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 her throat. “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.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered as Kate barreled through the iron doors.
Abby trudged after her, passing the bookshelves and wide tables in the center of the room where groups of students huddled together. They found a spot on the second floor. Abby grumbled as she unloaded her backpack, carelessly tossing books to the table. “I don’t know where to start,” she said.
“Maybe the assignments and tests that count for the largest portion of your grade?”
Abby hunched over her laptop, searching for said priorities when Kate cleared her throat. “What?”
“Do you mind if I…”
Her eyes widened as Kate inched over, so that she hovered above the laptop too.
Her hand reached for the touch pad, briefly brushing Abby’s.
While Kate clicked through her assignments, Abby stared at her cheek, freckled and a touch rosy beneath.
And when she pulled back, their shoulders skimming slightly, the same warmth that once stopped her from shaking filled her stomach.
“How’s your grade in Professor Cruz’s class?” Kate asked as she returned to her chair.
“I uh.” Abby turned red, uncertain if it stemmed from the graze of Kate’s fingers or the reminder of her failings. “I think I have a C. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and she’ll continue to have mercy on me.”
Kate’s lips quirked. “Is Professor Cruz your…” She stopped as if it was a secret.
“We have the same bastard father.” Abby shrugged. “Isla’s kind of the reason I transferred here.”
“Are you close?”
“Not really. We met for the first time a few months ago.”
“Do you have other siblings?”
“No, it’s just—” Abby almost choked. “It was just me and my mom.” She stared at the table.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said.
Abby fingered the thick textbook next to her. “You’re taking the LSAT?”
“Yeah, this spring.”
“Of course you are,” Abby whispered.
They spent three hours in the library, perhaps more than Abby ever had. School never interested her, and she typically managed only passing grades. She felt self-conscious in Kate’s presence.
Kate, who arrived everywhere early, whose softball pants and practice shirts were always clean, tucked in, ponytail so sleek that light bounced off her chestnut tresses.
Kate, who apparently wasn’t just a talented athlete, the fastest and fittest on the team, a sure starter at shortstop if not for Abby, but also a high-achieving student.
Kate, who everyone adored and looked up to, not because she was funny like Mick, or scary like Seaborn, but because she radiated kindness and calm.
Abby rooted in competing envy and admiration while Kate worked with blue intensity shooting from her gaze.
She broke every twenty minutes to check in with Abby, to give her note cards to study for her exams, to suggest readings for her essay, to ask what she thought of the latest chapter in Isla’s class that Abby hadn’t studied, before summarizing it for her.
Then she’d silently go back to her own work like some academic assassin.
Abby swore she stared as much as she studied, drifting to the hair Kate tucked behind her ear. To her pinched brow and perfect penmanship. She lingered on her hands. The ones that touched Abby that day after the river as though she were an egg or infant, something fragile and not yet broken.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked.
Abby jolted and recovered with a scowl. “Can we call it a night?”
Kate nodded. They packed up, and while she loathed studying, Abby didn’t want it to end. Her shoulders sank as she trailed Kate through the maze of books, down the spiral staircase, and out to the dark quad.
“Let me know how your economics test goes,” Kate said.
Abby nodded, savoring a last glimpse before returning to isolation.
“Hey, there you are!” A towering man cut between them and threw an arm around Kate. “You didn’t text back.”
“I was in the library.” Kate’s cheeks flushed. “This is my teammate Abby. Abby, this is my boyfriend—”
“Blake Davis.” He offered a hand. Abby shook it, her teeth grinding together. “You’re the transfer student, right? Katie says you’re amazing.”
“She does?” Abby darted her eyes back to her.
Kate slipped beneath Blake’s arm and started down the sidewalk. “Come on, we should get going.”
But Blake kept his feet planted, hands in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket. A silver cross hung around his neck. “Have you found a church yet?” he asked her.
Abby laughed, but neither he nor Kate joined in. “Oh. You’re serious?”
“We go to New Hope Baptist, if you ever want to join…”
“Let’s go.” Kate tugged his hand and barely spared Abby a glance. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Nice to meet you.” Blake smiled and she grimaced back as he followed Kate like a docile puppy.
Abby’s sadness at their study session ending shifted to bitterness.
Bitterness at being Kate’s project, a charity case that she only took on because of Coach Whitley’s demands.
Bitterness at needing her tutoring and companionship because no one cared, and lately she didn’t even care herself.
But mostly, bitterness at not being the one to follow Kate across the quad with her hand as a steady guide.
She intended to put her best foot forward with Abby. Kate didn’t approach a task with anything less; plus, she accepted their forced partnership as apt penance for her previous neglect. But after their first study session, Abby cooled to an impenetrable degree.
“How was your test?” Kate would ask.
Abby only shrugged. Kate grew to dread helping her with essays, correcting her work to an annoyed, “Really?”
“You know I’m just trying to help, right?” she asked as they slammed their books shut.