Chasing Hope (14 page)

“No. I knew about your running. Lots of wins. Several records. I didn’t know why you’d stopped. Until now.” He kissed her forehead. “Are you mad?”

Was she? She pictured him sitting at his computer, typing in her name, clicking on Search. Reading through page after page of her life, eyes squinted in concentration, head shaking because it made no sense. And of course it made no sense to him because she’d been so defensive anytime running had come up. At least he’d cared enough to look for answers instead of just walking away in frustration.

“No. I’m not mad.” She smiled up into his blue eyes. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Deal.” They started walking again, until they reached Koen’s truck. He stopped, leaned against it, holding onto her hands.

“So, about the game . . . I know I’m being a baby, but somehow it bothers me to watch college sports on television now. Especially Tennessee sports. I’m happy for all of them who are doing so well, really I am, it’s just . . . like having an in-my-face reminder of what I’ve lost. It makes me sad.” Sabrina knew it sounded weak, and pathetic, but he deserved to hear the truth for all its ugliness. She was every bit as needy and whiny as Lindy had ever been, that much was certain.

“So, that’s it then.” Koen pulled her into his arms and kissed her, long and soft. Finally he pulled away and said, “Let’s drive out to the lake and go for a walk.”

“What about the game?”

“What game?” He grinned at her, that irresistible dimple working its usual charm.

“Really, I’m fine. I promise, we can go back in. I don’t want you to miss it.”

“And I promise if we go for a walk around the lake right now, I’ll be fine. Now, let’s go.” He opened the passenger door to the truck and held it for her.

“Are you sure?” she asked as she slid into the seat.

“Never been more sure about anything.” He leaned in and kissed her again, then closed the door and walked around to his own side.

B
randy more or less stumbled down the front porch steps, and although her feet moved her in the general direction of Sabrina’s house, every step felt like a million pounds, and achy, and like something she didn’t want to repeat. When she turned the corner, Sabrina was, as usual, sitting on the retaining wall with her laptop open, working on some sort of school project or other. She looked up as Brandy approached.

“Hmm, you seem a bit sluggish today.” She closed the computer. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just woke up this morning and everything feels dead and sore, and I just want to go back to bed.” Brandy looked at Sabrina and braced herself for the “you’ve got to push through this” talk that she was certain was coming.

“I remember those days. I called them my heavy days. There was never a pattern that I could figure for why they showed up when they did. It wasn’t necessarily after a hard day of training.
A lot of coaches will tell you that you’ve got to push extra hard on these kinds of days.”

“That’s what I was assuming you were going to say.” With the Columbia 5K less than a week away, Brandy’s training sessions had grown longer and more intense. Part of this was Sabrina’s doing, but now that she understood more about what was at stake, Brandy had refused to settle for only Sabrina’s plan. She was going to do whatever it took to beat that Kayla girl’s stable of overindulged runners. She always forced herself to go one more lap, or two more sprints, or whatever the torture of the day was. “We’re short on time. I can’t afford to slack off now.”

“I’ve never been much of one to hold to that theory. It seemed to me, when I had a heavy day, I knew I couldn’t let myself go back to bed, because that was setting up a precedent of quitting. But what I would do is run my course, but not even bother to keep time. Instead, I would try to remember what it was I liked about running in the first place. I would take it slow, sometimes even stop and walk a little if things were all that bad. Usually, by the next day, I felt fine again.” She made a show of putting the stopwatch away in her sweatshirt pocket. “Just take some slow laps around the block. Don’t push unless you feel like it.”

Brandy stretched for a few minutes, happy that Sabrina was going to back off for today, but somehow frustrated by it, too. What if today’s slacking was the thing that made her do poorly in the race? She took off in a slow jog toward the corner. What must Sabrina have been like back in her running days? Did she really wake up feeling sluggish and take it easy for a day? It didn’t seem likely—she was always so overly motivated about everything.

Brandy’s hips ached and so did her lower back as she took the next corner, and she
really
wanted to stop. But she didn’t, not yet. Did Sabrina’s joints ache like this every single minute of every single day? Once again, the urge to stop pulled hard at her, but
once again, she forced herself to keep going. Step by step, just a little at a time, she was going to get through this. She supposed this is how Sabrina survived from day to day.

Now, for the first time, it occurred to Brandy—she wanted to be like Sabrina.

Sabrina attempted to take a sip of Diet Coke, but she’d chewed on the end of the straw to the point where it would no longer conduct liquid. She observed the mangled piece of plastic, all the little tooth-sized craters crushing the top, and knew it was a hopeless cause. She pulled out the straw, flipped it upside down, put it back in her drink, and resumed chewing.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s got you so worked up, or are you just going to leave me to wonder?” Koen pulled the back of Sabrina’s right hand to his lips.

“Hmm?” She reached up and touched his cheek, the very touch of him calming her, if only a little. “Oh, sorry, I guess I’m a little out of it.”

“Not out of it, I’d say freaked out is more like it. What’s up? I mean, you’re always uptight—in your cute and adorable way, of course—but tonight you’ve been way beyond the usual. Are you nervous about the race this weekend? I’m sure Brandy will do fine.”

“No . . . yes . . . no . . . it’s not the race, exactly. It’s my parents.”

“Your parents?”

“Yeah, Mom called this afternoon. It seems that Nana has been waxing eloquent about what a great job I’m doing coaching Brandy, etcetera, etcetera, and they’ve decided to come spend the weekend here and go to watch the race.”

“Really? Cool.” Koen continued to look into her eyes, as if searching for an answer there but not finding it. He finally wrinkled his forehead and leaned back a little. “You like your parents, right? Why has this got you so wound up?”

“I love my parents, they are terrific.” Sabrina looked at their hands, entwined across the table. “My mom is my best friend. And my dad, well, he’s great, a terrific father really.”

“Sounds good. I’m still not seeing the problem here.”

“My dad is very type A.”

Koen snorted. “That’s one trait that runs in the family.”

Sabrina looked up at him, surprised “What do you mean?”

He took on a high-pitched voice and waved his hand in a feminine sort of way. “I have simply got to make an A on this test, so I do not have time to do anything but study. Okay, a five-minute break with lighthearted conversation is allowed every three hours, but other than that, I must study.”

Sabrina laughed. “Okay, maybe I’m type A in the driven sort of way. Dad is type A in the “nothing is ever good enough” sort of way. It’s his way of showing his love, of pushing me to achieve more than I would achieve on my own, I know this. But it just puts a lot of pressure on me when he’s here, because I’ll be looking over my shoulder the whole time, wondering what more I should be doing, or wondering what it is I’m doing wrong.”

“I see.” Koen nodded and leaned toward her across the snack shop table. “Well, I’m just going to have to spend extra energy this week reminding you of how fabulous you are.”

Sabrina smiled and leaned toward him. “I’m so glad to have you on my side.”

“I’m glad to be here.”

She sighed. Koen’s nearness, his warmth, his beautiful blue eyes looking into hers. Nothing else mattered. Sabrina wanted to stay just like that forever. Unfortunately, her practical nature
eventually overrode the perfection of the moment, reminding her of the rest of reality. She leaned back against her seat but continued to hold his hand.

“Hopefully you’ll still be glad after this weekend. I’m counting on you to join us for dinner at Nana’s house on Friday night?”

For the briefest fraction of time, a look of alarm flitted across his face, but much to Koen’s credit he immediately put on his most winning grin. “I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if you still say that after Friday night.”

“Sounds like an interesting challenge.”

“I think so.” She pulled the straw out of her cup and took a sip directly from the styrofoam cup. “But for now, we need to refocus on our psych paper. After all,” she said in a fake high voice, imitating the one he’d just used, “I simply must get an A on this project.”

S
abrina threw her backpack over her right shoulder and made her way toward Campus Eats. Today she was thankful for the part-time on-campus job. To go straight home now and just wait for tonight’s gathering, well . . . just the thought made her shudder. In years past, she would have gone for a long run, kept going until every twitch of anxiety dissolved into muscle exhaustion so complete she couldn’t even feel the tension. For now, she had a job to do and she was glad for it. Busyness was her friend.

Brandy
had
to do well in the race tomorrow. If Sabrina’s father was coming all the way out here, he expected nothing less than first place. Her mother would have more realistic expectations, but clearly, everyone expected Brandy to be amazing, thus demonstrating Sabrina’s effectiveness. If Brandy failed to perform, it’d be chalked up as Sabrina’s failure. She walked behind the counter and put her backpack in a bottom cabinet. The line at the counter was five people deep and that was a good thing. Hopefully they would be followed by many others.

Three hours later, her hope had been realized. Her back and knees hurt from standing, and her muscles ached with exhaustion from constant motion. It couldn’t have been better. Sometimes things just worked out right.

Sabrina had retrieved her backpack and started for the door, thankful for those hours of blissful escape, when little nervous twitches started in her stomach. Apparently she wasn’t completely exhausted. Every step she took toward the door increased the nerves. Maybe she should check to see if her journalism professor had posted grades from this week’s project yet. Mostly in the interest of stalling, she walked over to the nearest booth, sat down, and opened her laptop.

No grades were posted. Might as well check email while she was here. She opened Outlook, which loaded a dozen or so new emails. She scanned the list, and when she saw another message from Rita Leyva she clicked on it.

Dear Sabrina,

I hope you are still prayerfully considering the position I spoke to you about. I’m currently in South Africa and God has brought you to mind a number of times. Would you be open to another phone conversation next week? I would be happy to talk through any additional thoughts or questions you may have encountered since we last spoke. Anytime Tuesday or Wednesday of next week would work for me. Let me know your availability and we will set it up.

Looking forward to speaking with you!

In Him,

Rita Leyva

Rita Leyva was persistent, Sabrina had to give her that. She was so utterly convinced that Sabrina was the right person for this
job. Sabrina tried to remember the last time she’d been so completely convinced of anything being absolutely true. She didn’t have to think long. She knew it was back when she thought she was headed for the Olympics.

But she’d been wrong. Dead wrong. Strength of conviction didn’t make something true.

For just a second, a vision of Brandy running in red, white, and blue flashed through her mind. Sabrina snorted at the thought. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

She walked out to her car, supposing that she should be grateful for the mini distraction. It was all silly, really, her being so worked up. It was going to be fine, of course it was. What could go wrong? Nothing. Nothing at all. It was going to be fine.

The short drive home was long enough to give herself a little pep talk. At least she’d have Koen at dinner tonight. With him around, she’d be somewhat distracted, and she knew her parents would like him. What wasn’t to like?

As she pulled into the drive, she wondered if he’d called that afternoon. She dug her phone out of her backpack. According to the screen, she had three missed calls and one new voice mail, none from a number she recognized. She pressed the button and listened.

Hi, Sabrina. It’s Candace Davenport from Grace Rose PR. I am pleased to let you know you’ve made the short list. There is a slight possibility that we will do one more round of interviews in the next few weeks, but this is unlikely, and at most a formality. I was hoping to give you this news personally, but as we have a client event tonight and I didn’t get you live, I wanted to at least let you know. Please call me on Monday and we will talk through details. I look forward to working with you.

Sabrina stared at the phone in her hand in numb disbelief. The unbelievable had happened, and what perfect timing.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
Her dreams, her new life, it was all falling into place. She climbed out of the car and ran toward the house. This would be a great way to start this weekend off. She pulled open the front door and ran into the living room. “I have the most amazing news.”

The room was empty and dark. “Hello?” She went through the house until she finally saw Nana and her parents in the backyard, checking out the fledgling vegetable garden. She started to run out and scream her news at the top of her lungs. Then she had a better idea.

She’d wait until tomorrow. Until after the race. It would give them twice the reasons to celebrate.

Or soften the blow if things didn’t go so well. Oh, how she hoped and prayed that would not be the case.