COMPLETE QUEST
Chapter 12
The sun shines at the Saturday track meet. It feels wrong.
I have to be there when the races start, though my events aren’t until the end: the 800-meter and the 4×400 relay. I’m the only person in those two, because I’m the only one on the team who can run the 800 and not be completely gassed afterward.
The field events and the longer runs have already started. Six schools have come to compete; most of them have tents set up outside the track, near the spectator stands. A scattered audience fills the home bleachers and stands alongside the track, school colors mixed. I spot my mom right away, in her usual spot on the far left side of the stands, near the bottom.
She insisted I come today. After she spotted the black armbandI brought home from practice yesterday, she watched me like a hawk. This morning she had everything ready—my bag, my pre-workout drink mix, even had my clothes laid out. Arguing with her wasn’t worth it.
The black armbands almost didn’t get past Coach Deemer. When I walk up to our tent, he’s arguing with Haley and some of the other girls.
“You should have run this by me first.”
“We’ll all have them,” Haley says, proffering her arm. The girls around her do the same—they’re already wearing them. “No reason for a DQ on the relays. We’ll still all look the same.”
“What if one falls off? Or slips? You could get still get disqualified. Or distracted.”
“They’re really tight,” Haley flaps her arm like a chicken wing to demonstrate. Then she sees me and motions me over. “Evie! Tell Coach the armbands are a good idea. So everyone can see we’re still a team.”
Defeat washes over Coach Deemer’s face before I say anything. I have that kind of power. No one wants to upset me. “I think they’ll be okay,” I say.
Coach Deemer throws his hands up. “Fine. Butallof you have to wear them, and you have to keep them on. If I hear about anyone losing one, you’re all taking them off.”
“Got it, no problem!” Haley says.
Coach walks off to get ready for the next events. Haley beamsat me, but the full wattage only lasts a few seconds. “We’re really glad you’re here,” she says. “You want something to eat? Liv’s mom brought a cooler.”
“I’m good. Probably just going to take a nap.” Plenty of us do it, especially when our races aren’t until later. I never did, because I always had Alissa. We’d share headphones and listen to music or watch videos. If not that, we formed a circle that our teammates would join and leave as their events came up, and having Alissa there made me someone fun, someone people wanted to hang out with.
Without her, I find a spot outside the tent and lie down on the grass. I don’t want to think that Alissa was my social grease in every situation. I want to believe that I have that power myself, that I can talk to people on my own and connect with them. But everyone feels so distant. My connector is gone.
Was that a burden on her too?
I try to sleep, but sleep doesn’t want me. So I bring up the Fenhallow Armory on my phone and start looking through gear for Raven. Combing stats makes it easy to block out the crowd around me. My phone becomes a portal to a much more interesting world, one where I don’t exist in a body or a physical space at all, and I don’t have to worry about whether people want to talk to me.
It’s a balm. With it, I can get through this meet. I’ll make it home. Hopefully in one piece.
Finally I force myself to my feet to warm up. Stretches, a few short sprints. Then, holding my water bottle to my mouth but not drinking, I wander over trackside to watch the girls’ 400-meter dash. Haley has taken Alissa’s spot. She has dark hair, like Alissa, but it’s shorter, and it gleams gold in the sunlight instead of red. I look around, trying to find someone else who is as uncomfortable as I am. We all know that Alissa should be the one there. Now we’re in this alternate reality where it’s Haley instead.
But no one else seems bothered. When Alissa died, did I step into an alternate reality, and now I’m the only one who sees how things could have been?
A sharp whistle comes from the stands. Many of us look up, searching for the source; I follow the gazes of the spectators who also turned toward the noise. They seem to be looking at my mom, but it wasn’t my mom who whistled. It was Ash. He stands next to her, fingers still to his mouth. He smiles, waves.
I glance around, then point a finger at myself, mouthing the word,“Me?”
He winks and finger-guns.
Brilliant light crackles through me, pushing away the clouds of my thoughts. I had no idea he was so outgoing. In front of all of these people? Just to get my attention?
I don’t see his parents anywhere. That doesn’t surprise me. They used to come to all our meets, used to be the parents whobrought the cooler of snacks. Mr. Whitaker used to congratulate me on all my races and even used to give me pointers, because he ran the 800 in college. They were always so excited for us, even if we didn’t do well.
