Partners #2
Kate didn’t know what she expected. After the dock, after glimpsing Abby’s deep-rooted sorrow, a part of her longed to understand, maybe even help, but Abby didn’t let her.
Not that Kate fully understood how. Not when her shoulders drooped, or her eyes cast to a far-off place, or she mindlessly scribbled in the margins of her notebooks.
Not when she showed up to a study session, red eyed and sniffling, refusing to meet Kate’s face.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Abby’s throat bobbed. “Yeah.”
Kate frowned. “Is it…” But she always stopped, uncertain what to say, hoping it might be enough for Abby to meet her halfway.
“What?” She rubbed her eyes and hunched over her textbook. “I’m just having a shitty day, okay?”
“Okay.”
She swore the closest she ever got to Abby was when she’d catch her stare across the table.
It held a haunting sadness, and yet its intensity bore into her like she wanted something.
It’d grow so heavy that Kate often blushed, spurring another grumble whenever she snapped Abby out of it by asking what she wanted.
Their partnership on the field didn’t thaw either.
Every practice they threw together, took grounders at short, lobbed pitches to each other for hitting drills.
They spoke little, but in the silence, Kate admired and envied.
No matter how doggedly she trained, she’d never swing as smooth or throw as crisp.
Even sick, even sad, even scarcely trying, Abby was by far the best.
And just as Abby rolled her eyes at Kate’s tutoring, Kate too grew annoyed at Abby’s effortless skill.
“You’re leaning out,” Abby said as she tossed her pitches.
She gritted her teeth between swings. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re losing power because you’re dipping out early like it’s a slap.” Abby threw her another ball and Kate whiffed. “Pulled your head on that one.”
“I know,” Kate said with a scowl.
There was no escape. Abby stopped avoiding the locker room, swiping the last dented cubby next to Kate’s, the two of them silently tossing equipment and slamming doors before and after practice.
The dilapidated, mold-riddled showers had two temperatures—ice cold and third-degree-burn hot—so the locker room only accommodated storage, changing, or socializing.
Still, Kate averted her eyes, squared up to her own locker while she dressed, never quite comfortable in her own skin or at the sight of others’.
But with Abby, she failed to avert her gaze.
Kate unconsciously suctioned to her as she sat in her sports bra and shorts on the bench, legs kicked out, arms bracing her as she casually leaned back.
Kate didn’t notice she’d stopped breathing until her chest tightened, nor realized she was staring until Abby’s dark eyes flashed into hers.
“Dude, what do you think?” Mick flexed in front of a dirty mirror on the wall. “I’m trying to bulk this season. Cruz, you’re built. How much are you lifting now?”
Abby just shrugged, her eyes not veering from Kate’s. “I don’t know. How much?”
Kate blushed, her voice barely there. “One-forty,” she said, her jaw locking at another reminder of Abby’s superior strength.
She hated loading more onto the bar in the weight room, the two of them glaring as they spotted each other.
The frustration boiled so hot beneath that it often left her outwardly trembling, much like it did now, as Abby smirked across the way.
Kate turned back to her locker and huffed to catch her breath.
“You know what that means?” T.K. strutted in, swinging her makeup bag.
“What?” Jill asked from the locker next to Kate’s.
“That you can lift me.” T.K. raised an eyebrow at Abby. “Want to try?”
The team snorted and Abby shook her head. “Does that line actually work?”
“On half the basketball team so far,” Jill said.
“What do you think about the dating scene here anyway?” T.K. asked. “I bet it sucks compared to L.A.”
Abby shrugged, her eyes catching Kate’s once more. “I don’t know. The only guy I’ve talked to invited me to church.”
Kate’s brow hardened at the reminder of Blake and Abby’s scoff at his invitation.
“Well, I’d go to church and get on my knees for some of those CAC boys,” T.K. said.
“We don’t actually kneel,” Kate said.
“We know you don’t,” Courtney Seaborn said to a roar of laughter that left Kate bright red.
Jill leaned in to whisper, “She means…”
“Yeah.” Kate cleared her throat. “I get it now.”
She was used to being the last one to understand a dirty joke or sexual innuendo, sometimes looking it up later, and while she often covered with an embarrassed, hollow chuckle, she couldn’t this time.
Not with Abby quietly squinting at her as though she’d actually seen her naked in the locker room.
In fact, Abby not joining their teammates’ laughter made Kate more mortified than if she had.
“Are you even allowed to be within a hundred feet of a church, Court?” Abby asked dryly. “I thought they had a rule against hooves.”
Courtney chucked her dirty socks at Abby’s head, which she easily dodged.
“The church is fine,” Mick said. “It’s the holy water she has to avoid.”
Kate slung her backpack over her shoulder and strode quickly for the exit. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on. It was a joke, Hutch!” Courtney called after her as the door slammed shut.
The night before their Gender and the Law final, the last before winter break, Kate teetered on the edge of breaking.
She couldn’t stand the stares and the scoffs or her own conflicting push and pull, in which she swung wildly between longing to help Abby and then just as quickly needing to escape her.
That’s why she invited her to the blue house, for the buffer of their teammates in case she snapped.
And she did, while they sat at the rickety kitchen table, Abby rolling her eyes as Kate aced every term on the color-coded study guide she made for them.
“Did I do something to you?” Kate asked.
“No.” Abby narrowed her brow. “Why?”
“Because it seems like you hate me.”
Jill, who sat with them, glanced up from her accounting homework. Mick ate popcorn on the sofa while she iced her knees and peered over the cushions.
“I don’t hate you,” Abby said.
“Then what’s with the silent treatment?”
Abby lowered her chin to her chest. “It’s embarrassing to be babysat by you,” she mumbled so quietly that Kate barely heard her.
Her mouth slackened. “It’s okay to need help.”
“Well, I think I liked it better when you ignored me.” Abby returned to the study guide with a scowl.
“This wasn’t my choice.”
“Yeah, trust me, I know. I know you’re only doing this because Coach made you. I’m just a charity case.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m sure you’d rather be studying to be a lawyer or playing with your perfect boyfriend.”
Jill covered her mouth, eyes darting between them.
“What does Blake have to do with anything?” Kate asked.
“He doesn’t!” Abby shouted.
The tension of the last few weeks burst to the surface. “Then why are you always mad at me? I’m the one who should be mad at you!”
“Guys, maybe no one should be mad,” Jill said.
“Why should you be mad?” Abby asked Kate.
“How about for you coming here and gunning for my position? And now I’m expected to help you and you’re not even grateful!”
Jill joined Mick on the sofa and reached for the popcorn. “Give me some of that.”
“I am grateful!” Abby’s eyes bulged. “I’m probably going to pass all of my stupid classes because of you!”
Kate’s heart rattled up her throat. “Good!”
“Yeah. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome!”
Abby stood, chair squealing on the hardwood as she swiped the study guide. “And thanks for this too. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.” She snatched her backpack. “Have a good winter break.”
“You too,” Kate said, roiling with confusion. She wanted Abby to leave and simultaneously wanted to yank her back down to stay, even if it meant screaming at each other. “Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah, Merry fucking Christmas.” Abby slammed the back door.
“What the hell was that?” Mick asked.
“I don’t know,” Kate whispered. She stayed planted in her seat, her chest heaving, skin burning despite a small portable heater being the only source of warmth in their thin-walled house.
Kate didn’t like the spat but despised the emptiness that replaced it.
She stared at Abby’s chair, rubbed her throat, and shivered.
The morning of the final, Kate glanced at Abby endlessly. In fact, she caught herself doing it so often that she worried Professor Cruz might accuse her of cheating. Her mind drifted to their bickering and what she’d say to Abby now. Should she apologize? Shouldn’t Abby apologize?
Kate finished the exam first, even with the distractions, nodding briefly at Professor Cruz, who wished her a nice winter break.
She paced in the hall, debating whether to wait for Abby.
Her bus left in a few hours, so they could still talk, maybe grab coffee, though they’d never done that before, and Kate envisioned Abby rolling her eyes and saying no.
She bit her lip, infuriated by the imagined situation, but even more deflated by the thought that they wouldn’t speak at all for the next few weeks.
“Forget it,” Kate muttered after ten minutes. She departed, unaware that Abby left the classroom a few seconds later, clenching her teeth to stifle a call after her.