Read Online Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson - Free Book Online Page B

catch up with him, I started to clamber over the downed trees. By then, I’d made it to the top of the tree, where the trunk had narrowed, and it seemed like it would be simple enough. “Ow,” I muttered under my breath as yet another twig scraped my leg.
    Henry turned back and squinted. “What are you doing?” he called, starting to walk toward me.
    “Nothing,” I said, hearing the annoyance in my voice, which I knew wasn’t exactly fair, since he was helping me get out of the woods, but all I was doing at that moment was trying to keep him from having to wait on me.
    “Don’t,” he said, and I could hear that he sounded equally annoyed. “That wood’s rotten, it’s likely to—”
    With a snap , the trunk I’d been standing on collapsed, and I waspitching forward, bracing for the inevitable fall, when just like that, in an instant, Henry was there, catching me.
    “Sorry,” I gasped, feeling how hard my heart was pounding, the adrenaline pumping through my body.
    “Careful,” he said, as I started to step out of the trunk. “Davy twisted his ankle doing that last month.”
    “Thanks.” I leaned on him a little bit for support as I lifted my foot out, trying very hard not to think about what kind of creepy-crawlies were probably living in a rotted-out tree trunk. It wasn’t until I had both feet back on the forest floor that I realized his arms were still around me. I could feel the heat from his hands on my back through my thin T-shirt. I looked up at him—it was still so strange to have to look up at Henry—and saw how close we were, our faces just inches apart. He must have become aware of this at the same time, because he dropped his arms immediately, and took a few steps away.
    “You okay?” he asked, the brusque, businesslike tone back in his voice.
    “Fine,” I said. I brushed off some of the wet leaves that had stuck to my ankles, mostly so he wouldn’t see how flustered I was.
    “Good,” he said. He started walking again, and I followed behind, careful to put my feet where I saw him place his, not wanting another mishap. In what seemed like only a few more seconds, I was following Henry out of the woods, blinking in the brightersunlight, and realizing I was just two streets away from my house. “You know your way from here?” he asked.
    “Of course I do,” I said, slightly insulted.
    Henry just shook his head and smiled, the first real smile I’d seen since meeting him again. “It’s not like you have the greatest sense of direction,” he said. I opened my mouth to protest this, and he went on, “I just had to help you find your way out of the woods.” He looked at me evenly for a moment, then added, “And it wasn’t even the first time.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving me to try and figure out what he meant.
    A moment later, when he’d passed out of sight, it hit me. The first time we’d met had been in these very same woods. As I walked home, shielding my eyes against the sun, so bright after the darkness of the woods. I realized that I’d been so caught up in thinking about how things with him had ended, I’d almost forgotten how they had begun.
    “Taylor, where have you been?” my mother asked when I returned, her eyes widening as she took in the scratches on my legs. I’d been trying to sneak back to my room quietly, hoping that everyone would still be asleep, but no such luck. My mom was unpacking what looked like practically a kitchenful of paper bags from the PocoMart, the closest thing to a grocery store in Lake Phoenix. There were bigger supermarkets, but they were a good half hour drive away.
    “Just walking,” I said vaguely as I glanced around the kitchen, not meeting her eye. I saw that the coffeemaker was still empty—my mother was a tea drinker—which meant that, two hours after I’d left, my father was still asleep.
    “I ran into Paul Crosby at the market,” she said, referring to Henry’s dad. I felt my face start to get hot, and