Page 6 of Racing Hearts

Sierra’s shoulders dropped slightly from her accusation as if she was ashamed, but she didn’t correct them. If she truly wasn’t homophobic, she would have, right?

Great. Not only was this girl putting Ellie’s position as the best 400 runner on the team at risk, but she was also a bigoted prick. Ellie was done being nice. Two could play at this game, and she refused to go down without a fight.

Chapter 3

“Does everyone know what today is?” Coach asked while clapping his hands together, the wide grin on his face very telling of how excited he was.

Ellie couldn’t have answered him if she wanted to. Her mouth was dry, and her leg was shaking uncontrollably (a fact that Juniper had pointed out multiple times since they sat down for Coach’s pre-practice meeting).

“Don’t all speak at once,” Coach said with a laugh. “It’s time trial day for the sprinters. All of the short sprinters will be running the 100m dash, then taking a breather before doing the 200m dash. For the long sprinters, you’ll just be doing the 400.” He chuckled once again as he looked around at all of them. “Now, this isn’t anything to be nervous about. I can see the look on some of your faces and can tell you think this time trial is make or break. That’s not the case at all. It’s just something fun to see where we’re at.”

Ellie tried not to roll her eyes at him. This might befunfor other people, but for her, it was riddled with expectations. Her whole team had certain expectations of her, and if she didn’t reach them, she would be letting multiple people down. On top of that, the stakes were even higher this year. She couldnotlet Sierra beat her. This might not mean anything, but it did set the tone for the whole season, and Sierra beating her would give the impression that Ellie was no longer on top. She might act outwardly humble, but the truth was, Ellie liked being the best. Shethrivedon being the best.

“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Juniper whispered to her. “You heard Coach. Nothing to be worriedabout.” Juniper gently nudged up against her. “Plus, it’s not like anyone has a chance in hell of beating you.”

Ellie nodded slowly even though she wasn’t convinced that was true. If the way she did during practice was anything to go by, Sierra’s time at States hadn’t been a fluke. Ellie had told herself she was going to be really good about working out this past summer, but if she was being completely honest, she had slacked a bit. She was sure she had probably still done more than ninety-five percent of the team, but she wasn’t so sure that she had done more than Sierra. That girl had a fire in her eyes that most people didn’t. She was serious about this.

Ellie chanced a look at her and saw that fire in her eyes at that very moment. Oh yeah, she was definitely ready for this. She wanted to beat Ellie just as badly as Ellie wanted to beat her.

After their coach was done with their meeting, Ellie led her fellow sprinters in warm-ups then waited for her coach’s next set of instructions. He called the short sprinters out onto the track first so they could do the 100m dash. Ellie wanted to cheer on her teammates, but she was too jittery to stay still, so instead, she paced back and forth.

Much too soon, her coach said it was time for the long sprinters to take the track. Ellie took a deep breath and blew it out, while shaking her hands to try to get some feeling back in them.

This is it. You got this. This isyourschool andyourrace. No homophobic asshole is going to take that from you.

She was brought back to reality by the feeling of someone slapping her butt. She turned to see Juniper wink as she walked past her onto the track. “Can’t wait to watch that fine ass all the way around the track.”

Ellie would normally laugh at her friend’s ridiculousness, but she was too nervous at this moment to find the humor in it. She followed Sierra onto the track and watched which lane shetook, making sure to take one on the inside of her so she’d be able to see her the whole time. When her coach told them to get on their marks, her heart practically beat right out of her chest. She could feel that heartbeat throughout her whole body. It was pounding in her ears so loudly she could barely hear her coach tell them to start.

She didn’t start out too well, and Sierra immediately began to pull away from her. That was okay, though. The second half of the race had always been Ellie’s strong point. When most people began to lose steam was when she kicked it in. If she could just stay close enough to Sierra, she was sure she could catch her and pass her by the end. By the time they made it to the halfway point, Ellie had caught up to almost everyone who started in the lanes ahead of her, which meant she would pull ahead even more as she ran around the turn.

She could tell the distance between her and Sierra was bigger than that caused by the staggered start, but this was the point where she kicked it in. She took the turn hard and tried her best to steady her breathing as she came to the beginning of the last 100 meters. Sierra was a few feet ahead of her, but if she pushed herself hard enough, she would catch up. She had to. She didn’t have a choice.

Little by little the distance between them closed. Soon, Ellie was right beside Sierra. She was barely hanging on at this point, but she only had to push a little bit further. Unfortunately, Ellie was used to her opponents slowing down at this point, but Sierra only got faster, matching her stride for stride. When they were mere feet from the finish line, Ellie tried to kick it up a gear, but her legs wouldn’t allow it. All of her worst nightmares came true when Sierra inched ahead of her and crossed the finish line right before her.

Ellie didn’t know whether to throw up or cry. Honestly, she might do both. The sky seemed to close in around her andshe became claustrophobic. She could barely breathe, and it had to do with more than just the exertion from the run. With one stupid, unimportant race, it felt like everything she had worked for throughout her whole college career was crashing down.

Ellie almost toppled over when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. Luckily, that same hand held on to her to keep her steady. She blinked her eyes to focus on the person in front of her and found her coach with a wide grin on his face. “Woowee! What a race! This is going to be quite the season. This championship is ours, and I have no question our relay will finally make it to nationals. You girls are amazing!”

He held a stopwatch in front of Ellie’s face, and she had to blink once again to make the numbers clear. When she saw the time, her eyes almost shot out of her head. It was faster than she had ever been at this point in the season. In fact, it was even faster than she had run at her first few indoor meets of last season, which was crazy with such little training. Normally, she’d be ecstatic, but there was one problem. That time was fast, but it wasn’t the fastest. She couldn’t believe she had let someone beat her, and getting beaten by someone likeSierramade it even worse.

She looked around, her eyes searching for Sierra. Her body heated up in anger when she found her. For the first time, Sierra had a huge grin on her face. She was high-fiving their teammates as if they were all old friends. As if she hadn’t spent the first two months of school completely ignoring them and acting like she was too good for everyone.

It wasfuckinginfuriating. Ellie wanted nothing more than to grab her things and get as far away from the track as possible. The problem was, to get to her stuff, she had to walk past Little Miss First Place.Whatever. It’s not like Sierra would say anything to her. She had done a great job of blowing her off so far. Why would she start to give Ellie the time of day now?

When Ellie stormed past her, Sierra didn’t even look away from their other teammates to notice her, which only served to piss Ellie off even more. She whispered obscenities under her breath as she packed up her things and pretended to stretch so her coach didn’t get mad at her.

When she heard a throat clear, she looked up to see Sierra of all people standing next to her. Ellie was so feral she had to hold back a growl.

Sierra looked unsure of herself as she rubbed the back of her neck and stared down at Ellie. “Just wanted to say good race.”

“Yeah, sure, you too.” Ellie wanted to be the bigger person and leave it at that, but something about this girl only being willing to acknowledge her after beating Ellie inherrace, rubbed her the wrong way. “Make sure to tell your friend I said hi, by the way. If she ever gets tired of boys, I’d be happy to show her what a woman is capable of.” Ellie added a wink to really piss Sierra off.

Within seconds, Sierra’s face was beet red. If looks could kill, the daggers she was shooting at Ellie would have knocked her dead on the spot. “Fuck you! Stay the fuck away from her.”

Wow.That was definitelynotthe reaction Ellie was expecting. Sure, Ellie had done this to get a reaction, but she wasn’t expecting such an intense reaction. It was one thing to have a problem with gay people. It was another thing to have such a big problem that it made youthisangry to have your friend hit on by someone of the same gender.

Her anger made Ellie even more annoyed, because really, who did this girl think she was? “Wow. I thought maybe I read the situation wrong, but apparently, you really are homophobic.” Ellie raised an eyebrow. “If you hate gay people, maybe college athletics isn’t the best place for you.”

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