Page 67 of Running Home to You
“I needed to see you.” Abby coughed, hands on her knees to recover. She straightened up, still winded. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” Kate chuckled, even though tears rolled. She shoved the letter at Abby, barely able to say the rest. “It’s Berkeley.”
Abby’s eyes stretched wide. “It’s Berkeley?”
“I got in.” Kate swallowed a sob. Saying it aloud for the first time raised the hair on the back of her neck.
“You got in?” Abby repeated.
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know.”
“You got in?”
“I got in!”
“She got in! She’s going to Berkeley!” Abby screamed for the neighborhood before swooping her off her feet. She squeezed her tight, spun in a circle, chanted it over and over. “I knew it. I knew you would do it. I fucking knew it.”
She laughed and cried. The glances, confessions, traces of skin, and whispers of the last year undoubtedly conveyed their attraction, but this shared joy radiated love. A love that Kate had never experienced. Unconditional. Abby celebrated not what she wanted, but what Kate wanted. Just as she had championed her when she took over at shortstop. Just like she didn’t want her to stop believing in herself or in God or her dreams. No one loved Kate like this.
“I’m so proud of you,” Abby whispered into her ear. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
When Abby let go, Kate didn’t break away, but slid down her front. Their faces hovered near when her feet hit the ground and Kate didn’t balk. She lost herself in that gaze, the one that was no longer unknowable.
“I wanted to tell you first.” Kate cupped her cheek and brushed her thumb to the spot she longed to kiss.
Abby rested her forehead against hers and sighed. “I love you.”
The hollow born of Abby’s arrival, of her sorrow and smiles, capable of unbearable aching and nourishing warmth, deepened from her chest to her toes. And Kate finally understood it. She thought that it was a hole, something open and empty because of Abby. But that wasn’t it at all. The cavity formed because she gained something new in her. A part of herself. Kate was one before Abby, and when she met her, she became two. The hollow simply opened to make room for that last piece.
“I love you too,” Kate whispered.
Abby held her cheeks in cold but tender hands. Her eyes darkened, gravity eclipsing her playful sparkle. Kate didn’t recognize such a look, not even on the field, but it didn’t scare her. It too belonged in that wondrous trench.
Their noses brushed first, their heads tilted to the perfect fit, Abby’s hands landed at Kate’s waist, and finally their lips met. The velvet trace started delicately, then expanded to a wave. A glide. Arms locked around her. Kate closed her eyes as they melted together. She already longed for the next kiss, while wanting this one to last forever. Abby’s plump lips cushioned like a home she already knew, the taste leaving her faint and full. She committed to longer and closer. To more. But she left herself here. Free. In Abby. In herself. In the perfect surrender.
Together
The ball never sounded as crisp as it did during Abby’s senior year, and a deep-rooted instinct told her it wouldn’t again. The same instinct that moved her cleats and mitt a split second before a batter drilled a shot to her at third base. The same instinct that told her she’d knock the next ball out of the park right before it left the pitcher’s circle. After eight straight games of her cracking a home run, the same instinct confirmed to the rest of the Eagles that a special season was afoot.
For Abby, the home runs weren’t particularly new. She remembered the excitement of hitting her first one over the fence in fifth grade while playing with the middle schoolers. She’d done it many times before then, but only during practice. Audie put a bat in her hand when she learned to walk and even after he left the picture, her mother had devotedly fostered her natural gifts. And while rounding the bases after a big one thrilled young Abby, it soon became commonplace. Expected even by the time she reached high school and top college programs around the country recruited her.
But this was different. Not because of the sheer number or streak, but the love behind it. That full, safe, tender place that grew from Kate.
It was easy to say she would’ve waited forever to kiss her once theyfinally had, but it far exceeded Abby’s expectations. Kate’s soft but certain lips, her touch shifting from bashful to basking as she released herself into Abby’s hold, overwhelmed her in all the right places. That part didn’t surprise her. Not her thumping heart or the suggestive warmth or how quickly she needed more. But Abby didn’t expect it to feel so real. As if she didn’t need time to adjust to the thrill. Just like hitting those home runs. Perhaps because she’d never kissed someone she already loved so much.
It came with a different kind of waiting. Waiting for a secret moment to hold hands or simply be near each other, their intimacy no longer a torturous thing they ignored. Waiting to sneak into the blue house, slipping through the door that Kate left unlocked.
Abby did it often that spring, tiptoeing through the kitchen, wincing with each creak of the old stairs, hissing as she tripped over backpacks and laundry baskets before slipping into Kate’s bedroom. They wheezed and snickered as Abby hopped out of her shoes in the dark, nearly falling over in her haste to slip under the sheets.
“Shhhh,” Kate whispered, but Abby was already kissing her.
She never made out with someone as much as she did with Kate. They lost hours to each other’s mouths, to long tastes and careful bites, to the extra pecks along cheeks and chins and beneath ears that evoked as many flutters as the wet, sloppy, hungrier traces of tongue. Abby, of course, physically wanted more, but happily waited for that too, content with how Kate fit into her arms as easily as she did her heart.
“I missed you,” Abby said, even though it’d only been a few hours since they parted ways at the field.
