The Way Back to You Read Online Free PDF Page A

interview—including my solo profile—on their Twitter. Super.
    Jade lived in town and cheered with us until two years ago, when her family moved to California. We keep in touch and meet up every summer at cheer camp—ideally, we’d also meet up at Nationals every year, but the Bend squad didn’t get past Regionals last season, and Santa Monica’s didn’t get there this time.
    I tap out a quick reply to her last message— HUGE exaggeration. Talk later?
    I might miss her more than ever these days, but I’m not as eager to discuss the interview as she is.
    I’ve just pressed send when I see him.
    Kyle.
    Even with his back to me, I can tell.
    I really hate that I can tell.
    And I hate the emotional lightning storm that immediately charges up in my body. Z ap! Excitement. Zing! Dread. Sizzle! Full-body tingles. Singe! All-consuming guilt.
    He’s standing in front of a display at the end of an aisle, his hands in his pockets, the hood of his black coat coming up to meet the straight line of his short blond hair.
    I can’t help it: I flash back to him at the hospital, and there’s a heaviness in my limbs. It was the day after the accident, and Ashlyn was still in a coma. All I wanted was to be there when she woke up. But my car had stalled on the ride over, and I was beyond stressed because it was time wasted, less time for me to be with her. Kyle was already there, though, near the waiting room. His stance was exactly the same as it is now, with his hands in his pockets, except then he was staring at a vending machine. He stood there longer than the hospital’s snack selection was worthy of: old, crappy chips versus older, crappier candy bars. So part of me wondered if he was even hungry. There were a lot of blank stares all around then. I ended up blowing past Kyle and heading for the ICU. I doubt he even noticed.
    I’m about to do the same now—pass behind him and gostraight for what I’m really here for—but I stop when I see what has him so preoccupied. An entire wall full of bright, plushy cushions shaped like animals. Why the hell is Kyle shopping for a Pillow Pet?
    At the pep rally, Matty was certain that Kyle wasn’t backsliding. That he’s okay. But a seventeen-year-old guy with no younger siblings, shopping in the stuffed animal department, seems definitively not okay. So the same part of me that needed to ask Matty about him two days ago needs to get closer—just to make sure he’s not about to rip the heads off those pillows and wear them as hats.
    He picks up a koala in one hand and a panda in the other. He’s deliberating.
    Holy shit.
    “Kyle.” His name slips out before I can wrangle it back.
    He startles, straightening up as he whips around to face me. I’m instantly aware of my messy hair and salt-caked snow boots. “Cloudy. Hey.” His fingers tighten on the koala, his voice a low, thundery rumble. “What’s going on?”
    Crack! Heat.
    “Here with my sister. How about you?” I peek at the shelf behind him. “Redecorating?”
    “Um,” he says, following my glance. “Not exactly. Just looking, I guess.”
    Then his eyebrows do the Thing. The Thing where they kind of slope up in a slant, like he’s contemplating something too big, and it makes me want to smooth them flat. The Thing has done bad things to my insides since he walked into mybiology class sophomore year.
    I used to wonder if being attracted to Kyle felt like a weather event to Ashlyn, too. Or maybe it was more serene for her, because her feelings weren’t constantly battling. The first time she told me about him, her eyes were as lit up as sparklers.
    “Kyle. Ocie.”
    She’d steered me into an alcove under the stairs. Her grin was so giddy and nervous, I giggled before I knew what was going on. At the time, Kyle felt like my little secret, although he was hardly a secret at all. “The guy who stole my bio notes all last semester?”
    Ashlyn had put her palms to her cheeks, endearingly shy. “I like him,” she