Abby lay back on the concrete and sighed. The pool filter whirred into the quiet. Kate grabbed her hand as if she might keep her from drifting away like they had been for weeks. A drift she’d done nothing to help, that weighed on her with every excuse she made to passively pump the brakes while she figured out what she wanted. A drift that would inevitably widen as she contemplated the news she’d delayed for several days and now ripped off like a Band-Aid.
“My parents will be at tomorrow’s game.”
She held her breath in the lull. Abby chuckled, more like a growl than a laugh. “Of course they will.”
“It doesn’t have to be a negative thing. I was thinking we could all get dinner together after the game,” Kate said, like she’d rehearsed in her head, but it landed shrill and desperate.
Abby raised a brow. “As the third baseman or your girlfriend?”
“I know it’s not ideal, but it’s a step in the right direction.” Kate frowned. “Maybe they can get to know you and you can know them. They’ll love you as much as I do.”
“I’m not going to be a lie, Kate.” Abby sat up, an edge working upher shoulders. “And I definitely won’t stand by while you make yourself smaller for them.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“They tossed you aside when they couldn’t control you. How can you not see that?”
“You don’t think I’ve thought about it? It tears me up.” Kate gulped, wounded, but also relieved to finally have an honest conversation. “I can’t just turn my back on them. I don’t care if it makes me naïve or weak-willed. I want them in my life.”
“Even if it means sacrificing who you are?”
“You know it’s hard for me. The way I was raised and what I was taught to believe.” She stopped, barely able to say the rest. “A love like ours is sinful.”
Abby’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t tell me you really believe that.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what I believe.” Kate’s stomach churned the same way it did every churchless Sunday and prayerless night. “I’ve lost my faith, and that terrifies me.”
Abby’s face crumpled. “I can’t compete with God, Kate.”
“You’re not supposed to.” She sank at knowing the people she loved most couldn’t coexist. That they’d never understand each other, leaving her stranded in the middle, alone, permanently unsatisfied as she gave up one to have the other. “Part of me hopes, believes that maybe they’ll change. Maybe there’s a reality where they can accept me for who I am. That God can too.”
Abby scrubbed a hand down her face, but she didn’t seem angry anymore. “I know what it’s like, waiting for someone to change. Wanting them to but not being able to cut them off when they don’t.” She lowered to a whisper. “But that’s the thing, Kate. They don’t change. They show you exactly who they are.”
Kate rested her hand on Abby’s arm to soothe what bubbled beneath. The years, the crash, the phone call, her mother and father, so clearly haunting her even when she pretended they didn’t. “Abby, I—”
She cleared her throat in dismissal. As if to say they’d had enough for today. Abby’s gaze returned to that unrecognizable landscape Katethought she’d long ago figured out, etched with the missing pieces she’d never understand, no matter how well she knew her heart.
“We should get some rest.” Abby caressed Kate’s chin. “Big game tomorrow.”
It was kind, but distant. Something felt wrong. Cold between them. She shuddered on a breath as Abby helped her to stand. Kate’s place in the middle expanded, leaving her emptier, lonelier, further from everyone she loved and felt destined to lose.
The National Tournament:
Quarterfinals
They didn’t sleep the night before the game. They just tossed and turned. No one offered a hand or graze beneath the covers to soothe, and at breakfast they didn’t speak.
Kate didn’t know if Abby was angry with her or simply tied up in her own thoughts about Audie and the fallout. But when they arrived at the field, her parents hugging her the second she stepped off the bus, Kate knew it was anger that sent Abby stomping off. Knew it in her glare across the locker room. It made Kate ill enough that she barreled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.
Mick’s cleats clicked in behind her. “You okay?”
Kate nodded and caught her breath. “Just nerves.”
“You’re okay.” Mick patted her back. “We got this.”
Every game could be their last. Every grounder. Every at bat. Unlike Abby, whose future in the game seemed endless, her talent boundless, Kate’s career would end even if they won the trophy. And that’s what made her sickest—everything around her was coming to an end or at least on a collision course in which only one might survive—her relationship with Abby or her parents. Her relationship with God or her heart’s true desire.
“Strike three!” the umpire would echo in her ear twice that night. She never reached first base during her other two at bats, nauseous asher parents cheered for her, nauseous as the Eagles fought to stay alive, nauseous as Abby took to the field like war.
