I’M NOT SURE WHY the detectives care about the map at all, as if a girl knowing her way around is the most dangerous thing of all. Yes, I made the map. No, I didn’t make it as part of some grand scheme to lure Mark deep into the woods. Tabby only became familiar with those trails at all because of me. Because I asked her to go running with me.
At first, she had laughed, sitting there at the kitchen table, cradling the coffee she only ever drank black anymore. “The only way I’ll manage to be fast is if I’m running away from someone.”
“Well, you can pretend you’re running away from me,” I said. “Come on. Just give it a try. They say running gives you endorphins and makes you happy.”
“What makes you think I’m not already happy?” she said. “Besides, they also make pills for that. Those require a lot less effort.”
I knew I had hit a sore spot. Ever since my parents got called in to school that day to talk about what was written on Tabby’s locker, they had been making her see a therapist. Some woman at an office downtown for an hour a week, where Tabby was supposed to spill her soul. I wondered if she lied about Mark, or if he even came up. I had no idea what she talked about in those sessions, or if her therapist had a diagnosis. Depressed. Withdrawn. I had my own diagnosis. In a toxic relationship.
I was ready to give up on the idea of Tabby running with me, but she stood up and drained the rest of her coffee mug. “Okay, fine. But I don’t have running shoes.”
I let her borrow a pair of my Nikes. She wanted to wear her Princeton hoodie, even though I told her it was way too hot for that in the woods. But it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t find it anyway.
“Probably Mom doing the laundry,” she said. “I told her I can do my own, but she never listens.”
Surprisingly, Tabby was fast. She didn’t need to stop and take a break. She didn’t double over, head between her knees. Tabby was a natural.
To give you a mental picture, the woods are a circuit of different trails, crisscrossing each other like a spider’s web. There’s a baby trail, the Boardwalk, for people who only have time for a mile. Then the three- and four-mile trails, Humpback Ridge and the Bottleneck. I know what supposedly happens on those trails. Humpback is for humping and Bottleneck is for drinking, littered with beer cans and bottle caps to honor its namesake. Then there’s Cider Creek, six miles, which wraps around everything else like a tight hug. Last of all is the Mayflower, a long and winding eight miles, a too-big belt. Getting to the end means making it up to the Split, a steep rock face, the highest point in Coldcliff, where you get rewarded with an epic view.
I’ve never been all the way up to the Split. I’ve heard stories about what has happened there. That people disappeared over the edge, never to be seen again. I know they’re cautionary tales meant to keep drunk kids away from the brink, but they’re enough to scare me away. Besides, I’m a runner, not a climber.
Tabby and I were on our way around the Boardwalk. If she wasn’t tired, I figured we could do another lap. But instead, she stopped and stared at the signs for the other trails. “The Split,” she said. “That’s a weird name for something.”
“It’s apparently named that because the rocks split, like, years ago, and there’s a rumor that one day it will all cave in.”
“One day,” she said. She rubbed her bare arms. “Should we head back?”
And even though I was the one who knew the woods, it felt for a minute like she was leading me.
Excerpt from Tabby’s Diary
June 1, 2019
I’m so glad to have Mark home for the summer. Things are better now. I know we have a lot to talk about, but I’m happy. This is going to be the best summer ever. When it’s over, we’ll look back on everything we’ve done. All the plans we made. And we’ll know we did them all.
I really do love him. I just hope he loves me back.