The path was familiar.
The three of them were running through the dark and, frankly, terrifying park.
Will remembered running down this same path with Tiny, Lu, and Nathaniel years ago.
The last day of summer before high school started:
* * *
Will was the slowest. He was always the slowest.
“Hurry up!” Lu shrieked gleefully over her shoulder. Nathaniel—always fast, always a little bit super, even then—was so far ahead, Will couldn’t see him anymore. Tiny fell back next to him.
“What are you doing?” Will huffed. “You can go faster than that. We both don’t need to lose.”
“Then you’d be running by yourself,” Tiny said, as if it was that simple. “That’s no fun.”
* * *
It was her idea to have the annual traditions in the first place. It was her idea to take that picture, which he still had. He could never bring himself to throw it away.
He needed to go back to normal now more than ever. If he didn’t have Lu, if he didn’t have Nathaniel, and if he didn’t have Tiny—he had no one. He felt like he was backsliding. Second-guessing everything. The whole night—the past three years, even—started to unravel before his eyes. He was tired. Not just tonight, but of everything. He was so tired of pretending to be happy. Of acting like this new life he’d made for himself was what he wanted.
The picture of the four of them sitting on the giant bronze mushroom, with the giant bronze Cheshire Cat smiling like a big old cat creep above them, was lost somewhere in the tangle of socks and dirty laundry under his bed. He should dig it out. It was a good picture. His old life—his old self—was worth remembering.
He’d been so caught up in himself, he didn’t realize other people were hurting too. He didn’t want to lose Tiny. He wanted her to know that they cared if she got found.