Page 64 of Racing Hearts

The first day of the conference championship went by in a blur. After qualifying, Sierra was ranked above Ellie in both the 200 and the 400. Ellie had been sure to reassure her it wasonlybecause she was saving her energy for the next day, and even though Sierra knew it was just playful banter, she also had no question that Ellie would do everything in her power to make sure Sierra didn’t beat her in the finals.

When they got back to the hotel, Coach gave them a speech about how they were in the perfect position to win the meet. After his speech, Sierra went right up to her hotel room. There was an unspoken understanding between her and Ellie that their focus needed to be on the meet and not each other, so they sent each other one goodnight text before both drifting off to sleep.

The next day, Sierra’s nerves were so bad, her whole body was tingly. The only thing that was able to ease her anxiety the slightest bit was the smile and wink Ellie gave her every time they passed each other. When it was time for the 400, Ellie high-fived both Sierra and their other teammate who had made finals, but her hand held on to Sierra’s after they high-fived and she gave it a squeeze before dropping it.

They took their spots on the track, Sierra in lane four while Ellie was staggered behind her in lane three. The whole gym was filled with cheers as they took their positions in the starting blocks.Just run your race,Sierra reminded herself as she waited for the gun to sound.Give it your best. That’s all you can do.

As soon as she heard the gun, Sierra shot from her starting blocks. She shut out the voices telling her and the other competitors how to run the race and focused on the person in front of her. She easily passed that person, and when it was time to cut in, she was in front of everyone aside from Ellie who was right beside her. She slipped in behind Ellie to go around the turn to keep from running more than she had to. By the time they got to the final turn, they were way too close for Sierra to stay behind. She moved into the second lane and inched closer to Ellie. At this moment, Ellie wasn’t the girl she was falling in love with. She was the person Sierra had to beat to be a conference champion. By the last straightaway, they were side by side. Sierra wasn’t giving up, but neither was Ellie. Every time Sierra tried to push ahead, Ellie matched her stride for stride. As they closed in on the finish line, Sierra kicked into high gear. All of her muscles burned as she attempted to get ahead. She leaned across the finish line, but so did Ellie, so it was impossible to know who won.

After exerting all of her energy, she could barely stand. She tried to stumble to the side of the track, but could barely stay on her feet. Two strong, but shaky, hands grabbed her, and the shockwave it sent through her body told her exactly who it was.

“You did amazing,” Ellie whispered. “No matter what happens, I’m so proud of you.” Before they broke apart, Ellie leaned against Sierra as if she needed Sierra to hold her up. That was clearly an act to sneak the kiss to Sierra’s neck that made her mind go to one thing only, and itwas notthe race.

Ellie kept her arm around Sierra as they walked off the track, both of them watching the marquee to see the results. A moment later, they did, and it was revealed that Ellie beat her by 0.005 of a second. Sierra didn’t care about that as much as the times they had both run, that blew her expectations out of the water.

Sierra subtly squeezed Ellie’s side. “You did it, baby,” she whispered. “You won.”

Ellie smiled over at her and there was an extra sparkle in her eyes. “I sure did.”

The way Ellie stared at her as she said the words told Sierra she wasn’t referring to the race.

Chapter 29

Ellie

It sucked not being able to celebrate with Sierra the way Ellie wanted to. They had just run the race of their lives in the 400 and given their team a first and second-place finish. With another of their teammates finishing fourth, that race had made a huge difference to the point total. Ellie wanted to drag Sierra away so she could talk to her and congratulate her the correct way, but they still had a meet to focus on.

The second day of the conference championship always went by quickly, so she knew it would be no time at all before they were running the 200 and then the 4x400.

For the 200, Sierra was ranked fourth while Ellie was ranked sixth. Since the finals were two heats of four runners, Ellie was in the first heat while Sierra was in the second, faster, heat. If Ellie wanted to do better than she was seeded to do, she knew she had to not only win her heat, but win it by a decent amount.

She pushed herself to make sure that happened, then anxiously watched Sierra’s race. Sierra finished third, which meant she had finished better than she was predicted to. Oddly enough, even in separate heats, Sierra and Ellie had practically run the same time again, this time with Sierra coming out ahead. Ellie was happy for her. Plus, that put Ellie fourth for the race and got them even closer to that championship trophy.

After cooling down, Ellie gathered their relay team together and led them over to their coach so they could get an update on where they stood for the meet. Their coach informed them that if the last track event that was left aside from theirown, as well as the final field event, went as expected, there would be no pressure on the relay team.

Of course, neither event went how it was supposed to, so with only the relay to go, they were down by one point. As the top-seeded team in the relay, they should have felt good about their chances. The problem was, the second-seeded team, whose qualifying time was much too close to theirs, was the team currently winning the meet.

This whole championship was riding on their relay team. It was riding onEllie.She wanted to give her teammates an elaborate speech to inspire them, but she was too nervous to form words. Instead, she gave them each an anxious nod before walking toward the starting line.

A hand gently grabbed her arm, and when Ellie turned to see who it was, she found Sierra standing beside her. “We’ve got this,” Sierra reassured her. “You’vegot this. I believe in you.”

Ellie didn’t need an inspirational speech. Sierra believed in her, and those words were what was going to get her through this race even though her legs were tight and her body was aching.

She watched as her first teammate stepped onto the track, looking just as nervous as Ellie felt. When the gun went off, her teammate was a little sluggish. She was clearly still feeling the strain from running the 400 earlier in the day. When she handed off the baton, they were in fourth place, which wasnotthe position they needed to be in, but Ellie wasn’t losing hope. Their second runner eventually moved them up to third, but the first two teams were pulling way ahead, especially the team that was currently winning the meet. Ellie really didn’t know if they had any chance at this point, and she was starting to feel defeated until Sierra took the baton.

Sierra closed the distance between herself and the second-place team and by the beginning of her second lap, shemoved past them. The first-place team was still a decent amount ahead, but Sierra was quickly closing that gap as well.

When Ellie stepped on the track to wait for the hand off, the race was neck and neck. Ellie watched Sierra coming toward her and turned to start running as soon as her body told her it was the right time. When she looked over her shoulder to grab the baton, she was in the perfect position. It easily slipped into her hand, the slight contact with Sierra’s fingers causing a spark to shoot through her arm. That spark gave Ellie the extra energy she needed to win this race.

She and her competition remained side by side throughout the first lap. All around them, the crowd was going crazy, but Ellie tuned all of that out. Her focus was on one thing only—winning this race. She started to pull away when there was about 150 meters left in the race and she didn’t let up until she stumbled across the finish line. Her legs gave out from under her, but someone grabbed her before she hit the ground.

She wasn’t surprised when she looked up and found herself gazing into deep blue eyes. “I told you, you could do it, baby,” Sierra said quietly.

Ellie wanted to stay like this forever, but their special moment was broken up by their teammates rushing onto the track and attacking both of them with hugs and high fives.

When Ellie finally broke free, she looked around the gym to search for her family and found them standing beside the track with Sierra’s family as if they were old friends. Ellie walked over to them and was wrapped up in congratulatory hugs from her brother, her moms, and her Uncle Dalton, Aunt Shelby, and three of her cousins. After they were done making a big deal out of her, Sierra’s family, including an aunt and uncle Ellie was meeting for the first time, congratulated her with high fives.

A hand landed on the small of her back, and she looked over to find Sierra standing next to her. She stayed like this thewhole time they talked to their families, and Ellie could have floated away because she was feeling so light and happy.

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