Partners
Kate Hutchins didn’t take no for an answer. Abby groaned when Kate showed up at her apartment, shoulders raised against the chill while she delivered a determined flurry of knocks to the door. She contemplated ignoring her until she gave up, but Abby also didn’t want her to leave. Not when she spotted her through the peephole, her gentle features taut with determination, chestnut hair blowing in the wind, almost unrecognizable from the field.
She took an extra beat to study her, before finally cracking the door with a sigh. “I’m sick.”
“That’ll happen when you plunge into the river this time of year,” Kate said.
“What are you doing here? Haven’t you heard of a text?”
“You weren’t answering those so Coach told me where to find you. I thought we could hit the library.” Kate’s brows drew together. “We have three weeks to get your grades up. I’m sorry, but we don’t have a choice.”
“You could just let me fail,” Abby said.
Kate seemed to mull it over, staring at Abby for a beat, probably taking note of her raw nose and the bags under her eyes. “I’m not going to do that.”
Despite the answer resounding with a hint of begrudged duty,Abby was secretly relieved that Kate wasn’t giving up on her. Even if she’d nearly given up on herself.
“Fine. Just give me a minute.”
Abby didn’t dare let her inside. She’d been at Insley for two months, but her mattress still lay in the middle of her bedroom floor. In the last few weeks, she’d stopped doing laundry, picking out her least smelly shirts for practice. Both the kitchen sink and her ashtray overflowed, while she’d let the refrigerator dwindle to empty.
She paused after throwing on clothes, lingering on a photo of her mother atop her dresser. She didn’t know if it was sickness or the drama of the last few days, but Abby had been tossing and turning more than usual at night, consumed by nightmares and tears. Consumed with visions of the crash, the ring of that dreaded phone call with the news, stomach lurching when she wondered if her mom had died instantly or if she had felt the heat on her skin. If she was aware enough to fear the end or if she thought of Abby when she took her last breath with regret.
She swallowed the threat of fresh tears before charging outside and slamming the door behind her. She buried her hands in her sweatshirt, teeth clenched against the chill, as she walked ahead of Kate.
“Why’d you do it?”
Abby narrowed her gaze. “Do what?”
“Jump in the water,” Kate said, catching up alongside her.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
Kate bit her lip as if holding back more and Abby sighed. “What?”
“I’m just trying to understand. It seems like maybe you don’t want to be here. At Insley.”
Abby rolled her eyes as they crossed the quad. “That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know but I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m not here. If I don’t play.” Abby tried to gulp away the tightness in herthroat. “It’s the only thing I know how to do right now. I just keep waiting for it to feel normal again.”
She stopped herself from the rest. That she kept waiting to feel anything at all. Just like that twisted baptism in the river when the ice hit her skin and confirmed she was alive. She kept waiting for the game to fill the hole in her heart and bring her back.
It’d worked plenty of times before. The one thing she always excelled at, understood, belonged to. That’s what had stung in the weeks leading up to the dock. She didn’t belong on the team. Maybe she didn’t even belong on the field.
But she trudged through the motions, needing it, even if she didn’t want it. That’s what the game required. Getting up to bat after striking out again and again. An error in the field almost always guaranteed the next ball was coming to you. It promised as much letdown as triumph, and the rest loomed mundanely in between. In the waiting. Lately, Abby took permanent residence there.
When they reached the library steps, Abby paused and glanced at the phrase etched under the roof above the marble pillars.Ad astra per aspera.
“It says, ‘To the stars through difficulty,’ ” Kate said next to her.
Abby’s mouth fell. “You know Latin?”
“A little.”
