Page 11 of Running Home to You
“Should we take her to the hospital?” Jill asked as they reached her car.
“No hospital,” Abby and Mick said in unison.
“Hospital means Coach finds out. Coach finds out, we’re dead. I’m talking full fucking kangaroo,” Mick said.
Abby convulsed as she slid into the middle seat, teeth clashing so violently that she worried a dislocated jaw might ail her next. Jill started the car, blasted the heat, and wiped a circle across the foggy windshield.
“She could die from hypothermia,” T.K. said.
“She’s not going to die. Let’s just get her back to our place.”
By the time Jill’s car squealed out of the parking lot, the violent shaking and bone-chilling cold left Abby dizzy. She shut her eyes, uncomfortable enough that sleep tempted as a better option. But then a hand squeezed hers, and she jerked back up. It was Kate rubbing her fingers for warmth, and while the friction barely broke through the cold, Abby hissed thank you. Kate didn’t acknowledge her, but hedged in closer, her shoulder propping up Abby’s, unbothered by her weight or dampness.
Abby’s heart hadn’t stopped skipping from the adrenaline of the swim, so she didn’t attribute it to Kate, but she couldn’t ignore the way her breath caught. She hadn’t been this close to someone in months. The loneliness mercifully lifted, and it took everything in her to not wilt into Kate entirely.
“If something happens to her, we’re going to get kicked off the team, maybe out of school.” T.K. scrolled through her phone. “People go to prison for hazing. I’m not going to prison!”
“Why don’t you figure out how we can help her and then it won’t matter!” Mick peeled off her jacket and handed it to Kate, who wrapped it around Abby. “How is she?”
“Cold,” Kate said, still rubbing her hands.
“Isn’t hypothermia where you’re supposed to take off your clothes and use body heat?” Jill asked.
Kate turned rigid against her and Abby would have chuckled if shaking hadn’t consumed her frail energy.
Mick scoffed. “Quit fantasizing, Shupe.”
“I’m serious!”
“She’s right.” T.K. pointed to her phone.
“Stop. No one is getting naked,” Mick said.
“Thank God,” Abby muttered.
Jill glanced in the rearview mirror. “I have to admit, that was kind of badass, Cruz.”
“It was dangerous,” Kate said.
“Dangerous? We had to stop you from jumping in after her.”
Abby’s eyes widened at Kate, but she didn’t respond.
Mick chuckled. “First picking a fight with the seniors, then jumping into the river. Do you have a death wish?”
Abby frowned but delivered her answer with the same performative confidence that sent her swimming. “Absolutely.”
While everyone resumed their joking, Kate stopped rubbing her fingers. She stared at Abby wistfully, the longest look they’d ever exchanged since they met, and squeezed her hand. In what seemed like a miracle, for the briefest of moments, Abby stopped trembling and squeezed back.
She’d longed for such acknowledgment, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. It started long before softball. Abby first noticed her in the front row of Isla’s class, answering questions in a reserved manner that suggested timidity, but with a cutting weight that demanded one listen.
When Abby spotted the softball patches on her letterman’s jacket, she considered introducing herself but spent weeks eyeing the back of her head instead. And when she finally worked up the courage to put herself out there, meeting those ice blue eyes and freckles, Abby didn’t even care that Kate dismissed her. She wanted to keep staring, wanted to keep teasing, wanted to know more.
Instead, they became competitors, and with the rest of the team equally threatened, Abby existed on the outskirts. But this simple hand squeeze, Kate’s shoulder against her own, filled her with fleeting hope that they could be more than rivals.
At the house, Mick barked orders like she would in a game. “Jill—tea, Kate—blankets, I’ll find you some clothes, and, T.K.—just don’t make anything worse.”
Abby fought drowsiness, dipping in and out of the house’s lights and colors while she shivered on the couch. The girls milled in and out, handling her like a rag doll. She grumbled when Mick shoved her into the bathroom to take a hot shower. Jill forced her to take hold of a warm cup of tea, Kate tucked blankets around her, and even T.K. helped, though Abby imagined the pizza she ordered wasn’t simply out of the goodness of her heart.
