You and Me and Him Read Online Free

her clipboard out, whistle clenched between her teeth, and her eyes on me. She blows the whistle. I flinch.
    “This group’s with me. Fall in for three laps around the field, and meet me by the north soccer goal in eight minutes. Go!”
    Students leap into action, streaming around Ms. Perry and filing out the door and into the sunshine. In Ms. Perry’s presence, I am like a hunted rabbit, frightened and frozen. Tom and I end up at the back of the pack. By the time we pass her, she is already shaking her head and making marks on her clipboard.
    “Wow, she really likes that whistle,” Tom says, loping beside me.
    “You have no idea.” I try not to pant as I lumber through the first few hundred yards of the run. You wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I am actually a pretty active person. I was a competitive swimmer for four years, until the end of eighth grade, followed by a brief, obsessive volleyball phase during freshman year. I walk and hike for hours in the cedar and fir forests that surround our town and hardly break a sweat. But running has always been my downfall. Any fitness or strength I gain through other activities exits my body the minute I accelerate to even a slow jog. Watch me run and you’ll assume I’m one of those kids who lie on the couch eating Cheez Doodles and watching reruns of
Saved by the Bell.
When I run, I sweat. I wheeze. I clump around like my legs are formed from lead.
    I do not want Tom to see me at my worst. “Hey, listen, save yourself! She said eight minutes, and we’re already behind. Running: not my forte. Making Ms. Perry like me: also not my forte. No reason to hitch your wagon to my falling star. That’s PE suicide.” I am breathing heavier now, and beads of sweat start to form on my forehead, under my bra, behind my knees.
    “No, I’m good,” Tom says, jogging beside me, not a drop of perspiration on him.
    I look around. We aren’t at the very back of the pack—some of the girls are walking—but we aren’t going to make the eight-minute mark either. I put my head down, working to keep my breath even and think of a way to avoid becoming a panting, red, sweaty mess in front of Tom. No go. Even if he ran ahead, he would be there waiting at the end. Oh well. If the sight of me post-exercise grosses him out, he can suck it. “You really should go faster. There’s still a chance Ms. Perry won’t hate you.”
    “Nope. I’m fine. Just enjoying a leisurely run with my new best friend.”
    “New best friend? Seriously? Doesn’t all this new-kid-with-a-heart-of-gold shit get old?”
    Tom laughs. “Too much?”
    “Yeah. Maybe a little. Are you always this friendly?”
    “I guess so. It sort of becomes automatic when you’ve moved as much as I have. You learn to make a good first impression.”
    “Ahhh, so this isn’t the real you? After a few days, you’ll turn into a total jerk?”
    “Maybe not a total jerk. I think I’m only occasionally jerky.”
    “Doesn’t it wear you out to be so charming?”
    “You have no idea.”
    We jog for a bit without talking, the only sound my laboring lungs sucking in air.
    “If you lift your chin up instead of looking at the ground, you’ll get more oxygen,” Tom says.
    I pretend to ignore him, but after a minute I lift my chin and find my breathing sounds and feels a little less desperate. After a few hundred yards of actual oxygen intake, my legs feel stronger too. And with my chin up, I can see the hillside of evergreen trees sloping behind the school and smell the late summer blooms from the hedge of heather growing along the fence line.
    We finish the run in silence, and in spite of how it began, it isn’t the worst three laps I have ever run. We don’t make it in under eight minutes, and most of the rest of the class is waiting in the bleachers, bored, watching us down the home stretch. Some varsity wrestlers moo when I cross the finish line.
    Tom stops, staring at them. He glances at me to see if I heard. I roll my