Period 8

you to your car.”
The door closes behind him and the girl drops to her knees, face in hands, gasping for breath. When she’s under control she grabs her purse and steps outside, squinting into the sun high in the sky. A familiar car pulls to a stop in the street and she hurries to get

cool in the Pacific Northwest—first outdoor workout of the year; the water will be cold, probably mid-fifties. If he doesn’t lose feeling in his fingers and toes, he’ll coax Logs out here this afternoon. Bruce Logsdon teaches science and social studies at Heller High, runs Period 8 at lunchtime, and swims open water with Paulie Bomb—Paul Baum. Logs requires Paulie to test the water temperature early each spring before immersing his own body.
Paulie pops the trunk lock and hauls out his triathlete’s wetsuit. At least his nuts will be warm. Like that will ever matter again. Oh, Hannah.
He hits the water, involuntarily sucking air as the cold leaks in. The colder the better. He deserves this. Even so, he pees in self-defense, his only means to counter the ice-watery fingers creeping around his ribcage and into his crotch. He swims away from shore for about a hundred yards as his body heat warms the water inside the suit. He turns parallel

to the shore and strokes, finding a cadence he can hold over the next two hours. He knows how to play games to allay the monotony; fifty strokes hard, fifty strokes easy; a hundred strokes hard, fifty easy; a hundred-fifty hard, fifty easy, and on and on. An hour up and an hour back. He has taught himself to breathe on either side in order to keep the shore in sight and swim a relatively straight line. On this morning, working on zero sleep, he holds an even pace; no intervals. Just his sweet, sweet Hannah wedged in his frontal lobe. His gone Hannah.
Paulie Bomb could have any girl at Heller High, according to most of his buddies. He’s tall and built like an athletic machine. None of his features are classic, but his slightly crooked nose, shaggy brown hair, and dark watery eyes fetch him more between-class approaches than his friends can stand. He hears, “She wants to have your babies,” in his ear at least twice daily. Most often from Justin Chenier.