Page 14 of Racing Hearts

Teresa squeezed Sierra’s hands once before letting go of them. “This doesn’t mean things have to be weird. We can still be cordial toward each other and respectful roommates, but we need to stop trying to hang out outside of that. I can’t be your person anymore.”

Sierra wanted to fight her, but how could she? And what was the point? When Teresa made up her mind about something, she stuck to it. Fighting her now would only make things worse. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right.”

“Good.” Teresa smiled as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “Want to go find ourselves a ride, roomie?”

Sierra nodded, but she waited until she could stop the tears from falling to follow Teresa into the crowds of people. She didn’t need anyone else, stranger or not, to see her crying tonight.

When they made it to the exit, they silently walked out to the parking lot together. Sierra had just pulled out her phone to call them a rideshare when a hand landed on her shoulder.

She turned around to see Chris from the track team grinning at her. “You ladies heading out?”

Before Sierra could answer, Teresa answered for her. “As soon as we can find a ride. This one scared ours away.”

“Come with me,” Chris said. “I have two extra seats. There’s only three of us in my car.”

Three of them? Oh no. Sierra was sure she knew who the other two were and shecouldn’tget into a car with them, especially not after the night she had.

“That’s perfect!” Teresa said.

Sierra had no fight left in her, so she didn’t even try. This was just the fucking cherry on top of one of the worst nights of her life.

Juniper stepped out from behind Chris and when she noticed it was Sierra that Chris had just offered a ride to, she didn’t try to hide her disgust. “Seriously, Chris? I get shotgun.”

As if the night couldn’t get any worse, Sierra ended up sitting right in the middle of Teresa and Ellie in the back of Chris’s small car. Teresa refused to look at her, but even worse than that, Ellie wouldn’tstoplooking at her.

Sierra wanted to crawl out of her own skin the whole drive back to the school. The drive seemed to stretch on forever, and Sierra had to hold back tears the entire time.

When Chris finally stopped in front of her dorm, she jumped out of the car behind Teresa and took a deep breath. It was nice to feel like she could finally breathe again.

Unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last for long. The small dorm room she shared with Teresa seemed even smaller after their fight. Neither of them said a word to each other as they got ready for bed. The tension between them could be cut with a knife, and Sierra hated it. How was it possible that the girl who had been her whole world a few months ago was now like a stranger to her?

It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair, and Sierra had no idea how she was possibly going to make it through the rest of this year if things continued the way they were right now.

Chapter 7

Ellie

The whole rest of the weekend after going to the haunted house, all Ellie could think about was Sierra. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had severely misjudged her. Maybe Sierra wasn’t the monster Ellie had made her out to be. The problem was that such a wedge had been driven between the two of them now, Ellie wasn’t sure where to start with making things right. Plus, she couldn’t make things better with Sierra without pissing off her best friend, which made her wonder if it was even worth it. It didn’t seem like Sierra had any interest in even holding a conversation with Ellie, so maybe it made more sense to let it be and keep everyone happy. At least, as happy as they all could be with the clear tension.

By the time practice rolled around on Monday, Ellie had convinced herself not to push Sierra to talk to her. At least, she thought she had come to that decision until she saw Sierra and pictured the tears in her eyes the other night. She thought about how fragile Sierra looked and how much it stung when Sierra admitted Ellie was her hero at one point—a title that Ellie had successfully squashed.

Throughout practice, she couldn’t stop herself from sneaking peeks at Sierra. Who was this girl? What was her story? More importantly, why was Ellie suddenly so desperate to know it?

By the end of practice, aside from a few stolen glances, there had been no communication between the two of them. The next day, things went the exact same way. Fate must have been on Ellie’s side, though, because the next day Coach Kraemerasked her and Sierra to stay after practice to practice some handoffs.

Sierra didn’t look happy to be stuck with Ellie, but she still followed their coach’s instructions and stuck around until it was just the two of them left. Even though the tension between them was very obvious to Ellie, their coach didn’t seem to notice. In fact, the shit-eating grin hadn’t left his face since he requested them to stay.

“I can’t even begin to tell you girls how excited I am to see what you two do this year. This is our year, and so much of that has to do with the two of you.” Coach’s face became stern, a look that Ellie could tell he was struggling to keep. “Now, getting down to business. I think if we keep you at anchor, Ellie, and have you hand off to her, Sierra, that the other teams won’t know what hit ’em. I figure it doesn’t matter if we’re in the lead or five seconds behind, once you two step on the track, we’re sure to win. I don’t want anything to slow you two down, which means the handoff between the two of you needs to be perfect.” Coach looked at Ellie. “I know that’s where you struggled a bit last year.”

Ellie was annoyed at him for pointing that out, even if it was true. For some reason, she and Juniper had never been able to perfect that last handoff, which was strange since they were so in sync in every other part of their lives. “Whatever we need to do, Coach, I’m in.”

“Me too,” Sierra said beside her, sounding more confident than Ellie had ever heard her before.

Coach’s smile came back in full force. “I knew I could count on you two. For now, I’m planning to keep the first two legs of the relay the same, which is why I only asked you two to stay tonight.”

Ellie’s stomach dropped. If he was keeping the first two runners the same, and Sierra was the third leg, that meantJuniper’s spot had officially been given to Sierra. Ellie wasnotlooking forward to that conversation, but she didn’t have time to worry about that right now. They had work to do.

“Where do you want me?” Sierra asked. Her tone was serious, but there was something different about her voice when she wasn’t yelling at Ellie. It was smooth like warm butter on bread. The sound made tingles run up Ellie’s spine.

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