“‘Evidence of the school’s first couple,’” Jason replied.
I stopped walking. I’d been expecting “picture of the school mascot” or “someone wearing school colors,” not proof that some historical couple once existed. “How are we going to find that?”
Jason pointed to a large tree, standing alone at the edge of a soccer field in the distance. “See that tree? That’s where we need to go.”
“We’re going to find evidence of a couple at a tree?”
Jason sighed and stopped a few yards ahead of me. “Yes, Ms. Doubtful. Now come on!” He veered off the sidewalk and headed down a grassy hill in the direction of the soccer field.
I watched him for a few seconds, this boy I wasn’t supposed to be with but somehow kept ending up with anyway. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way.
If the scavenger hunt had really been it—the last time I was going to be around Jason—I would’ve quietly followed him, stopped asking questions and let him lead the way just to get it over with. But I had a signed senior trip permission slip burning a hole in my back pocket. I was going to have some level of contact with Livie—with all of them—for the next few weeks. And while it didn’t seem like Jason remembered who I was, being in his house and seeing those pictures had brought back a flood of memories. Even though I wasn’t in any of the photos I’d seen, what if he had something else in his house? Something that would spark a memory that made him wonder about me?
I rubbed my thumb across my bottom lip. Maybe staying away from Jason once all the First Day Buddy stuff was over wasn’t the best move. Maybe I needed to keep him close. To know what he was thinking and prove I was a completely different person from the girl he’d grown up with so he’d never believe it was me even if his brain tried to make the connection. And I knew just the way to start.
Anticipation thrilled through me. I bounced on my toes for a beat, a tiny smile creeping its way onto my mouth. This is going to be fun.
“Come on, slowpoke,” I called over my shoulder as I zoomed past him, running down the hill as fast as I could, “or I’m going to beat you there!”
The girl Jason knew had been a terrible runner, slow and easily winded. But thanks to lesson number eleven, I’d left that girl in the dust.
He made an indignant noise and took off after me. He may have been a few inches taller, but I was fast and had a head start. I was in the lead until about forty feet from the tree, when Jason grabbed a fistful of my shirt, yanked me backward and sprinted in front of me.
I gasped and rushed forward, trying to hip check him out of the way.
Jason wrapped one arm around the front of my body as I got close, angling me behind him and attempting to hold down my arm. “You can’t beat me if you can’t touch the tree!”
I giggled and spun out of his reach, but before I could get all the way free, he smacked the tree in triumph. “You are such a cheater!” I tried sounding angry, but the fact I was still laughing ruined any chance of that.
Jason’s grin in response was deviously unapologetic.
I decided he needed a good hip checking anyway. But instead of knocking the sexy grin off his face, I tripped on an exposed tree root and stumbled into him.
“Whoa,” Jason said as he gently placed his hands on my waist to steady me.
My laughter died away and it was suddenly hard to breathe. I watched Jason’s chest rising and falling under his superhero shirt. He smelled like my childhood, like cookies and the beach, but there was a spicy boy scent I’d never noticed before. I looked up into his blue eyes.
He chuckled. “I think your attempt at thwarting my totally fair victory messed up your hair.” He reached out with one hand and tucked a few strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail behind my ear.
The spot on my waist where his hand had just been tingled.
He held my gaze for a second, then stepped back and cleared his throat. “So this is the Kissing Tree.”
I gulped. “Kissing Tree?”
“Take a look.”
I turned and my mouth dropped open. “Wow.”
Every inch of the tree’s bark, from where it disappeared into the ground to taller than even Sawyer could reach, was covered in initials.
“It’s another school tradition,” Jason explained. “Couples come here to kiss and then carve their initials into the tree.”
I circled the tree, letting my fingers trail over the letters. “There are so many. How do you know which one is the first?”
“It’s this one here.” Jason pointed to a spot in front of him at eye level. It was a simple E loves L inside a heart with a date below it. “That date is from the first week the school was open. It’s the oldest one on here.”
I traced the heart with one finger, slowing when the set of initials to the heart’s left caught my eye: J + S.
“You’re killing that tree.”
Jason looked up from the base of the oak tree in front of his house. “I am not,” he said over the soft sounds of his dad’s favorite Billy Joel song wafting from the open windows.
“Then what are you doing?” I bent down and noticed the initials carved into the tree’s trunk about two feet off the ground. I smiled.
He brushed off the tiny J + S. “I’m letting everyone know that we’re going to be best friends forever.” He pushed the tip of his dad’s pocket knife into the S, making it deeper.
“You don’t have to hurt the poor tree to prove that, Jase. The whole fourth grade knows that already. Everybody knows that already.”
Jason glanced up, grinning, and the knife slipped, slicing into his left hand. He jerked his hand away. The knife dropped to the ground, covered in blood.
My heart skipped a beat. “Hold on!” I pressed the edge of my T-shirt against the bloody spot above his left thumb. Blood soaked through the shirt almost instantly.
“Mrs. Stacy!” I yelled, knowing Jason’s mom would hear me through the open windows. All the color had drained from Jason’s face. “Bet I can annoy more nurses at the hospital than you,” I whispered.
He gave me the tiniest hint of a smile.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised as his mom came rushing down the steps toward us. “We’re best friends, remember? I won’t leave you.”
“Have you ever done that? Carved your initials into a tree?” Jason asked, pulling me out of the memory. He pointed to the Kissing Tree carvings.
I hadn’t thought of that day in years. My eyes darted to his left hand, which hung at his side. Does he still have the scar by his thumb? “No,” I replied. Which was the truth. He had, not me. “Have you?”
He kicked the ground with one of his sneakers. “Yeah.”
“Let me guess. There’s a J loves L on here somewhere.” I pretended to search the tree.
“No. Livie and I aren’t... It’s not...”
I peeked around the tree at him. “I was only teasing. You don’t have to explain.”
A wrinkle appeared in between his eyebrows. “It’s...complicated.” His eyes locked on mine. “But I’m not sure it’s an immortalize-it-in-wood-forever kind of thing.”
“Oh.”