Gia Cribbs - The Disappearance Of Sloane Sullivan

“Oh, it’s going to be like that, huh?” The possibility of a wager gleamed in Sawyer’s eyes. “We were going to be the group to win it all and now it’s me against you?”

Jason’s bright eyes flicked to me. “Hey, Sloane, wanna be my partner and help me prove to Sawyer that even with the new girl , who knows nothing about this school or where to find anything on this list, I can still beat him?”

My stomach tightened. Me and Jason. Alone.

Disappointment flashed on Sawyer’s and Livie’s faces, but Sawyer rallied first. “Oh, you’re on. What do you say, Liv? Should we make these two pay for plotting against us?”

“Hey! I didn’t have anything to do with this bet,” I reminded him. “New girl, remember?”

“You’re right,” Sawyer agreed. He bumped Livie with his hip. “Should we make J pay for his poor choice of partner?”

“Hey!” I repeated, a wave of competitiveness flowing through me. “Now you’re going down.”

Livie chuckled. She entwined her arm with Sawyer’s. “Partner, I believe we should.”

The whine of microphone feedback interrupted the partner showdown before the stakes of the bet could be set. “Quiet down, people.” Mrs. Thompson’s voice echoed across the courtyard from where she was precariously balancing on top of a bench in heels taller than I’d ever seen. “Okay. The rules are simple: find each item on your list, take a picture as proof that you found the correct item, and return here where I’ll be waiting to check your pictures against your list. The first pair to accurately complete their list wins and gets to pick a song to be played at graduation. Remember, every list has different items so following other teams around won’t help you. And if you don’t have a phone, I have several digital cameras up here the Photography Club is generously letting us borrow. So see me if you need one. Any questions?” Excited whispers rose from the crowd as people began shuffling toward the edges of the courtyard. “Then let this year’s senior scavenger hunt begin!”

Jason motioned to the left as Sawyer and Livie took off running to the right. The mass of seniors thinned fast, and soon we were the only two rounding the school toward the back athletic fields. “What do we need to find first?” I asked. My stomach was a jumble of butterflies and nausea, giddy excitement for the hunt and the bet...and fear of being alone with Jason and being discovered.

“‘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.