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The hoodie I needed to ditch as soon as possible so this nightmare would end.
“Mom, you’re forgetting that time I tried to make boxed mac and cheese and nearly burned down the kitchen.”
She sheepishly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and squinted. “Oh yeah. Not cooking then. Maybe coding? Or playing the piano? Oooh, what about becoming a movie critic? When you were in kindergarten, you couldn’t watch a single cartoon without listing off every single plot problem.”
As she listed off idea after idea and wheeled me out of the room, I kept my lips glued together. Mom might’ve had a heart condition, but it was still a good heart. She was the patcher in the family—always patching holes to keep things together. But there was nothing to patch this time.
I’d agreed not to run for three weeks. But training wasn’t completely off the table. I’d find a way to keep going. I always did.
My phone slipped on my thigh and I snatched it before it could slide to the floor. The picture of Jayden carrying me was still on the screen, making my gut clench again. Never again would I be in that situation. Mandy Hale wasn’t a damsel in distress. She was someone who put in the hard work and suffered through the pain and tears to win.
And winners never quit.
They just found other ways to train.
Chapter Three
Crutches were going to be the end of me. By the end of school on Monday, I’d nearly tripped and fallen on my face a dozen times, muscles I didn’t even know I had were on fire, and my armpits were starting to chafe. So when I smacked straight into a solid chest on my way to track practice, I was just about ready to throw myself on the ground and cry.
It had really been that kind of day.
“Excuse me,” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the floor and attempting to circumvent the owner of the man pecs.
Moving forward on crutches was one thing. Sideways was nearly impossible. Urgency blazed in my head. I needed to get to the track as soon as possible to start my own personal brand of training. No running included. That was a given. But I wasn’t giving up so easily.
“How’s it going, A-man-da?”
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of unpleasant emotions that Jayden’s voice brought up at that moment. Of course, I’d run into him. It seemed like ever since the polar plunge on Saturday I couldn’t avoid him. That photo on RockValleyBiz haunted me. So did his gray hoodie that I’d planned on returning ASAP this morning, but had somehow forgotten at home.
Calming myself as best as I could, I peeked through my eyelashes to see him grinning at me and holding his black catcher’s mitt in one hand and a baseball in the other. He stood so close and I had to lift my chin up to look him fully in the eyes.
“I’m walking around with metal sticks under my armpits,” I said, tilting my head to one side. “What do you think the answer is to that question?”
His eyes glittered with laughter as they swept over me and back to my face. “I’d say, no one rocks crutches like you can, Hale.”
My cheeks burned and I tore my gaze away. He was always laying it on thick. He knew it drove me crazy. “Well, for your information, the doctor said I have to stay off the ankle for three weeks. No running. No track meets. Best. Senior. Year. Ever.”
The physical therapist had said that I would only need the crutches for a couple days, then a brace, and then I’d finally be back to normal. The range-of-motion exercises she had given me were already engrained in my brain. I was going to dominate those moves until my ankle was back in business.
Jayden took a step closer to me, a line appearing between his eyebrows as he frowned at me. “I’m really sorry. That sucks.”
His sudden display of sympathy caught me slightly off guard. It was so unlike him. I chewed on my bottom lip, feeling a surprise influx of emotion. “Yeah, it stinks. I didn’t think this was how my last track season would go.”
“I couldn’t imagine being injured for my senior year of baseball.” He cleared his throat and stared down at his mitt. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I actually am sorry. It kind of feels like this was my fault. If I hadn’t dared you to do the polar plunge, you wouldn’t have been on those rocks to begin with.”
His words echoed the ugly thoughts I’d been having over the past forty-eight hours, but hearing them come from his lips made me realize how ridiculous it had been to put any of the blame on Jayden. Even if he liked to torture me, none of this was on him. I was the one de
termined to put him in his place. I was the one that hadn’t paid close enough attention to what I was doing.
This was my fault and no one else’s.
“Hey, that’s not true.” I plucked the baseball from his hand, causing him to raise his blue-eyed gaze back to mine. “I probably would’ve done that polar plunge even without a dare, just to say that I could. It’s definitely not your fault.”
The smile I earned in response made my gut twinge with warmth. He sucked in his cheeks and chuckled softly. “Thanks for that.”
“Sure. Anytime.”
I wasn’t really sure why he was thanking me, but the longer I stood there staring into his eyes, the more my stomach was feeling like I’d swallowed a mouthful of bees. I squirmed slightly, handing him back his baseball.
