The team is quiet and I know Julia is desperate to retort with something nasty. But Tamara clears her throat. “He’s right,” she says. “Let’s work our asses off this week. Win everything on Saturday.”
“Okay?” Coach asks.
“Okay,” the team says in unison.
“Mile repeats,” Stella calls. “Let’s go.”
We take our positions on the track and when Coach blows the whistle, we fucking run.
24
STELLA
The doorbell rings and sends a spasm through my stomach.
“Stell, could you get that?” Mom calls from the office.
I suppress a groan and trudge to the door, making mental notes of what I have to do this morning before we leave for regionals. Make smoothie. Find lucky sweatshirt. Charge headphones.
I pull back the door, expecting to see one of Mom’s clients or the mail carrier. But when I see who’s there, I take a step backward.
“Coach.”
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I move aside and Coach Gary doesn’t wait for an answer.
“Who is it, Stell?”
“Hi, Carla,” Coach says, peeking his head into Mom’s office.
“Gary!” she says, getting up from her chair quickly. “What’s up? Is something wrong? The bus for regionals doesn’t leave for another hour.” She frowns and looks at her watch.
“No, no,” he says, pumping his hands. “I’m only here to chat with Stella for a little bit. That okay?”
“Oh,” Mom says. “Of course.” She looks at me warily and I know we’re both thinking the same thing, that Pérez might have finally asked Coach to make me sit this one out. “Go right ahead.” Mom retreats into her office but keeps the door open so she can hear.
Coach leads me into the kitchen and leans up against the counter.
“Please let me run.” The words tumble out of my mouth so fast I can’t catch them. “I just want to compete.”
Coach frowns. “Of course you’re running. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Relief floods through me. But then I remember winning is what’s most important to him, too.
“I just wanted to talk about the scouts,” he says. “They’re all going to be there again and they are not happy with you, as you can imagine. Not after what happened at the charity run, and certainly not with what’s been in the news.”
I open my mouth to defend myself, but Coach holds up a hand.
“Of course I know you didn’t do it. Those text messages prove nothing. You’re intense, but you are not . . . whatever they say you are. Unfortunately, what I know doesn’t change what other people think. You need to keep that in mind. Be sportsmanlike. Stay calm. Keep to yourself. Run your own game, and don’t worry about anyone else, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Stella, you’re the best runner we have. Best since I started this job. Don’t let anyone else mess this up for you. You’re on your own out there, no matter how much bullshit I spew about teamwork, got it?”
I nod. I’ve known that since the beginning, since Calvin Parker gave me a concussion during Longshot, since Lilly Adams lied to Coach about what really happened to me that day, since Allison Tarley tried to blame me for breaking her collarbone. “Got it.”
“Good,” he says, standing up straight. His track suit crinkles as he walks toward the front door. “Let’s bring home gold today.”
* * *
—
Ellie and I sit sandwiched together on the bus as we pull into Tremont High’s parking lot. It’s one of those neighboring towns where everyone is super woodsy, even more so than Edgewater. These kids were practically born on the trails, scrambling over rocks and crossing waterways with just a few wooden planks. Their cross country loop is known for being root-heavy and uphill, with no patience for amateurs. The JV teams don’t even run here—the high school sports association won’t let them.
When we file off the bus and onto our bench, I scan the bleachers. The usual crowd of scouts are seated in the front row, huddled together in fleeces and windbreakers, holding thermoses of coffee and munching on apple cider donuts. They look practically jolly, jostling the clipboards on their knees, comparing stats of students they already picked up.
In an alternate reality, I would be chumming it up with the Georgetown guy, the one who called my house last year to say I wouldn’t be joining them and that he was so sorry but my hands are tied. Maybe you could walk on somewhere else when things settle down?
Now he looks straight through me, on to the next class of prospects. His gaze stops on Ellie, who’s stretching beside me, and he clicks his pen to make a note on the piece of paper in front of him.
I nudge my sister. “Did you see that?” I ask. “Georgetown dude looking your way.”
Ellie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
“Mm-hm. Made a note.”
Her cheeks flush as she tries not to look toward the bleachers. “Fuck.” She picks at her lip, revealing a scab.
Coach signals to us that it’s almost go-time and we whip off our sweatshirts, toss our track pants to the side. My bib is pinned securely to my tank and I hop in place as the wind bites at the bare skin around my ankles. I try my hardest to tune out everything else. The scouts, the other girls elbowing beside me, the nagging pulsing in my brain, reminding me that Mila should be here, too, that we still don’t know where she is—or who’s to blame.
And everyone thinks I had something to do with her disappearance.
But there’s no time to dwell on that now.
We line up, huddled together as a group, and when the whistle blows, we all explode onto the course. Girls who are usually slower than I am take off, accelerating for the first quarter-mile uphill. They’re dumbasses, though, and they’re miscalculating. They won’t make it to the back half with that same kind of vigor, that throbbing, rushing pace. I place myself in the middle of the pack, hoping to throw everyone off, to conserve my energy.
When we reach the peak of the first hill, there are already girls losing steam, gassed out by the treacherous Tremont course. They didn’t practice. They should have run Longshot. I wince a little thinking back to that day when it was just me and Mila on that hill. She should be here now.
I shake the thought away as we descend and swivel my head slightly, trying to find the other cobalt jerseys to see where everyone else is in the pack. Tamara is behind me, while Raven is off to the side, taking shallow sips of air. But I don’t need to look for Ellie to know where she is. I can feel her pulling up next to me, our feet slapping the ground in unison.
I used to hate these moments where Ellie tried to copy my gait, put forth her best Stella imitation. But after running like this with Mila, I want her to propel me, to push me. We don’t look at each other, but slowly, as we ascend the second hill, we pull away from the rest of the pack, breaking free until we’re on our own, with just the open air and sky and trees in front of us. My heart races and I know we’re going to win. One of us will win.
The finish line is up ahead and I can hear the crowd cheer as we break into the clearing. The scouts are on their feet, their hands shielding their eyes as we emerge. Everyone else is so far behind now, I can’t hear them, can’t feel them, don’t know them.
All I hear is Ellie’s steady breathing, our spikes slicing through ground beneath us, the air whooshing by as we cut through it with our bodies.
It’s now or never and I dig in, pushing, pushing, pushing as a little voice whispers in my ear. You’re a force. Mila.
I give it one last bit of effort and heave myself over the finish line before Ellie pulls in behind me.
25
ELLIE
In the final moments, Stella’s braid flies in front of me, so close I want to yank it and pull her to the ground. I lose my breath as I push over the finish line and register what ha
s happened.
Stella won.
Stella knew the scouts were there to watch me. And Stella won.
Stella wins every time.
26
STELLA
I collapse onto the ground and bury my head in my hands, willing Mila’s voice to come back to me, to speak to me one more time, to tell me what happened to her. But she doesn’t. She’s gone.
Ellie stands over me, hands on her hips. I can feel her shadow casting darkness over me and I look up to find fury in her eyes.
She extends a hand and grits her teeth.
“Be humble. Don’t make a scene,” she hisses.
I grab her fingers and rise to my feet.
27
ELLIE
I pull Stella in for the fakest hug of my life.
She feels stiff at first in my arms and then wraps herself around me.
It only lasts a second but when I steal a glance at the scouts, they’re all writing on their clipboards, silent as the coffee in their thermoses grow cold.
Coach runs up to us and slaps one hand on each of our backs.
“Stecklers!” he yells, excitement ringing in his voice. “You broke your PRs! Both of you!”
Stella’s eyes grow wide. “Really?”
I want to slap her. Of course we did. She’s never run like that. I’ve never run like that. It’s infuriating that we only make each other better.
Coach calls out our times, and for a second, I think I’ve misheard him. But he repeats the numbers and rubs his hands together.
Fuck. I didn’t realize it was that good. “Good enough to qualify for State,” I say.
“State?” Coach says, incredulous. “That’s good enough to impress every single scout here. Your worlds just opened wide up.”
28
STELLA
Coach is talking, but I can’t hear him through my own pounding brain. Mila. Mila. Mila. Then I hear the number. The sweet number that could change everything.
Mila, I think. That number should have been yours.
29
ELLIE
Coach was right. As soon as we get home, the emails come rushing in. But they’re all for me. No one seemed to care that Stella technically won. They only saw the young and fresh-faced sophomore with two more seasons to improve. Someone they could mold. Someone untouched. They know I have time to get my PR even tighter, and, unlike Stella, I don’t come with any of the baggage from last year.
Let’s talk! the coach from Michigan wrote.
You’ve got a bright future, said the woman from Villanova.
Mom makes me wait until after I shower to read them all, and then together we settle down into the couch in the living room. My brain buzzes as I begin to picture my future, finally, somewhere far, far away, where no one knows me or what came before.
“Well, this is exciting,” Mom says, snapping a piece of dark chocolate between her teeth. “Stella, want to check these out?”
My skin burns and I want to elbow Mom hard in the side for being so careless. Of course Stella doesn’t want to check these out. We both know this was her final shot at a scholarship. If they wanted to take a risk on Stella, we’d know. But no one does. That’s obvious now.
Stella grunts in the kitchen and starts banging around, opening cupboards and slamming utensils down on the counter for dinner.
“Don’t mind her,” Mom whispers. “She’ll come around.”
But I know she won’t. When I look back at Stella, her eyes are narrowed and her fists are clenched so hard I know she’s making marks on her skin. I turn back to my computer. A few more emails had come in over the past few minutes and I click through messages from a small private school in Minnesota, a college in Washington, and some place in Boston I’ve never heard of.
But then Mom sucks in her breath and points to the screen at a new email that sits at the top of my inbox. It’s from Georgetown.
Fuck.
I lean my head back against the couch and try to remember all the pep talks we were given over the years. They were always aimed at Stella, but I got to hear them because I was there too, always in the periphery. The backup sister.
Every single coach always told us that high school was our only shot. It was the tiny sliver of life that could determine every single thing about our futures.
But they never told us how to deal with the pressure of trying to set up our entire lives in just a few years. High school should come with a warning, told in hushed whispers to those who deserve to know.
This is the best you’ll ever be.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true. But believing that and flying a flag of unbridled confidence is the only way to get what we want, to fulfill our prophecies.
The world breaks little girls. It stomps out our will, our joy, our curiosity—and replaces them with disdain, cynicism, and the need to fit into neat and tiny boxes. I learned that young, in kindergarten, when the other kids called Stella a show-off for raising her hand during class, or when the boys in first grade said I was bossy for leading a reading circle. When Stella and I would overhear the other moms at the Elite Youth Runner’s Club: The Steckler sisters are just a little much.
That’s how we were described while the boys were sprinting around the playground kicking and screaming, breaking and biting. The world doesn’t celebrate girls who take up space, who demand to be heard, who are just a little much.
But sometimes, in tiny fleeting moments, like when I’m sprinting a fast mile alone up near Sweetwater Lake, I feel that power. That urgency. The sparkling, glittery feeling that cloaks us all when we least expect it. Those are the moments when I know for sure. This is not the best I’ll ever be. I’m only getting better.
* * *
—
Later that night, after Mom and Dad go to bed, and Stella disappears upstairs without saying goodnight, I sneak into the hallway to see if the light is still on in her room.
“Stell?” I ask quietly, my forehead pushed up against the door.
“What?”
“Can I come in?”
“No,” she says, but I do anyway.
She’s propped up under the covers with her back up against the headboard, a thick textbook open in her lap.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she mutters, but holds it up so I can see the cover.
The Hidden Women of the Hudson River School. “Are you taking art history?” I ask.
“Mila’s into this stuff,” she says, her voice small and far away. “Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.”
“Oh,” I say. We’re both quiet for a beat and I realize we haven’t really talked about Mila. Not about their burgeoning friendship, the only real one Stella’s had, or the tragedy of being labeled a suspect. But I know if I say anything now, then the truth will tumble out and I’ll unravel.
Just thinking about it, I feel the tears coming hot and fast, and suddenly all I want is to be close to Stella, to feel her hard body curl around mine and hold me like she did when she caught me sleepwalking, or when the night terrors came. I pull back the corner of Stella’s bedspread, shoving my limbs under the covers. I rest my head up against her middle and I expect her to flinch, to shove me off the bed. But she doesn’t. Instead she rests her hand on my hair and smooths it back, over and over.
I close my eyes and let myself feel free for just a moment, to forget about everything. But I know I can’t.
“Georgetown reached out,” I say.
Stella doesn’t say anything but her hand freezes in place.
“I don’t want to go there, though.” It’s the truth. It’s too close, too full of Stella. I want something that’s mine, all mine.
Stella stays silent and my stomach flutters.
“You know, the schools want you, too,” I say, trying to find the right words. �
�You’re gonna walk on somewhere, especially after today.”
That’s what makes Stella rustle. She brings her hand back to her book and shifts her weight so I fall back against the pillow.
“We can talk about this, you know,” I say. “Schools and scholarships and stuff. We’re sisters.” But even as I say it, I know the words are hollow. There’s still so much we can’t say.
Stella knows it too. “If that’s true, then why do we keep so many secrets?”
30
STELLA
I wake in the middle of the night with a jolt. Something isn’t right. I can feel it in my muscles, the way they cramp as if to summon me from sleep. I clutch my calf in pain. A charley horse. The worst. I kick my leg back and roll over to look out the window. The moon is just a sliver of a crescent tonight.
But something moves in my periphery. A white T-shirt, stark against the dark sky, a ponytail swishing in the wind. My stomach sinks. Not again. Not now.
I throw the covers back and swing my door open, rushing down the stairs. There’s no time to grab a sweatshirt or shove my feet into slippers. I learned that when we were little, back when Ellie’s night terrors peaked. Mom had just gone to rehab and Ellie had moved from wetting the bed to screaming in her sleep to sleepwalking. Once, she wound up in the herb garden near the Airstream next door. We only knew because she fell over, crashing into some flowerpots, at two a.m.
I was always the one to find her, to coax her back to bed, usually by swaddling her in my big quilt and letting her spend the night huddled next to me with her fists balled into my back.
They'll Never Catch Us Page 19