Catching His Eye

“Go—” Emily forced her aching abs to lift her to a sitting position. “To—” She touched her elbows to her knees, and started a slow ascent back to position one. But instead of keeping her head an inch from the floor, she collapsed. “Hell,” she said breathlessly, but proud she’d made the effort.

“Come on, you wussie girl. You weak-assed lazy bones. Two more!”

She tried. And failed. Her groan echoed off the empty bleachers. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to go away.”

Hope laughed. “Your money’s no good here, missy. I want to see another sit-up and I want to see it now!”

“Then go rent An Officer and a Gentleman. But first, get off me.”

Hope sighed heavily as she moved over. “Pitiful.”

“Let’s see you do twenty sit-ups.”

“If I had time, I’d do exactly that.”

“You lie like a rug,” Emily said, rubbing her stomach and feeling quite sorry for herself.

“Hey! I do ten pull-ups and twenty push-ups every day.”

“You do not.”

“I could do them. If I woke up in time.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, if I had a brother, he’d like cheese.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just help me up.”

Hope jumped up sprightly, then held her hand out. Emily grabbed it, much as she had grabbed Scott’s hand two days ago.

“I saw him, you know,” Emily said.

“Pardon?”

“I said, I saw him.”

“Him who?”

Emily sighed. “Scott Dillon. Remember him? The point of all this torture?”

“Oh, him. You’re kidding. How? Where? What did he say?”

“I have to go shower.”

“Oh, no. You’re not leaving. You’re coming with me. We’re doing two laps around the track before we finish.”

“What do you mean, we? I’m not doing any such thing.”

Hope grabbed her by the T-shirt and pulled her toward the high school track. There were quite a few people jogging already, even though it was only just past six in the morning, on a Saturday no less. Some teachers, but mostly students circled the infield, almost every one of them looking tan and fit and wonderful in their little teeny shorts. Not her. No one laid eyes on her thighs. Ever.

She started jogging, if you could call it that. It was more a lumbering walk, actually. But Hope let go of her shirt, so that was something.

“So, tell me. Damn, girl, you sure do know how to build the suspense.”

“It wasn’t pretty, Hope.”

“Huh?”

“I was flat on my butt in the middle of the hallway outside my classroom.”

Hope stopped. Emily jogged past her. Slowly.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why were you on the floor?”

“Doing yoga.” She was too tired for sarcasm. After gulping a few breaths, she slowed her pace a wee bit. “Some kid, and I think it might have been Tommy Wells, crashed into me, and I fell.”

“And?”

“And Scott helped me up.”

“Was it incredible? Did your eyes meet and—”

“It was humiliating. I looked like death warmed over and he didn’t blink an eye.”

“He didn’t remember you?”

“Yes, he did. But it was nothing. A big fat zero.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was there.”

“Oh.”

They jogged in silence for a while. Emily might have said more, but her lungs were preoccupied with trying to save her life.

“I bet there was more. You probably just didn’t see it.”

“There was no more.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Emily didn’t argue with her. But she did move to the right as she heard an approaching runner. She also wiped the sweat from her eyes and pulled up her sagging sweats.