Page 16 of Running Home to You
“She does?” Abby darted her eyes back to her.
Kate slipped beneath Blake’s arm and started down the sidewalk. “Come on, we should get going.”
But Blake kept his feet planted, hands in the pockets of hisletterman’s jacket. A silver cross hung around his neck. “Have you found a church yet?” he asked her.
Abby laughed, but neither he nor Kate joined in. “Oh. You’re serious?”
“We go to New Hope Baptist, if you ever want to join…”
“Let’s go.” Kate tugged his hand and barely spared Abby a glance. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Nice to meet you.” Blake smiled and she grimaced back as he followed Kate like a docile puppy.
Abby’s sadness at their study session ending shifted to bitterness. Bitterness at being Kate’s project, a charity case that she only took on because of Coach Whitley’s demands. Bitterness at needing her tutoring and companionship because no one cared, and lately she didn’t even care herself. But mostly, bitterness at not being the one to follow Kate across the quad with her hand as a steady guide.
She intended to put her best foot forward with Abby. Kate didn’t approach a task with anything less; plus, she accepted their forced partnership as apt penance for her previous neglect. But after their first study session, Abby cooled to an impenetrable degree.
“How was your test?” Kate would ask.
Abby only shrugged. Kate grew to dread helping her with essays, correcting her work to an annoyed, “Really?”
“You know I’m just trying to help, right?” she asked as they slammed their books shut.
Kate didn’t know what she expected. After the dock, after glimpsing Abby’s deep-rooted sorrow, a part of her longed to understand, maybe even help, but Abby didn’t let her. Not that Kate fully understood how. Not when her shoulders drooped, or her eyes cast to a far-off place, or she mindlessly scribbled in the margins of her notebooks. Not when she showed up to a study session, red eyed and sniffling, refusing to meet Kate’s face.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Abby’s throat bobbed. “Yeah.”
Kate frowned. “Is it…” But she always stopped, uncertain what to say, hoping it might be enough for Abby to meet her halfway.
“What?” She rubbed her eyes and hunched over her textbook. “I’m just having a shitty day, okay?”
“Okay.”
She swore the closest she ever got to Abby was when she’d catch her stare across the table. It held a haunting sadness, and yet its intensity bore into her like she wanted something. It’d grow so heavy that Kate often blushed, spurring another grumble whenever she snapped Abby out of it by asking what she wanted.
Their partnership on the field didn’t thaw either. Every practice they threw together, took grounders at short, lobbed pitches to each other for hitting drills. They spoke little, but in the silence, Kate admired and envied. No matter how doggedly she trained, she’d never swing as smooth or throw as crisp. Even sick, even sad, even scarcely trying, Abby was by far the best.
And just as Abby rolled her eyes at Kate’s tutoring, Kate too grew annoyed at Abby’s effortless skill.
“You’re leaning out,” Abby said as she tossed her pitches.
She gritted her teeth between swings. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re losing power because you’re dipping out early like it’s a slap.” Abby threw her another ball and Kate whiffed. “Pulled your head on that one.”
“I know,” Kate said with a scowl.
There was no escape. Abby stopped avoiding the locker room, swiping the last dented cubby next to Kate’s, the two of them silently tossing equipment and slamming doors before and after practice. The dilapidated, mold-riddled showers had two temperatures—ice cold and third-degree-burn hot—so the locker room only accommodated storage, changing, or socializing. Still, Kate averted her eyes, squared up to her own locker while she dressed, never quite comfortable in her own skin or at the sight of others’.
But with Abby, she failed to avert her gaze. Kate unconsciously suctioned to her as she sat in her sports bra and shorts on the bench, legs kicked out, arms bracing her as she casually leaned back. Kate didn’t notice she’d stopped breathing until her chest tightened, nor realized she was staring until Abby’s dark eyes flashed into hers.
“Dude, what do you think?” Mick flexed in front of a dirty mirror on the wall. “I’m trying to bulk this season. Cruz, you’re built. How much are you lifting now?”
Abby just shrugged, her eyes not veering from Kate’s. “I don’t know. How much?”
Kate blushed, her voice barely there. “One-forty,” she said, her jaw locking at another reminder of Abby’s superior strength. She hated loading more onto the bar in the weight room, the two of them glaring as they spotted each other. The frustration boiled so hot beneath that it often left her outwardly trembling, much like it did now, as Abby smirked across the way. Kate turned back to her locker and huffed to catch her breath.
