Page 32 of Running Home to You
“God, she turns into the Hulk when she’s drunk.” Mick heaved as they piled on top of her.
“Get off!” Abby bellowed.
“What do we do with her now?” Jill asked as she pinned Abby’s arms.
“I think she needs to cool off,” Mick said.
Kate’s mouth dropped. “Mick, don’t.”
“Yeah, come on.” Mick and Jill hauled Abby off the floor and dragged her to the bathroom.
“Let me go! Let me fucking go!” Abby shouted hysterically. “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here anymore!”
Kate’s throat constricted. “Guys, be careful.”
Jill turned on the shower as Mick tore off Abby’s shoes.
“Just let me go. I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t.” Abby slackened out of Mick and Jill’s hold as water splashed into the tub. She released a mournful cry. “Just let me go. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
The three of them stood stunned. Despite her melancholy, Abby always appeared stoic. Never a tear. Never a word about what she’d been through. Perhaps it was because of how she played, but this crumbling didn’t seem possible.
“Hey, dude, it’s okay.” Mick widened her gaze at Jill and Kate. “We won’t put you in.”
Abby slinked to the corner until she hit the wall with another sob. “I should’ve been there, you know?”
“Been where?” Jill asked.
Kate cautiously eased to Abby, who swayed but didn’t run. After all their time together—the studying, the competing, the bickering, the silences, stares, and rare smiles—she felt like the only one who could. “It’s okay,” she whispered. Her hand trembled as she touched her shoulder. “Abby, it’s okay.”
“I can’t. I can’t stop hearing it. I just want it to stop. Please. I can’t.”
Abby covered her ears, clamped her eyes shut, and cowered at something none of them could see. Unlike Mick, who backed away, and Jill, who blanched, Kate inched closer. She whispered assurances that Abby likely couldn’t hear but said them anyway beneath her incoherent pleas. And as Abby shielded her ears and rocked, Kate reached out and covered those same hands with hers. She didn’t tell her that there wasn’t a sound to be heard. She helped Abby cover her ears, not in understanding, but faith. To not only whisper it to her, but show, “I’m with you.”
“Please make it stop. I want it to stop.” Abby sniffled.
“I know.” Kate cupped the sides of her head. “I know.”
And then Abby’s eyes opened. They welled, shiny and inebriated,but Kate recognized that flicker. That soul. That gravity. Kate didn’t want Abby to hurt, but she knew this was what always stood between them. This was what Kate always wanted to understand, and now that she did, she couldn’t imagine ever being angry, ever being jealous, ever being anything but this close to her again.
Abby uncovered her ears long enough to burrow into Kate. She startled at first, not only because Abby nearly knocked her over, but because they’d never hugged before. Still, when Abby clutched on, Kate held her back tighter, refusing to let go even as her legs grew unsteady. Mick and Jill helped her bear the weight, the four of them lowering until they all sat on the bathroom floor.
“You got this?” Mick asked.
Her eyes glistened and for the first time, Kate realized damp tracks of tears streamed down her own cheeks too. “Yeah.”
Jill sniffled. “Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, but I won’t leave her,” Kate said.
She held the back of Abby’s head while she hid in her neck long after Mick and Jill retired to bed. She hushed her until the sobs dwindled to cries, the cries to whimpers, and finally the whimpers to sniffles.
And in between, she prayed. She thanked God for Abby’s return, but mostly for this understanding, no matter how painful. It intensified the mysterious swelling in her chest. She longed to explain it. She wondered if it might soothe Abby or herself, but she didn’t know what to say, except maybe,if you only knew how often I talk to God about you.
“I miss her.” Abby sniveled.
Kate’s chest rocked. “I know.” She kissed the top of Abby’s head, held her lips there, and closed her eyes.
Blacking out successfully rid Abby of nightmares, but it came at the price of her worst hangover yet. The agony radiated through her skull when she opened her eyes. The coolness beneath her cheek providedat least some reprieve until she discovered it belonged to the bathroom floor. A sheet draped her shoulders, and curled up nearby, sleeping beneath a comforter with her head on a pillow, was Kate.
