Page 25 of Racing Hearts

She was giddy on the rest of the long ride to the track meet and tried to convince herself it was simply excitement over the meet. It obviously had nothing to do with Ellie Finch. Why would Ellie Finch make her giddy?

Either way, it was a nice change from the sick feeling she had become very accustomed to at school. Saying goodbye to Teresa before she left the night prior was almost as awkward as living with her. Teresa hesitated as she said her final goodbye, and the way she lingered by their dorm room door made it seem like she expected Sierra to hug her. The two of them had barely said one word to each other since Sierra tried, and failed, to switch rooms. Why the fuck would they hug goodbye? Especially since they would be in the same town for the next month and Sierra was sure that with her luck, they would definitely run into each other.

When the bus finally came to a stop, Sierra looked out of the window and found that they had made it to East Pine University, a small school in New Jersey that was supposedly close to Ellie’s hometown. It’s not like Sierra waslisteningto her conversation. She just happened to hear that.

Since the meet was so close to her house, Sierra wondered if Ellie’s moms would be attending. She assumed they would be, but she also had plenty of teammates in high school whose parents never went to a track meet, even the home ones. They could be like those parents. Still, Sierra found herself wishing they would come. She had never met anothertwo-mom family, and even though she was sure Ellie wouldn’t be introducing her, she still thought it would be cool to see how they interacted.

Her attention was brought to the front of the bus by the sound of her coach clapping his hands together. “All right, gang, meet one. I’m not expecting any records today. I’m just excited to see where everyone is at. Also, remember, if you do well today, that doesn’t mean you get to slack over break. You can easily lose all of the progress you’ve made if you decide to take this next month off from workouts.”

Sierra swallowed hard. She was going to work her ass off over break, but she knew it would be tough without having her teammates there to push her, especially Ellie. As much as she hated to admit it, she mostly owed the shape she was currently in to Ellie since the two of them were always competing at practice.

After the coach finished his speech, he wished them luck, and they all filed off of the bus. As soon as they walked inside and Sierra saw the track, the knots she had gotten very used to throughout high school immediately returned to her stomach. She was so nervous she thought she might throw up before she even ran. Even though Coach had flat-out said he wasn’t expecting much, Sierra still felt immense pressure to perform. This was herfirst college track meet. She needed to prove that the coach hadn’t made a mistake by recruiting her onto the team and making sure that she got a lofty academic scholarship since athletic ones didn’t exist for Division Three athletes.

After Ellie called the team together and gave a pre-meet speech that Sierra could barely focus on, the team broke up to get ready for their events. Since Sierra had a while until the 400, she tried to cheer on her teammates, but mostly just wandered aimlessly.

When they announced the first call for the 400-meter dash, Ellie gathered the runners from their team and led themin warm-ups. Sierra tried to ignore the way Juniper glared at her, but it was hard since she didn’t stop throughout their whole warm-up routine.

Juniper scoffed and mumbled something under her breath after they checked in and found out that Sierra and Ellie were the only two from their team who were in the fastest heat. She whispered something to Ellie that made her laugh, and the way Juniper smirked at Sierra led Sierra to believe they were talking about her. What the hell had happened to that sweet girl from the bus whose smile made Sierra’s stomach do somersaults?

Sierra shook these thoughts from her head. This wasnotwhere her mind should be right now. She needed to focus on the race and proving to her coach (and the rest of her team, for that matter) that she deserved to be here.

Luckily, there were two heats before hers, so she had plenty of time to get in the zone. The races went by way too fast and Sierra, admittedly, hadn’t even been able to pay attention to how her teammates did. She stepped onto the track and took a deep breath before blowing it back out. There were six runners in her heat, and she was starting in lane five. She figured that meant there were two runners who entered with higher times than hers—a runner from East Pine who was in lane three and Ellie in lane four. If she could take at least third, she would match what her coaches and teammates expected from her.

The starter told them to get on their marks, then waited for what felt like an eternity to finally shoot the starting gun. Since Sierra couldn’t see the two runners who were ranked in front of her, she had to run her own race. She kept her focus on the runner in lane six and made it her goal to catch up to her as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long, and Sierra silently congratulated herself as she made up the stagger before she had to.

Since the indoor track was only 200 meters, they had to cut over out of their lanes halfway through the race, which was something Sierra wasn’t used to. They had practiced it the past week at their optional practice sessions, so she was able to do it fairly seamlessly. She slipped in behind the runner from East Pine, but in front of Ellie. She swore she heard Ellie growl when she moved into that position, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. She had to focus on herself and her race. Before long, she passed the runner from East Pine, but so did Ellie. As they came around the last turn, Ellie was still behind her, but she came up beside her once they were on the homestretch.

Sierra pushed herself even harder now. If she could beat Ellie in this race, it would prove the practice race wasn’t a fluke. It would most likely cause the slowly closing rift between them to be ripped apart again, but that wasn’t for Sierra to worry about right now. She would never throw a race for a girl, especially not a girl like Ellie, who was most likely just playing games with her. Nope. That was evenmoreof a reason to beat her. If Ellie’s ego couldn’t handle it, that was on her.

It turned out Sierra didn’t have to worry about that, though. Stride by stride, Ellie inched past her until she got far enough ahead that Sierra couldn’t catch her. Sierra crossed the finish line right behind her, and all of the other runners followed.

As Sierra tried her best to catch her breath, she looked in front of her to see Ellie bent over, breathing just as hard. Sierra knew she shouldn’t keep watching her, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.I should probably congratulate her, she told herself once she was able to get her brain to somewhat function.

She took two steps closer to Ellie, but right as she was about to reach out to grab her arm, Juniper flew onto the track and wrapped Ellie in a tight hug. She put her arm around Ellie’swaist and Ellie leaned into her as the two of them walked off the track together. Sierra found herself yearning to be the one Ellie was leaning on. She figured the most logical reason was that she missed having someone to lean on her in general, since that used to be Teresa’s position. Ellie could have been anyone, and she would have felt the exact same way.

“Sierra! You’re my hero,” a voice shouted from outside of the track and Sierra looked over to find her twin sister standing there.

Since she had been too nervous to search for her family before the race, this was her first time seeing any of them since Thanksgiving. Sienna really was a sight for sore eyes.

Sierra walked over to her and accepted the hug Sienna wrapped her in. At least, no matter what happened, she could always count on her sister.

“Dude, how do you smell so bad after running two laps around the track?” Sienna asked as she playfully pushed Sierra away from her.

Sierra laughed. “Don’t lie. You’ve missed my stench.”

Sienna scrunched up her nose, but a small smile parted her lips. She brought her thumb and pointer finger close together. “Okay, maybe a little bit. Only because it’s close to Christmas, and I’m feeling sentimental.”

“Whatever.” Sierra rolled her eyes at her sister before looking behind her. “Where is everyone else?”

Sienna pointed over toward a set of bleachers. “They’re still sitting. They didn’t want to bother you when you were still in the zone or whatever, but as your twin sister, it’s my duty to bother you. So, here I am!”

“Hey, Sierra!”

Sierra turned around at the sound of Ellie’s voice and watched as Ellie’s eyes bulged out of her head. It was obvious she had just noticed Sierra’s clone standing next to her.

Ellie blinked her eyes a few times, before waving her arm at Sierra. “Coach wants to talk to us real quick.”

“Be right there.”

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