Pep Talks (Pepper Jones #4) (11 page)

When I leave the hospital later that night, I find Jace sitting by himself in the waiting room. He’s wearing sweats and a tee shirt and there are dark circles beneath his eyes. It’s not very late, so the sleep deprivation must be from last night. My stomach lurches at that thought. Does he have it in him to cheat on me? Could he go through with something like that just to push me away?

He’s here, though, and that counts for something.

“How is she?” he asks, standing up to meet me.

“Fractured hip. She’ll be here for a few days and then she’ll need assistance for a while at home, so I’ll be staying with her.”

“Can I see her?” he asks.

“She’s sleeping.”

He nods. “Okay.”

“Do you want to go back to the apartment with me? I’m going to shower and change, feed Dave, and come back to bring some stuff to Gran. She might be awake by then.” I’m angry with him but maybe we can put all that behind us for now, for tonight at least. I need his support right now. Someone who loves Gran like I do should be here with me.

He comes with me back to the apartment and neither of us says much. When he smells the burning, I tell him what happened and how I found her. He looks like he might be sick. Jace doesn’t offer a hug or hold my hand. We don’t touch at all. I’m so emotionally exhausted at this point that the pain from his continued stand-off hardly registers.

Gran’s still asleep when we return to her room later that night. We sit in the two chairs beside her bed, watching her and listening to the monitors.

Finally, I ask the question. “What happened with the redhead last night?” I can’t bring myself to be any more direct that that. I would ask
did you take her home
or
did you hook up
, but it’s hard to say those words.

“Nothing. I followed you back to your dorm when you left, to make sure you made it okay, and then I went back to my place.”

My eyes drop to my feet, and I suddenly feel ashamed. Did I overreact when I saw him talking to that girl? “I’m sorry I danced with Clayton Dennison, Jace.”

He clears his throat. “I’m sorry I danced with Melanie.”

I wish he hadn’t said her name, made her real. It’d be better if he never learned her name, or didn’t remember it. “Are we going to be okay?” I wonder.

He doesn’t answer at first and I turn to look at him. “Can I spend the night with you tonight?” he asks softly. There’s apology, regret, and hope in his voice, and I hope this means he’s ready to open up again. That he’s no longer trying to push me away. A part of me feared that seeing Gran like this would make him push me away even harder. Because I felt tonight the fear of losing someone, and now I understand just how powerful that fear is. But it sounds like instead of running away from that fear, he’s going to face it with me. Despite where we are right now, with Gran’s monitor beeping steadily as a reminder, my mouth curves into a small smile and I take his hand in mine, lacing our fingers together.

“Let’s stay on Shadow Lane,” I tell him.

He nods in agreement, and when we’re alone in my bedroom on Shadow Lane that night, he’s anything but distant. The opposite of indifferent. He touches me like he’s memorizing all my angles and curves. Like it’s been ages instead of weeks since he’s been with me like this. His lips cover every inch of skin, and his eyes bore into mine when he finally gives in to his release.

The only thing missing is words. I understand if he’s not ready to talk yet. There’s a lot to say, and my own feelings are jumbled and far too ripe for productive conversation. For now, I just take comfort in his presence. He’s come back to me, and I need him now more than ever.

***

Jace isn’t next to me when I wake the next morning. I know he probably had an early practice and needed to get back to his apartment to change before class, but I’m disappointed. Gran will be okay, I know this, but she really freaked me out yesterday, and it’s going to be hard to go back to normal life today. I’d rather stay by her side at the hospital, but Lulu is already in Gran’s kitchen this morning, insisting on taking over that duty.

“Buns does not want you skipping classes and practices, Salty. She called me yesterday. This is what old lady BFFs are for.”

Lulu is on a mission to be Gran’s personal assistant. She’s cleaned up the burnt mess that I couldn’t bring myself to deal with last night, and has been gathering all of Gran’s favorite snacks from the cupboards.

“Wallace wants to come by today to see her, and she wants to get out of her hospital gown for the visit. Did you bring her polka-dotted jumper? She looks real nice in it.”

Smiling, I assure her that the velvet polka-dotted jumper is in the bag I packed for Gran last night. The top of the jumper looks like overalls but it has a skirt instead of pants for the legs, and I hope it fits loosely over her bad hip. Like Lulu, I know that Gran always feels extra snazzy when she wears it. Everyone has their special outfit, I guess.

It’s a busy day. Between explaining the Gran situation to my roommates and getting to classes and practice between a breakfast and lunchtime visit to Gran, I don’t have time to worry about Jace’s lack of communication until I’m back in my dorm room later that night.

I call Gran, who tells me she’s really enjoying the hospital, which makes me laugh. She’s making friends with the nurses and docs, and loves how she gets to drink everything from a straw. After telling her goodnight, I dive into my school work for a couple of hours, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Jace has not called or stopped by. I texted him with updates about Gran all day, and he responded with short and minimal messages. He’s never been a big texter.

But when the rest of the week goes by without any changes, I know what’s happened. He wasn’t coming back to me when we spent the night together on Shadow Lane. He was saying goodbye.

This reality doesn’t hit me until the day before I fly to my first real college meet in California. Two years ago, I flew on a plane for the first time to California for the high school National Championship. Jace surprised me by showing up to watch. He took a risk with me back then, and it was the best thing for both of us. Am I still a risk for him? Why is he shutting me out when I’ve shown no signs of leaving?

Gran’s discharged from the hospital, and I help her get settled back at the apartment. From the hospital, she apparently assigned Lulu the task of making “travel goodie bags” for all the girls on my team, each bag containing enough sweets to keep us sustained for weeks.

“Gran, we’re only going to be gone for twenty-four hours, and we’re not going to the desert. I’m pretty sure they have food in California.”

Gran just gives me sass about how we’re all too skinny. She’s back to her normal spiffy self, even though she’s stuck with a walker and dependent on others for help.

Like Jim, who is on his way up the stairs to the apartment as I leave, takeout in his hand.

He looks sheepish when I ask if he’s brought dinner. “You know I can’t cook like your Gran, but she’s always liked Chinese, right?”

“Good call, Jim. That’s one thing she doesn’t cook herself,” I reassure him.

We catch up on the usual stuff for a few minutes, but I can’t let him go in just yet. “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about Jace,” I tell him.

He puts the bag of food down and gestures for me to join him sitting on the steps. “I’m worried about him, Pepper. He’s busy and I don’t see him a lot, so I can’t get a read on how he’s dealing with Annie leaving.”

“He’s been distant,” I say hesitantly. It seems we’re both looking for information from one another, and neither of us has much to offer. Does Jace confide in anyone?

“With you?” Jim’s surprise comforts me.

“I hardly see him anymore, Jim,” I admit.

Jim closes his eyes briefly, clearly distressed by this news. “You know, I’ve always thought as long as you were in his life he’d be okay. You’re so good for him, Pepper.”

My heart sinks. Jim’s concern for Jace is entirely different from my own, which is wrapped up in heartbreak. But the truth is, neither of us can help when he’s closed out the world like this.

“What am I supposed to do?” I whisper.

Jim shakes his head, at a loss. “Not much you can do when Jace makes up his mind about something. But don’t give up on him, Pepper.”

That’s three people who have essentially told me the same thing in different words. Jace is going to push me away and I’ve got to resist. But it’s tiring. And I’m getting sick of waiting.

I resolve to confront him when we return from this trip. I’ve given him a month to cope, and I’m out of patience. I miss him. If I’m supposed to dive into college and leave high school behind, I need him at my side. He’s a part of both my past and my present, and I want him in my future too.

***

I’ve never been so intimidated by other runners in my life. As we jog through the course before the race starts, I take in the other teams. Every single girl racing here looks like they were designed to run. Fast. Thin and muscular, with determination written all over their faces. I thought I had a lot of racing experience, but here amongst some of the best runners in the nation, I feel insignificant.

Again, I wish I knew where I stood. Without a sense of purpose on this team or a feel for where I rank amongst my competition, I’m left untethered, drifting. I latch onto that sense of freedom I had when I just ran my own race at the scrimmage two weeks ago. Maybe I need to stop thinking so much and just go by feel. Instinct.

And when the gun goes off, I chant the motto,
don’t think, don’t think
, over and over again in my head until it fades away and becomes truth.

My fears for Gran, my worry and hurt about Jace, my uncertainty about college running, it floats away as I sprint my way through the throngs of competitors to the front of the group. This is what I always did in a big race in high school, and it’s what I’ll do now. Running with the lead group is familiar and comfortable, so I roll with it.

The pace is fast, maybe faster than I can handle for six kilometers, but I don’t overanalyze it. I just go. I run to set free all the negative energy weighing me down. The more my chest and legs struggle with the pace, the stronger the sense of liberation. A jolt of levity soars through me and reenergizes my muscles, making me go even faster.

When I finish tenth overall, and first for my team, I’m blown away. I’m confident and I know I’m fast, but these are some of the best runners in the country, in the world even. Some of the top runners from Ethiopia and Kenya go to colleges in the states, and I raced them today.

I didn’t just hold my own. I rocked it.

Despite the ache and uncertainty haunting me where Jace is concerned, I’m riding a wave of exhilaration as my teammates join me after the race, patting me on the back and recapping their own races. Even Kiki and Sienna, seniors and team captains, seem joyful to have been bested by their freshman teammate. My finish today puts UC on the map. When people talk about contenders for the national championship, we might make the list. The goal to simply qualify for Nationals seems far too easy now, and I have little doubt Coach Harding will be revising the women’s team’s goals soon.

I’ve never felt such a part of a team before. Most girls on the team raced well, some didn’t, but we placed third overall, which is way better than we expected in this field of top teams. And that’s the main thing everyone rejoices in as we head back to the hotel for showers before catching a flight back to Colorado. Home.

The team is officially “dry” for the rest of the season, meaning no drinking. Before I became a college student, it never would have occurred to me that athletes competing at this level would need to institute a team rule to hold everyone accountable for the season. Now that I’ve seen just how rampant and commonplace binge drinking is every night (and especially on weekends), it makes sense. Not joining in the festivities is defying the natural order of things, and to do that, it takes team solidarity, at least for most of us.

When we get back to campus, the thrill of racing in the first big meet of the season has taken its toll, and we’re all exhausted. Partying isn’t even on our radar as we say our goodbyes, make plans to meet for recovery runs tomorrow, and head our own ways. I’m not going back to my dorm though. I have somewhere else I need to go.

I texted Jace and tried calling him earlier, and he hasn’t responded. That doesn’t stop me from walking straight to his apartment, still carrying a giant duffel bag from the trip. I’m not going to sit around and let him push me away like this anymore. It’s too painful, and we’ve been best friends for far too long for him to treat me like this. He’s come so far since we’ve been more than friends too, and letting him treat me like this isn’t going to help him or our relationship.

Taking a deep breath, I knock on his door, and Frankie answers a moment later. He’s barefoot and wearing sweats, clearly having no intention of going anywhere tonight. The football team might not initiate a “dry” policy, but after their last hooray last weekend, most of them lie low for the rest of the season.

“Hi, Frankie. Good game today.” He knows why I’m here, and he lets me in.

“Thanks. How was your meet in Cali?”