“Fine. Hi, Oliver.” She rolled her eyes.
Grace turned slightly, and I jogged into her line of sight. “Hey, Grace.”
“Hey,” she said, then turned back to Becca, effectively snuffing any further communication.
“Ouch,” Mateo whispered after we ran by the girls.
“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t…it’ll be fine.” I said it more to convince myself.
I clapped my hands together as I picked up the pace a little. “Focus. We need to focus. We have a race to win.”
“Latest times place us a few spots out of contention for state,” James said. “I checked them out last night.”
“We only have a few weeks to change that.” Mateo nodded. “We need to up our game if we want to have a chance.”
“Then pick up the pace, guys!” I took off in a tempo. “Let’s do this!”
I needed to focus on something other than Grace, because my heart was about to crack in half right now.
Chapter Forty
Grace
ALEC: What’s up, Nugget?
ME: Just finished track practice.
ALEC: Hanging in there?
ME: Yep.
ALEC: You telling the truth?
ME: Maybe.
ALEC: It’s okay to feel like a dumpster filled with poop and lit on fire.
ME: Thanks for that visual.
I felt like shit, but I didn’t say that. He might fly out here and kick my butt. Or Preach’s.
I stood here, in front of my locker in the girl’s locker room, not really sure what I should do now that practice was over. Preach had tried to talk to me a couple times during warm-ups, but I couldn’t talk to him. It was too much. Too hard.
It’d been just under two weeks since we’d broken up, but my head and heart were all over the place when it came to him.
Hell, when it came to everything.
“Hey, Grace.” Willow came up beside me and linked her arm in mine. “Want to go for a walk?”
My legs were still loose from practice, and I didn’t want to go home yet, so I nodded. “Sure, that’d be nice.”
We dropped our backpacks in my car and took off down a path that led away from the school.
“Hanging in there?” Willow asked.
“Tryin’ to.”
“So, the shit really hit the fan, huh?” asked Willow.