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"No, Mason" Nate backed up He kept shaking his head The cloud of denial was a fully enclosed wall It slammed down between us, and when he took another step back, I knew I couldn’t break through it He was gone Park Sebasstian had takenyou to be friendly with him That’s all"

My jaw clenched, and I felt as if a nerve had been hit one too many times "If that’s all you think it is, he’s brainwashed you a lotto talk to him I needed to move onto the second matter at hand "What’s up with you and Marissa?"

"What?"

"Marissa What are you doing with her?"

"Nothing Why?" He had a hand on the side of his face, as if he was still pondering sohtened and he focused on me more clearly "Don’t tellprobleain Keep her away frohtened "So you’re givingHe can’t, but you can?"

My eyes were al up fro "I know you’re friendly with her You took her as a date to that dinner I don’t knohat her agenda is with ot one If you see her," I emphasized that word, "tell her to stay away fro to happen The sooner she accepts that, the sooner she can er mirrored his features His eyes snapped to attention and his shoulders shifted back, readying for a fight Nate moved closer to me this time "Excuse me?" He lowered his voice

So did I "You heardfroht in the front There was no announcer, no one into that world where he needed those things Attention Power Control That’s what he wanted I didn’t need any of it His eyes shifted to the left and I kneas going to throw a punch

His arht arht and let it go My fist slammed into his face It happened, as if in slow ether Neither of us stepped back, but as Ifroround, and at that same moment, another burst of cheers went up from behind the house I knelt, checked toHe was I’d only knocked him out I turned, stepped over hi hell

SAMANTHA

It was ht I had perpetual butterflies inback and forth When the first gun sounded, it was our alert to head for the starting lines As I did, s were almost numb I couldn’t feel them, just the nerves inside an, and Heather all waved back at ame that afternoon He couldn’tThere’d been ten text es froood lucks and reassurance that everything would work out no matter what It was easy for hi irrational He was there I wasn’t I needed to get there It was on ood luck tocheered, but it all faded My eyes were trained on the referee holding his hand in the air I waited Everyone waited, and the more I focused on him, the more my nerves faded away

The horn sounded, and he dropped his arroup started off I had been placed in the roups to scatter I waited again Because of the press from the other runners, I couldn’t start out ateverything indistance between irls spread out, and it took only a few s

I could see the front runners They were going hard, but thisto some of us It meant my future

"Don’t hold back, Strattan" My coach had pulled me aside when everyone left the bus earlier

I’d been confused "What are you talking about?"

Eric Hayes got off the bus, followed by two lanced at us as they went, but Coach waited until they were out of hearing distance He lowered his voice, "I know you, Strattan You hold back autoirls ht lose their o faster the last half, but you go strong the whole time I know you run on your own still"

"Only sometimes"

"It doesn’t matter I’ve known This is your run Run today as if you’ll never run again You got it? You can take state You could even go to nationals Run your ass off That’s all I’ you" He pointed to le" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">