A Matter of Heart (21 page)

A
coyote cries somewhere in the distance, but the mountain has no answer. Sound fades into the soft breeze, the air heavy with earth and night.

“What's going on?” he asks.

I sigh and if I had any resistance left in me, it's gone in that one breath. “I got my second opinion,” I say. “Same as the first.”

“What's that mean?”

“It means I can't swim competitively. Not ever.” Now that I'm talking, the words begin to bubble up like acid. “It means I'll never be the best in the world. It means Coach will find another star and my dad won't be able to look me in the eye. It means everything I've spent the last ten years working for is over.”

He shakes his head impatiently as if I've missed the point. “Can you…Are you…” I watch his throat move. “Is it fatal?”

Oh, that. I shake my head. “Not if I take my meds and keep my heart rate under control.”

His brows shoot up. “And you were just sprinting up a mountain?”

“I'm taking medicine, Alec. I'm fine.”

“What if you push past the medicine? What if you push too hard?”

The sweat is drying on my skin and goose bumps prickle at the cool air. I look up, away from Alec, concentrating on the tiny dots of starlight. I wonder if I close my eyes, can I just fall asleep? Drift off and away from here, transport myself to one of those far-off worlds?

“It's not that bad, Abby,” he says.

I open my eyes and meet his dark gaze. “Go away, Alec. You don't know what you're talking about.”

“It's just swimming.”

“Look who's talking.” I roll my eyes. “It's not ‘just swimming' to you, either, is it? Or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about this morning. The way you broke Connor's hold on the one hundred.”

For an answer, he crumples a twig in his fingers.

“Be honest, Alec. Was it hard work or maybe something more?”

His breath hisses out but he doesn't say anything.

“Did you maybe borrow your mom's albuterol today?” I press. “Was that the difference?”

He says something but too low for me to hear.

“You did, didn't you? You cheated. You broke your contract with Coach and every basic rule of good sportsmanship.”

Now his jaw is clenched, as immovable as the mountains looming above us.

“You could be kicked off the team. Ruin any chance for college. And why?” I demand. “Because it's ‘just swimming'? Right,” I say, drawing out the word with disgust. “You did it to beat Connor, because winning is everything.”

His head snaps up, and his face is harsh lines and sharp angles in the moonlight. “I don't give a damn about Connor. You think I care about bragging rights?”

“You want the medal, same as the rest of us.”

“I want Stanford, Lipman. The only way I can afford it is with a
scholarship
.”

His voice is harsh but it rings with truth. And pain. I'm startled from my own misery. “But you already have a verbal agreement.”

“Yeah. Which means that last year they thought I had potential. This year I have to show it. I need to drop a full second from my time or that verbal agreement means nothing.”

I hug my arms; the goose bumps have turned into a chill. A half second is doable for Alec, but even that won't be easy. “Still,” I say, and hear the hesitancy that's crept into my voice. “It's interest from Stanford. The best of the best.”

“And that makes it worse.” He pulls his shirt off the bush, fighting the prickly branches until it snaps free. He shakes the dirt loose and hands it to me. “You're shivering.”

“Thanks.” I take the shirt and pull it over my shoulders, the heavy cotton feeling good in my scraped-up hands and warm around my arms. “Why worse?” I ask.

“I don't know,” he says. “It's easier when you have nothing to lose, I guess.” He sighs. “I was just a kid swimming at my local
Y. No expectations, no pressure. Then I start breaking records and suddenly there are options. Possibilities. I hear my parents talking, night after night, the dreams getting bigger and bigger. And then Stanford calls.” He half laughs. “Ivy League of the West calling Alec Mendoza. My parents were so proud, my dad had to leave the room so I wouldn't see him cry.”

He lowers his head so I can barely hear him. “What do I tell them now? How do I tell them their son, on the brink of everything good, has run out of talent?”

Somewhere to our left, a coyote yips like an injured dog. It's eerie. I hug my knees in close. “You haven't run out of talent, Alec. You're a great swimmer.”

“I used to be great. Now I'm just good.” It's his turn to look at the sky and I wonder what he sees. Does he wish he could disappear too?

“I thought I could do it with heart and hard work,” he says softly. “But it doesn't work like that, does it? Connor never swims an extra workout or an extra lap. Still, he edges me out every time.”

“So you cheated?”

He sighs again. His eyes lock with mine and there's darkness inside and out. “Why didn't you tell Coach about the albuterol?”

I curl more tightly into myself. “Why didn't you tell Coach I got dizzy at the gym?”

“I didn't know how serious it was, or I would have.”

Thoughts rush through my head. “I wasn't sure if you were cheating. The albuterol was still wrapped.” I pause. “Is it still wrapped?”

“I used it for the first time this morning.”

It's what I guessed, but the shock still hits me like a dunk in icy water.

“And I used it for the last time,” he adds.

“Alec—”

“You can check my swim bag. It's gone.”

“Did it…did you…”

“Was I faster? Is that what you're asking?”

“Most people don't think albuterol makes a difference.”

His mouth twists into an ugly smile. “Did you see the race?”

I nod.

“It was close from the second we hit the water. I got off the blocks crisp and rolled right into a rhythm. He came off the wall slow at the last turn and I had him. I had that asshole the whole way in. Or did I?” His voice cracks. “Was it me? Or was it the albuterol? My time was better, yeah, but not by much. It feels like me, like I did it, like I won. But how can I know? How can I ever know?”

He curses and I hear a rock skid and realize Alec just pitched it at a mesquite tree. Something scrambles through the brush and absently I hope it's a rabbit and not a snake.

“So what happens if you don't get the scholarship?” I ask. “You can still get into a good university, right?”

“Oh, sure,” he says, and I stiffen at the pain in his voice. “Any university ought to be good, right? I mean, hell,
university
might even be too good for a guy like me. Why not a community college?”

“I didn't say that.”

“But you were thinking it, weren't you?”

“No!” A breeze picks up and I pull Alec's shirt tighter around
me. I think again about how little I really know him. And about how dreams come in all shapes. Does Alec's dad sit on the edge of his bed at night while they whisper about him going to a school like Stanford? Does the dream go as deep as my dream of the Olympics? I'm guessing the answer is yes. Everything about Alec seems to run deep.

“Sorry,” I say. “I guess I should have known.”

“Why would you?”

“Because you work harder than anyone else out there.”

“Except you.”

I close my eyes against a sudden rush of tears. “Not anymore.”

“Abby—”

“I don't want to hear it,” I snap.

“There's more out there than swimming.”

“Oh, sure,” I say, my turn to pour on the sarcasm. “I can do lots of things.” I put a finger to my lips and pretend to think. “I know! I'll make out with my boyfriend. Oh wait, I can't do that, either.”

There's a second of silence and I can feel new tension pulsing from Alec. But his voice is quiet as he asks, “What happened tonight?”

“Nothing,” I mutter. “Forget I said that.”

He leans forward. “If he hurt you—” His hands are fisted again and it makes me feel strange that he wants to protect me. Alec has always been a mystery. Maybe never more than now. The mystery is how we went from hating each other to this. Whatever this is.

“He didn't hurt me. He just bruised my ego. I offered up the one thing a guy can't say no to, and he said no.”

Alec's eyes are wide enough to see a rim of white around his pupils.

“He was afraid it would kill me. Heart-stopping passion and all that,” I add, mocking myself. “Truth is, I freak him out. I am a freak.”

“You are not, and he's an ass.” Another rock flies and clatters against the tree trunk. “He shouldn't have left you alone out here.”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“So you could run up here and have a heart attack?”

“It's technically called sudden cardiac arrest.”

“Quit it, Abby. Not funny.”

I toss a rock of my own, hitting nothing, but it feels good just the same. “Don't go all Coach on me, Alec. A sprint up the hill on beta-blockers isn't going to kill me.”

There's a tiny pause, and then he asks, “Did you want it to?”

I
squeeze my eyes shut, but the question is already inside of me, his words an echo of my own twisting thoughts. Do I really want to die? I remember the way I lost control of myself at the pool two weeks ago. How I was there and then…I wasn't. It felt like nothing, now that I think about it. The scary part came after—once I'd woken up. The dying part…that would be easy.

Did I want to?

No
.

Do I want to live this way?

Is this even living?

“What are you thinking?” Alec asks.

I tuck away my thoughts, back into a dark part of my mind where I'll visit them another time. “That my head is killing me.”

“Probably the beer,” he says. “And that's not what I meant.”

Off to my left, the mountain slopes down into what looks like a pool of diamonds. Sparks of moonlight flicker across the surface, and in the darkness, it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It takes me a minute to realize that the shimmer comes from a thousand bits of broken glass. I'm looking at the remains of someone's party in the desert. It isn't beautiful. It's shattered beer bottles.

Something rises in my throat and I choke it back, unsure if it's a laugh or a sob. Am I shattered like that broken glass? A beautiful mess? A waste?

Am I just another sad story like my dad? Am I going to live in the past with a stupid shelf as an empty reminder of my life? Because without my swimming, without my dreams, life will be empty.

I'll be ordinary.

No!

The word fills me as if it's a cry from my soul. I can't be like everyone else. I'm Abby Lipman. I'm special. Hasn't everyone always told me so? I've got talent and drive and heart. I don't know how to be broken.

I can't stand the idea that I am.

I push to my feet, forcing my stiff leg muscles to stretch while the scrapes on my elbows burn. My feet throb.

“Abby?” Alec stands too. “You're freaking me out here.”

I look at him, trying for an expression as close to normal as I can manage. “I'm okay. I just…I have a lot to think about.”

“You're not going to do anything crazy?”

I sweep back my hair. “Define
crazy
.”

“I'm serious.” His hand reaches out but before I can react, his fingers brush along my cheek. My skin tingles at his touch.

“I have to get back.”

His hand slides around my neck. There's a look in his eyes that makes my breath catch. In spite of everything, in spite of the sense I would never feel again, I'm suddenly feeling too much.

“Don't,” I whisper.

He leans in, his breath warm on my face, the shape of him blocking out everything else. “There are things out there,” he says in a low voice. “In life, I mean. Other things. Good things.”

Then he leans close and I know what's coming, but even so, the touch of his lips on mine is a shock. I gasp, draw in a breath, and he backs away just an inch, but then he's there again, his hand threading through my hair, his lips covering mine.

My body forgets it's bruised and bows toward him. I've been kissed before, but never like this. There's no question in Alec's touch, no hesitation. His lips settle over mine as if he's already kissed me a thousand times. I don't remember lifting my arms, but my hands are sliding over his bare forearms—arms I've admired as he swam, so smooth and strong. He groans against my mouth and pulls me closer, slanting his mouth over mine until my lips part and our tongues touch.

His hands are restless on my back, in my hair. He presses me closer, and it's as if he wants me to feel what he's feeling. But it's way too soon.

Or maybe it's already too late.

I pull back. My heart thrums as the night comes back into focus. The stars, the mountain behind us, the cool dirt beneath my feet, the diagnosis waiting at home. My head is spinning;
this is more than I can deal with. I step back and shake my head, looking for a way to put even more space between us.

“Well, that was brave,” I say in a shaky voice. “Kissing the heart patient. Aren't you worried I could pass out?”

Instead of backing away, he moves forward again, his eyes so intent I feel jittery. He reaches for my hand and I try to pull away. But he presses it against his chest. I'm still wearing his shirt, and there's only the white undershirt between my hand and his bare skin. His heart is racing.

“Feel that?” he says. “Right now, I'm more worried about my own heart.”

He drops my hand and leads the way back down the trail.