash off the green mask, but found myself waiting by the window for just a few moments more, wondering if this was over. When she didn’t come back, I turned and walked down the driveway. As I got to the end and turned right on the road, in the direction that would take me back home, I realized that I didn’t even know the girl’s name.

When I started running in the same direction the next day, my muscles protested—loudly. But I didn’t even think about not going, though I hoped it wouldn’t make me seem like a stalker. It just felt like I’d seen the first five minutes of a movie, and I had to know what happened next. And if the girl wasn’t there, I wasn’t going to knock on the door or anything. I was just hoping that maybe she’d be outside again. When I got closer to her house, I felt my hopes deflate as I realized that the driveway and sidewalk were empty. It seemed totally obvious now that they would be. Did I just expect that she would be hanging outside, waiting around? I turned to head home, and as I did I noticed that there was writing on the ground, in chalk, the letters a mix of capitals and cursive.

Hey, running girl!! Thanks so much.

Hair is fine. J xo, SW

On the third day, I didn’t even try to run. My legs were killing me after trying to do two long runs when I was still out of shape. I’d gotten my mother to drop me off about a mile away, telling her that I wanted to scout a new run. I think normally she would have asked more questions, but Beckett had been throwing a temper tantrum in the backseat and her attention was divided. She told me to give her a call if I needed a ride home, reminding me not to be gone too long, since we had a family dinner planned.

If it had been one of the girls from school that I’d been trying to impress, I would have worn something different. One of my nicer dresses, the skirt my mother had just bought for me, the kind of clothes that always made me feel like I was pretending to be someone else altogether. But I found myself reaching for another one of my mom’s old T-shirts, the ones I only normally used for running or hanging around the house. I also put on some lipstick, even though I didn’t have anything close to bright red. As I looked in the mirror, I realized I still felt like myself, but a new version of myself, one I’d never tried out until today.

I walked slowly toward the girl’s house, trying to get my courage up. I had decided, back when I was getting ready, that I was going to go up and ring the bell. She’d left me a note, after all, and wasn’t that kind of like an invitation? But the closer I got, the more I began to question if I would actually be able to do this. Ring the bell of a mansion, and then when someone came to the door, ask for—who, exactly? The plan was seeming stupider and stupider the closer I got, but I made myself walk all the way up to the base of the driveway. The chalk message was gone, no doubt washed away in the thunderstorm that had woken me up at two a.m. I looked up the driveway for a moment longer, then lost whatever bit of courage had gotten me this far and turned to go.

“Hey!” I looked up and saw the girl leaning out of a second-story window. She smiled at me. “Hang on, okay?” I nodded, and her head disappeared inside.

I shifted from foot to foot, smoothing my shirt down, wondering why I felt so nervous. I was nervous around my friends at school, but that was more nervousness that I would say something stupid or find myself kicked out of the group. This was something else entirely.

“You came back!” I looked up and saw the girl was heading down the driveway, walking fast, then running for a few steps, then walking again. As she got closer, I saw she was holding a pair of sandals in one hand, swinging them by their long leather straps. She reached me and dropped them next to her on the ground. “I’m so glad you’re here! I wanted to thank you, but then realized I had no idea how to do that. Look!” She bent forward and shook her hair at me, and I realized that it was intact, and not the slightest bit green.

“No damage?” I asked, as she flipped her head back up.

“None!” she said happily, pulling one end into her eyeline to examine it, then tucking it behind her ear. “I mean, as far as I know. Watch, it’ll all fall out next Tuesday.”

“Delayed reaction,” I said, nodding. “Or what if you’ve discovered some magical chemical compound that only is activated when you’ve left it on too long? And that’s why they tell you not to do it.”

“Love it,” she said. “The hair mask is my radioactive spider.” I laughed, and didn’t even really have time to worry that I was boring her or sounding stupid before she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Emily,” I said, and she smiled, like that was just the name she’d been hoping to hear.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m Sloane.”

* * *

Run, Emily, Run!

Galveston

Glen Campbell

Any Way You Want It

Journey

Crash My Party

Luke Bryan

Heat of the Moment

Asia

True North

Jillette Johnson

Take On Me

A-Ha!

The Moment I Knew

Taylor Swift

Just Like Heaven

The Cure

It Goes Like This

Thomas Rhett

Mr. Blue Sky

ELO

All Kinds of Kinds

Miranda Lambert

Nightswimming

R.E.M.

What About Love

Heart

The Downeaster “Alexa”

Billy Joel

Short People

Randy Newman

Dancin’ Away with My Heart

Lady Antebellum

Take Me Home Tonight

Eddie Money

You Make My Dreams

Hall & Oates

Even If It Breaks Your Heart

Eli Young Band

Aw Naw

Chris Young

The Power of Love

Huey Lewis & The News

This

Darius Rucker

Fancy

Reba McEntire

Run

Matt Nathanson feat. Sugarland

A Lot to Learn About Livin’

Easton Corbin

Centerfold

J. Geils Band

Quittin’ You

The Band Perry

I was seriously out of running shape. I could feel it in how my calves started to ache right away, how my breath was labored after the first mile. My participation on the cross-country team had gotten very sporadic as school was ending, and I hadn’t run at all since I’d come back to find Sloane gone. But it was still sad that, after doing this for most of my life, I could become so bad at it so quickly.

Running was the one activity I’d done regularly from childhood on. Looking back, it was clear why my parents had nudged me to join kids’ races and running clubs and, if one of them was teaching, encourage me to go down to the college or university track and practice. It was cheap and didn’t require a team or being in the same place all the time—money and consistency being in short supply when I was growing up.

Sloane, on the other hand, had had more lessons than I’d even really known were options. She could ride horses and ballroom dance, in addition to ballet and tap. She could sail, play tennis, speak conversational French, and, for some reason I’d never been clear on, could play doubles bridge. I had learned to swim at camp, but mostly I just ran. For most of my life, it had been the one athletic thing that I could do well, which was why it was so embarrassing to find myself now limping through the first mile.

I turned up the volume on my iPod, as if this would give me a corresponding surge of energy. It didn’t, but I pushed myself to go faster, even as I was gasping for breath. I was listening to a new mix, complete with embarrassingly motivational name. The mix was filled with the kind of music I listened to but never admitted to—country and eighties pop. It had the same playlist repeating again after the end; my iPod’s loop function was broken, and when it got to the end of a playlist, it just froze. It had been acting wonky ever since I’d left it in the car and an unexpected rainstorm had come through the open roof and drenched it.

I was running a loop near my neighborhood that I’d discovered last year. It took me right along the water, which meant that it was cooler and I would sometimes get a breeze, which I was seriously in need of at the moment. Usually, this was an easy five-mile run, but usually, I wasn’t this out of shape.

I rounded a bend in the road and saw that there was someone running ahead of me. It was a guy, and maybe around my age. . . . He turned his head to adjust the iPod strapped to his arm, giving me a glance at his profile, and I felt my feet stumble and then slow when I recognized it was Frank Porter.

It didn’t look like he’d noticed me. He was back to looking straight ahead, white earbuds in his ears. I slowed even more—I was pretty much just walking with bounce now—and tried to figure out what to do. If I pushed myself, I could run past him, but then I’d have to keep going fast until I could make it home. Also, then Frank would be looking at the back of me unless I really kept up my pace and disappeared from his view. And I had grabbed the first pair of shorts I’d seen in my drawer, and they had GO SH! printed across the back. This was supposed to mean Go Stanwich High, but apparently nobody had realized until we’d all prepaid for them that it looked like GOSH! was written across our butts. But running fast seemed to be my best option if I wanted to keep on this path, unless I dropped to a really slow pace, lagging behind him and hoping he wouldn’t see me, which felt weird and stalkerish.