The End of Junior Year
Despite not making the national tournament, the Insley Eagles posted one of their best softball records that junior season.
For the first time in a decade, the team won the conference championship and made a historic run through regionals.
Individually, Kate and Abby won top honors.
Abby broke school and conference records for home runs and RBIs, Kate made academic all-American for the second year in a row, and they both secured first team all-conference honors.
It gave them plenty to celebrate at the spring awards banquet.
Each year, the softball, baseball, and lacrosse teams, tennis stars, and track athletes gathered at the Columbia Crest Golf Club.
It was a rare night of opulence for a school that hadn’t updated uniforms or fields in five years, but a generous booster had a connection with the country club and a nephew who ran hurdles, so the Eagles dusted themselves off for a night of hors d’oeuvres and chandeliers.
The junior fivesome of course had mixed views on the event.
“It’s a crock of shit,” Mick said as she lounged on the couch the week before.
T.K. rolled her eyes. “You just say that because you hate wearing dresses.” She spun around in a yellow ball gown, flipping hair off her shoulder. “How about this one?”
“That’s the one,” Abby said.
T.K. glared. “You said that about the last three.”
“Yeah, because I want this to end.”
Kate couldn’t resist a laugh, glancing up from her book to meet Abby’s smile.
She gulped from the beanbag in the corner.
A deliberate choice, like every one as of late, to keep space between them.
And while it was easier with classes over and the softball season finished, it was also harder because Kate missed her.
When Abby showed up at the blue house that afternoon, she was so thrilled that she had to steady herself on the doorframe.
“What are you wearing?” T.K. asked.
Kate pulled her eyes away from Abby, who she swore hadn’t stopped staring since she arrived. “Who? Me?”
“Yes.”
“I have a black dress.”
“The one you wore last year?” T.K. asked.
“And the year before,” Jill said before striking a pose in the flowing lace high priestess gown she planned to wear.
Kate blushed.
“Here. Try one of mine.” T.K. pulled her dress off, never self-conscious, and chucked it at her.
“No thanks,” Kate said.
“Fine, be boring.”
Even if Kate cared about clothes, she rarely had extra money to spend on them. Usually, she wouldn’t have been embarrassed by it if it weren’t for Abby. Though that quickly went away too, when she caught her smirking, as if it were an admirable quality and not inherent lameness.
“Mick, we need to find something for you,” T.K. said as she reappeared in a short tube dress that looked better suited for a club.
“I don’t want to.” Mick threw her head back like an angry child.
Abby groaned. “Then don’t. Just wear what you want.”
Mick furrowed her brow as if it never occurred to her as an option.
The four of them stared at her, and Kate swore they witnessed the wheels churning: the moment when Mick, who’d come out long ago but never quite settled into her own skin, rejected everything that no longer aligned with her.
Chopping off most of her hair that year had been a start, but this felt different.
Or maybe it was just Kate who noticed, while she too wondered if everything pressed upon her still aligned.
“What do you want, Mick? A suit and tie? Your uniform? Your stupid pajamas?” Abby leaned back on the couch and laced her hands behind her head like she couldn’t care less. “Just let me know and I’ll wear the same, idiot.”
And that’s how Abby and Mick ended up in slacks and shirts instead of dresses that night.
Mick wore a bow tie—which would become her signature for years to come—while Abby sported a necktie so loose it looked like she’d stumbled out of a bar after a ten-hour day on Wall Street.
It was typical Abby—casual, cool, and uncaring.
And yet Kate knew what she’d silently done for Mick was caring, which made it all the more endearing.
All the more attractive too, though Kate didn’t think it possible.
She couldn’t stop staring through the ceremony.
While she sat with Blake and other CAC members, her gaze constantly drifted to Abby sitting with the upperclassmen.
It distracted her so fully that she nearly missed her own name as the athletic director took the small podium at the front of the ballroom to announce an award she didn’t expect.
“It is my great privilege to give this to a young woman who embodies kindness, spirit, and generosity, not just on the field but off it. She puts her teammates first, constantly pushing them to not just be the best softball players but the best versions of themselves. She is a top shortstop not only in the conference but in the country, a future team captain, and one of our brightest students. This year’s Rich Aldren trophy for sportsmanship goes to Kate Hutchins. ”
While the room erupted with applause, Kate instinctively searched for Abby, whose grin made her forget about the award, the crowd, Blake, and the rest. She just wanted to hug her. She just wanted her.
“What are you doing? Go get it.” Blake nudged her from her seat, squeezing her arm as she passed.
Kate tried to recover, but to no avail. Not when Abby accepted a plaque for her broken records, sheepishly nodding at the athletic director and hurrying back to her table as quickly as possible.
Even as Blake accepted his Insley Male Athlete of the Year award, Kate veered to her.
And every time, Abby’s stare waited to receive her.
After the trophies, accolades, and speeches, the softball team gathered together. Kate joined them as Blake met up with his own teammates.
“Okay, enough of this country club shit.” Mick grinned. “I think it calls for a little celebration.”
“Sunny’s?” Jill asked.
“Hell yes.”
“I thought half of you got blacklisted.” Kate glanced at Abby, Courtney, and Lauren.
“I’m friends with the bouncer.” T.K. wiggled her tongue suggestively.
“Ew.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Mick clapped her hands. “Come on! Move, move, move.”
Kate bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder at Blake.
“You coming?” Abby asked her.
“I don’t usually go out,” Kate said.
“It’s one night.” Abby followed her gaze. “I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
Kate turned back to her, heart banging unbearably. She couldn’t possibly say no.
A line of people snaked around Sunny’s when they arrived, but T.K.
made good on her dalliance with the bouncer, who allowed them to slip under the velvet rope and into the overflowing bar.
Students elbowed to order drinks. Rotating rainbow hues illuminated the dance floor where people danced and shouted in corners.
Kate, Jill, and T.K. stood at a slick table while Abby and Mick got drinks.
“Everyone get in here!” Mick distributed tequila shots.
Lauren, Courtney, and the other graduating seniors joined as well.
Abby squeezed next to Kate, wrapped an arm around her waist to hedge in close.
“To our best season yet. Thank God DeHaven and Seaborn are out of here, so we have a shot next year.”
“Fuck you.” Lauren ruffled Mick’s hair.
They clinked their drinks and tossed them back. Kate winced. She rarely, if ever, drank.
“Are you okay?” Abby leaned in, still hooked around Kate’s waist, her mouth perched at her ear. Kate nodded, heat rising in her stomach, loosening her shoulders, like she’d waded into a hot tub, sending her subtly slackening against Abby’s chest.
“Yo, Abby! Abby!” Mick shouted. “We still on?”
Abby rolled her eyes. “Do you really need my help?”
“Yes. You’re on friend duty, so I can land this thing.”
Kate glanced between them. “What are you talking about?”
Jill stopped sipping on the dangerous looking fishbowl of booze she shared with the on-again Dylan Farrelly. “Mick asked Haley Stewart out.”
“The intern? From the athletic trainer’s office?” Kate shouted over the music.
Everyone nodded, and she battled the familiar feeling that she’d been left out of their secret club. The club of dating and sex.
“I noticed Mick getting her wrist taped for no reason.” Abby grinned. “And ice baths after every game.”
“It’s for my knees!” Mick shouted.
Courtney and Lauren returned with a second round of shots, and Kate grimaced.
“Anyway, that’s when I knew something was up,” Abby said. “So, I told her to ask Haley out or I would.”
“You would?” Kate asked.
Abby shrugged. “I had to set a fire under Mick somehow. And it worked.” She tossed back her drink, and Kate regretfully did the same.
“Well, we’ll see.” Mick eyed the door as people squeezed inside. “That’s where you come in and put this thing in Cruz control. Distract the friend, get me some alone time.”
Abby chuckled. “Only if she’s cute.”
“She?” Kate muttered.
“Trust me, she’s cute,” Mick said.
Kate sank. She knew it shouldn’t matter if Abby flirted with someone else, if she was interested in someone else, or if someone else was interested in her. But it strangled her insides, so every butterfly that had previously flapped died.
An hour of drinks passed before Haley’s arrival, and by her second cocktail, Kate wavered.
The only positive of her tipsiness was Abby’s watchful gaze, always ready to steady her, to brush her back, to whisper in her ear.
The claustrophobia of the bar provided ample excuses to stand closer, to bump into each other, to rest with their bodies touching a second longer, shielded by the crowd and the team’s growing drunkenness.
“You know, I might miss you, Cruz,” Courtney slurred, throwing an arm around her.
Kate laughed at Abby’s snarl.
“Don’t get sappy, Seaborn. You’re just a sloppy drunk.”
“Oh, fuck you. Maybe I should chase you into that kitchen for old times’ sake.”
“Sure, let me go light a cigarette first.”