***
Five laps. Six. Seven. At some point, I lose count. A day has passed since the party, and I’m no longer nauseated nor dehydrated, but I still haven’t figured anything out, which is why it’s back to the track for me. DD is rife with posts about the party—about Sam’s dad’s yacht being held for investigations, about Stacey’s overdose, about the cops. It hurts, and I want to shut it out, but I also can’t stop myself from reading everything, just in case I’ve missed a clue somewhere. Still, all I’ve found so far is crap like:
Posted by @TrackQueen:
Booze: $15,000. Yacht: $1.7 mil. Having a party so wild that somebody ODs: priceless.
My classmates, always full of sympathy. The thought of DD spurs me on and I push myself to run faster. Harder. Instead, my legs give out and I crash onto the track. It feels like I just got run over by a semi. As if to add insult to injury, my calf muscles seize up, knitting themselves in agony, and I roll around, gasping, hissing curses, clutching my legs.
No need for the team doctor to tell me I’m not practicing right. I know the kind of ache that means I’m pushing myself well, and this is not it. This is splintering stabs, nails being dug into deep tissue, my body begging me to stop. But whenever I stop, Stacey speaks to me.
You’re the first person to hang out in my room.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to go to the hospital again, but I can’t, not before I figure out who did this to her. And I’m no closer to an answer.
The next few days melt into one another. I wake up. Scroll through DD for clues. Go to the track. Shower. Breakfast where none of us say anything much to each other. Classes. Go back to the track. Go back to room and doom-scroll through DD again, obsessing over every post, every picture from the party.
Every photo could be a clue. I scrutinize them all, memorizing each detail until they all swim in my head without meaning, all the smiling faces melting into one another. The answer is in here somewhere, I can feel it, just out of reach, and it’s driving me insane.
Danny’s the only thing that wakes me from the haze. In the evenings, we crawl through the Narnia hole and walk, hand in hand, to town. He doesn’t mention the party and neither do I. We go back to our first date, under the strung lights, and make our way through each stall without saying much to each other. One night, we go to the hospital but find Stacey’s mom still in the room, dozing next to Stacey’s bed, her blond hair strewn across the blanket covering Stacey’s legs. Asleep, she looks so much like Stacey that I burst into tears and hurry off, and Danny follows without comment. He just wraps an arm around me and pulls me in close, kisses the top of my head, tells me it’ll be okay.
By the time regionals come, I can barely walk without my legs trembling. Despite everything, I find myself getting excited about the match. Does that make me a shitty person, an awful friend? But this is the thing I’ve been looking forward to all semester, the reason I’m here at Draycott. The meet that would secure me a spot in Stanford. Putting on my official track outfit that morning feels like waking up from a dream. I get a flash to the first day of school, when I’d worn my Draycott track outfit and looked in the mirror. I look at myself in the mirror now. My cheeks are hollow, my limbs a lot thinner. I’ve lost way too much muscle mass. I look away. Over Thanksgiving break, I will pig out massively, get my weight back up to optimal sprinters’ weight. For now, regionals.
I’ve never seen the stadium this full before. The bleachers aren’t actually full, but they’re about as full as they’re ever going to be for a sport that isn’t football. Friends and relatives pepper the rows, waving down to us and cheering. I don’t bother looking for a familiar face. I haven’t told Ibu about today’s match because she’d take time off work to come, which would make me feel guilty, and plus, I’m not ready to face her yet. Not after everything that’s happened. I need to get my shit together for that. I told Danny not to come either, since it would just make me nervous, and I’m already enough of a wreck without all the added nerves.
A wreck. Yeah, that describes my current state perfectly, swinging back and forth from “OMG, REGIONALS!” to “omg, Mr. Werner-Stacey-drugs-what.” I guess the latter will continue to be a low-key fear thrumming at the back of my head no matter what I do. I go into my stretches and still the world feels all weird and wonky, my thoughts super loud inside my head. Shut up, I tell my mind. Focus on this. Nothing else matters for now. OMG, how could you think that? What about Stacey, huh? Okay, Stacey obviously matters, but for now, focus on this.
When I’m done with my stretches, Coach, calls me over. She’s just as nervous as I am.
“Lia, how you feeling? You okay? Everything good? Yes?” Her smile is weighed down with concern as she gives me a once-over. “You’re too skinny. This isn’t good. You don’t got enough muscle mass.”
“I’m fine,” I say hurriedly. “Really. I’ve just been studying a bit too hard.” I bounce up and down to show her I’m totally fine.
“Okay…” She doesn’t look entirely convinced, but she smiles at me again. “So, exciting news: see that woman in the red shirt over there?” She points at the bleachers, where a woman in a bright-red shirt and red hat’s standing. The woman waves at us when she sees us looking over. We wave back. “That’s the Stanford recruiter.” Coach grins at me. “You ready to show her you deserve an all-expenses-paid ride at Stanford?”
My left leg chooses that moment to give a particularly hard tremor. I clench my fists and force a teeth-gritting smile. “Always.”
“Awesome. Go get ready for your event.” She swings her arm to give me the usual shoulder slap but holds back at the last moment so she won’t hit me as hard. Do I really seem that fragile? By the time I’m finished with my warm-up jog, I’m breathing hard. A jog’s made me winded. A jog. Note to self: Get your crap together, please.
I sit down on the bench and try to get my breath back.
“Uh-oh, don’t tell me you’re out of breath just from warm-ups?” Mandy says. Ugh. I’ve forgotten that she’s replaced Stacey in the roster. I ignore her and focus on breathing deep.
My event is announced and I walk into position. I’m still somewhat out of breath, but stepping onto my lane fills my body with fizzy energy. I kneel into position, revel in the feel of the rubber underneath my fingers. The noise of the crowd melts away. My world shrinks, narrows to just the lane in front of me.
“Set.”
Raise my hips, muscles taut, my whole being quivering with energy.
The gun pops and we’re off.