23. Kiera
Kiera
K iera had to be on campus very early the next morning.
It was her event, after all, and there was a lot to do to get ready for the beginning of the race in an hour and a half. So Kiera turned off her mind and started working.
The air was crisp and she shivered as she worked. She could see her breath and she pulled her red cap down over her ears for extra protection.
Kiera warmed up quickly as she jogged back and forth along the path, struggling to move folding tables by herself and bringing jugs of water to the halfway mark. She could have asked some sisters to meet her there early and help, but she needed the time to think.
A good night’s sleep had done nothing to make the situation with Piper any clearer, and she was just wrestling with whether she’d made the right decision not to call the cops when Lauren arrived.
“Hey,” she said, jogging up the trail to Kiera. “Have you been here long?”
“About an hour,” Kiera said.
“Is anyone else here?”
“Nah,” Kiera said. “I told them to show up closer to the race time. I wasn’t in the mood for company this morning.”
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly,” Kiera said. “Hey, since you’re here can you help me hang that banner?”
“Okay,” Lauren said. As they walked back to the starting line, she asked, “So what’s wrong?”
“Grab that side of the banner,” Kiera said, not sure she was ready to talk about all of this with Lauren - or that she even had the authority to share it. “We’re going to hang it between these trees.”
“Kiera,” Lauren scolded. She wasn’t easily diverted and Kiera knew she wouldn’t get away with such a simple distraction as the banner.
“It’s just some personal drama,” Kiera said. That was about as close as she could get to describing it, but for this purpose, it would suffice.
“My specialty,” Lauren said, then added cheekily, “You know, people tell me I’m a good listener.”
It was true. Part of what made Lauren such a great sorority president was how she could talk through any situation. She always had good advice to offer and she’d always been easy to talk to. Kiera also valued her opinion pretty highly.
But how could she tell her something that Hunter herself had never revealed before she was forced to do so yesterday?
“It’s not girl trouble already, is it?” Lauren asked when Kiera didn’t offer anything up. “I thought you liked her.”
“I do,” Kiera said. “She’s not the problem.”
They tied the banner up, then went over and sat down at a bench near the starting line to wait for the other girls to arrive.
Kiera took a deep breath, then told Lauren as much as she could.
She talked about her grandmother’s worsening condition, and how much Hunter had come to mean to both of them over the last couple of months.
She told Lauren about her plan to hire Piper at the teen center to lift some of the burden from Hunter’s shoulders, and then she glossed over as many of the other details as she could.
“It turns out that Hunter’s sister has a spotty past,” she said. “And last night we figured out that she stole some things from my grandmother’s house to pay her bills. This doesn’t leave this bench, okay?”
“Of course not,” Lauren said. “So what are you going to do?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Kiera said. “I can’t very well go on as if nothing happened, even if we get Nana’s things back. I really care about Hunter a lot, but now I don’t know where to draw the line. Who can I trust and who can’t I trust?”
“Do you think she was in on it?” Lauren asked.
“God no,” Kiera said immediately. That thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. She’d known Hunter’s heart since the moment they met and there was nothing but goodness there.
But Hunter had brought Piper into her home, and opened the door for Nana to be taken advantage of. Piper was her weakness.
Kiera looked up as a few cars pulled into the gravel lot at the end of the trail and some Kappa sisters got out. As they walked sleepily over to the starting line, Lauren left her with one piece of advice. “If you care about her, then don’t shut her out. Work through it together.”
Kiera smiled and said, “That sounds like familiar advice.”
“You ready to run?” Lauren asked, standing and helping Kiera to her feet.
“Yeah,” Kiera said, hooking her foot in one hand and stretching her legs. “Thanks.”
“Any time,” Lauren said. Then she put on her big, exaggerated sorority president smile and jogged over to the other girls, welcoming them to the event.
Kiera stood at the starting line, her hands on her thighs and her feet ready to push off. She could still see her breath when she exhaled into the chill air, and when the horn sounded, she and a couple dozen Kappas all sprinted into the woods.
She kept her mind on the steady rhythm of her feet, the soles of her sneakers pounding the dirt path. A lot of the others, Lauren included, began to fall behind. They couldn’t maintain a sprinting pace and they fell into a steady jogging group.
Kiera kept running, her eyes on the trail ahead.
There were a few other girls ahead of her. They were on the track team and everyone expected them to win the 5k every year, but that was okay – Kiera just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. They pulled ahead of her and then Kiera was alone on the path.
There had to be a solution to this problem - one that didn’t end in two young boys entering the foster system, or Hunter taking even more responsibility onto her plate, or Piper getting away with what she did without consequence.
As she ran, Kiera replayed Lauren’s advice and Hunter’s words in the kitchen.
Work through it together.
I think something truly drastic is going to have to happen before she figures it out.
Kiera didn’t want to repeat her mistakes, especially because the way she felt about Hunter had never changed throughout that whole awful conversation. She just didn’t know how to overcome the new obstacles between them.
By the time she got back to the beginning of the circular path, the two girls ahead of her had already finished. They were standing around the drink table, catching their breaths and making plans for the afternoon, and when they saw Kiera, they cheered her across the finish line.
She grabbed a cup of water and asked who crossed the line first, then glanced back down the path.
There were a couple more runners coming, but the pack of joggers wasn’t in sight yet.
It would be a little while, and then a bit longer after that as they waited for the walkers to cross the finish line.
So Kiera found a somewhat private spot near the parking lot and took out her phone. She dialed Hunter’s number and waited. When the call connected, Hunter sounded exhausted.
“Kiera?”
“Hey,” she said. “How did it go?”
“She confessed,” Hunter said. “She said that all your grandmother’s stuff is at a pawn shop in our neighborhood, so at least you’ll be able to get it back. We can make Piper work off her debt to you one way or another.”
“That’s a relief,” Kiera said. “Nana doesn’t keep things that don’t have sentimental value.”
“So,” Hunter asked, hedging, “are you calling to fire me?”
“What?” That took Kiera by surprise. “No.”
“Because I would understand,” Hunter said. “All night I kept thinking that if I were you, I probably wouldn’t trust me.”
“I trust you,” Kiera said. “Obviously Piper isn’t welcome in the house anymore, but I never doubted you, Hunter.”
She could hear Hunter exhale into the mouthpiece. Then she said, “Any idea what comes next, then? Last night I kind of let Piper think that you might call the cops on her. I thought it would be good to let her sweat a little bit.”
“Hmm,” Kiera said, Hunter’s words from yesterday running through her head again. She was beginning to formulate an idea. “Do you think if I did call the cops on her and she got arrested, it would finally drive home the consequences for her?”
“Oh no,” Hunter said, her voice taking on a pleading quality. “Please don’t do that. If not for her, for the boys. I swear we’ll find a way to make this right.”