Page 27 of Sweet Spot
“Thank you.” She slips it on her wrist and lingers in the doorway. “Part of me wishes we could trade places. I don’t really feel like going, if I’m honest.”
“You’re just dreading the drive.” Abby hates car rides. She doesn’t even like going across town to run errands with me.
“You’re probably right. Okay.” She lets out a long breath. “I’ll call you later and let you know how it goes tonight.”
“Bye.”
When she’s gone, I read over the training plan with a huge grin on my face. It’s detailed and a little intense. A two-mile run? And there are at least twenty different flexibility exercises in addition to weightlifting.
It all seems like overkill. We do conditioning and weights as part of our normal training, but it’s nowhere near this much. Regardless, I’m excited to try some of it.
It’ll have to wait though. I have to get moving if I’m going to get a shower and manage to stomach some food before my nine o’clock class.
I slide into a seat next to Keith just as class begins. My stomach cramps from the Pop-Tart I ate, and I’m sweating out alcohol from the half jog that was necessary so that I wasn’t late.
Keith shakes his head disapprovingly, and I stick my tongue out at him. Then I regret it because it makes me gag.
Fifty minutes has never felt so long. When class finally ends what feels like a decade later, I have to go straight to my next class and sit through another lecture. I’m dragging when Keith and I make it to University Hall for lunch.
“Do you want anything? I’m gonna grab a sandwich?”
“No, definitely not. My stomach is still really angry.” I look around at the food options and then end up changing my mind. “Well, maybe some chips.”
He nods, and I place my head on the table until he returns. I do my best to pay attention as Keith catches me up on what I missed in organic chem.
“I’m going to email you my notes too since I know your brain is still foggy.”
“You’re a prince.”
“I have to rush off to get my workout in before our next class. Don’t skip measurements class. Professor Anolf docks a grade for too many absences.”
“I won’t,” I assure him. “I have to take my dad to the doctor, but I should be done in plenty of time.”
“Today?”
I nod. “It was their only available appointment all week.”
When Keith leaves, I read through his notes and the accompanying chapters from the textbook. Since it’s still the first week, one missed class won’t kill me, but I can’t afford to fall behind. The season is just about to pick up and study time will be hard to find.
An alarm on my phone goes off with a one-minute warning, and I silence it and continue to hold the phone until it rings.
“Hey, Mom,” I answer.
“Hi, honey. How are you?” Her warm, upbeat voice makes me smile.
“I’m good. Between classes.”
“Does this time still work for you this semester?” she asks.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Good. I look forward to our calls every week.”
“Me too.”
I try not to think too hard about the fact I’ve been relegated to a time slot much like dropping off dry cleaning or grocery shopping.
I was sixteen when she and my dad divorced, and she moved back to Maryland where she grew up. Last summer she got remarried. My new stepdad (super weird to think of him as that), Bart, is a doctor at the same hospital where she works, and he seems nice. I’ve only met him a few times. Mom’s happy, though, which is all that really matters.
