Page 125 of Running Home to You
“No. No, don’t blame it on the case.” Ryan’s jaw hardened. “This is about you.”
Sweat sprang along her back like a warning signal to hit the brakes. “What do you mean?”
He breathed hard through his nose. “Are you still in love with Abby?”
“No.” Kate said it fast but airless, so that she wasn’t sure if it made a safe landing. Ryan stalked past her. “What are you doing?” She followed him to the kitchen table, where he swiped Abby’s letter from the mess like he’d done it many times before. Bile soured in her throat. She willed herself to keep her feet planted. To be the same person who battled in court.
“Why do you have this letter?”
“Because she sent it to me! I didn’t write her back.” Kate’s chest galloped. She wanted to rip it out of his hand. Her last piece of Abby. A lifeline she wasn’t sure she’d accept, but wasn’t willing to lose. “You’ve obviously read it, so you know it’s part of her steps. Why are you snooping?”
“Because I don’t trust you! I feel like I don’t know you or what you want, and that’s terrifying for someone you’re supposed to marry!” Ryan glared as if despising both her and the emotions she made him feel. “I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this with you.”
“Ryan—”
“You know what’s really fucked? The first thing I loved about you was your heart. Your kindness. But this isn’t kind, Kate.” He shook his head. “This is you, stringing me along.”
Kate frowned. She hated hurting him, but her own frustrations bubbled beneath. “Why did you propose to me at the biggest turning point in my career? So that you can be disappointed when I don’t set a date or make a guest list? So that you can still be the center of attention?”
“Oh, that’s rich! You are the center of attention!” Ryan roared, andshe flinched. “On the news, in your fancy suits. This case has fucking changed you. That’s for sure. And it’s just another excuse to put a pause on us.”
And finally, after all the suppression, not just with Ryan, but years of it, Kate thundered back. She fought, unlike the child her parents had punished with the Bible or the young woman still scared of them decades later, losing out on love, on life, on who she really was. Because how could others trust her to fight for them when she had never won a fight for herself.
“I didn’t ask for this attention! I didn’t ask for any of it! Not even for you to propose! But if it’s that important to you, if you really meant it, why don’t you come down to the courthouse and we’ll get it taken care of. I’m there every day anyway! Then I can be Mrs. Eckhardt in time for closing statements!”
“No. You don’t get to put this on me.” Ryan’s throat bobbed as he inched into her space. “I know why you don’t want to go back into that church. I know what letter you want to write.” He turned and yanked open the door. “You’re not as kind or perfect as you think you are. I’m done letting you hide it behind someone else’s trial.”
Kate closed her eyes as the door slammed in her face. She didn’t cry. She didn’t feel any relief either. Instead, she felt shitty and heavy, because Ryan was right about her excuses. If he’d proposed later, after the trial, Kate wasn’t even sure she’d say yes again. Because the case was changing her.
She walked between the protesters the morning of closing statements, and they felt like pieces of herself screaming at each other. This was it. The championship game all over again. She swore that when she glanced at the defense table she saw her parents, then shook them out of her head. Just like when she glanced into the sea of the prosecution’s supporters, she imagined Abby, with that knowing smile, reminding her to breathe.
She addressed the judge and clearly outlined the case. She hit the right beats, the emotions, the discrimination, and the law. But then, as her speech neared its end, her voice caught. She wasn’t ready for it to be over. No more case to hide behind. She’d done it. She was here, being exactly who she wanted to be. So close to knowing who the rest of that was too. So close to taking it—just as Charlotte advised—that she could taste it. It put tears in her throat and behind her eyes.
“First Foundations Charter started by opening its doors to the very people it’s now working so hard to keep out—those who think differently, create passionately, love fiercely, and may not be understood.” Kate’s gaze found Marcus, who smiled and nodded. “I understand the school’s desire to guide its students by a certain set of values. Values that they believe are inherently good.” Kate paused and swallowed. “But when those teachings hurt people, when they become tools of exclusion, when they make children feel like they must hide part of who they are in order to be accepted, is it really good anymore?”
Her voice wavered like it did under the shiny, spiritless church lights, like it did at the kitchen table with her parents, like it did every minute she wasn’t herself.
“First Foundations Charter is desperately trying to gain religious exemption so that they may pick and choose who can learn, just as they pick and choose what verses they might follow or what version of God’s love may be celebrated or persecuted.” Kate stood taller for the finish. She stood not on the beliefs of her childhood, but the ones she sought herself in law school, suddenly more confident in her findings than ever before. “But the Constitution is crystal clear. It requires no baptism, no conversion, no denial of self. It is guaranteed that all of us are treated equally and given, without question, a right to life and liberty, and a chance to belong. Something no school, no courtroom, or God might take away.”
When the gavel sounded and the judge left to deliberate, Kate closed her eyes and released the breath she’d been holding in for a year. Her co-counsels shook her hand and congratulated her. Marcusand the students hugged her. She made a brief statement for the cameras gathered in the marble hallway, but then hurried for the exit.
She felt reborn, sturdier as she walked past the competing crosses and rainbow flags. But it didn’t stop the tears as she left the case behind. The tears from the trial’s pressure, from the long nights, from the fight with Ryan, from the decisions that awaited her, tears both overjoyed and overwhelmed. Tears because she didn’t know who to call. Because she didn’t want her parents, and she didn’t want Ryan. She only wanted one person, just like so many times before. All she had to do was decide and take it.
Instead, as she stepped down the concrete stairs, vision blurry with emotion, her heel lost traction. Her legs slipped out from under her and she fell with a thud. Right onto her shoulder. Kate groaned and nearly broke into another sob. She’d finally severed those ligaments, but she didn’t feel broken anymore. She laughed as she stared up at the clouds, the tops of skyscrapers leaning into view, a plane leaving streaks in its wake. And for the first time in a long time, she knew exactly what she wanted. But for now, she’d wait.
Present Day
“Abby?”
She stared ahead, shoulders clenching at the voice behind her. One she hadn’t heard in two years. She knew a reunion was possible when she agreed to scout at Insley. That she might very well come across another name on the list of people she owed an apology to. Abby clutched the plastic chip in her pocket as the reckoning drew closer, footsteps thumping above the cheers for the batter who knocked a ball into right field.
“Cruz, you are one unbelievable fucking asshole!”
Abby peered up at the woman in anInsley Softballwindbreaker blocking her view.
“Hey, Mick.”
She waited with her teeth clenched, braced for everything from more yelling to fists. In two years, she’d picked up the phone more than once to apologize for the awful things she said before hitting rock bottom. But then she never knew where to start, thought a face-to-face would be better, then would put it off until the next time guilt woke her in the middle of the night. Until two years flew by and she ended up here.
