Page 90 of Racing Hearts

“Because I can’t be useless without you.”

I set my hand atop hers, stilling her fingers from fiddling with that napkin. “Sofi. You are not useless.”

She huffs a sigh. “Fine. Not useless. But I can’t depend on you like this. I can’t need you. You might…you…”

She slams her mouth shut and instead squeezes my fingers, gripping my hand through the papery fabric clenched in her palm.

I swallow. “And I might not even come back.”

She nods, eyes shut and lips drawn. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to put even more pressure on yourself because of me. I know how you are and—” She presses fingers to her closed eyes. “Damn it. I didn’t mean to spill all this out to you. Please forget I said anything.”

“I will not forget you said anything.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her close. Sofi is the strongest person I know, not only on the water or in a weight room, and not only when she’s screaming encouragement in the boat or literally holding up my broken spirit when I’m falling to pieces. But she shoulders so much alone, and I hate that she thinks she doesn’t deserve the same devotion in return. “You can’t always be the one to support other people. You have to let us help you, too.”

She nods and lets me hold her, but when the waiter comes by to give us the bill, she pulls away to wipe her eyes and yanks out her credit card and won’t even have a pretend fight with me about the bill. I don’t know what more I can say, but I’m also not sure I got through to her.

After dinner, we walk arm in arm down Shattuck Avenue and Sofi tries to distract us both with half-hearted jokes. I take deep inhales of fresh air and Sofi’s lavender shampoo as I try desperately not to think about the fact that, in about three weeks, I’ll line up next to the Canadian and the Brazilian.

And beating one of them isn’t just about me.

. . .

“Did you book a hotel room for Toronto yet?” Sofi asks the next morning. The air mattress is folded and back in its faded gray bag. She’s got her duffel by the door and she’s helping me move my desk back to its place by the closet. We lift in unison and, despite our remarkable muscular control, it tips slightly, sending notebooks and highlighters scattering across the floor.

“Yeah,” I say, stooping to clean up the mess. “Although I paid for it with credit and I’m not entirely sure how I’ll afford the bill next month.”

She crouches next to me. “Can’t you cancel? I got a double, so you can—What’s this?”

She’s holding up Carla’s rubric. My draft notes hang from a constellation of Post-its littered across the page.

“Oh, um…” My brain hunts for a compelling, alternative explanation for a cover sheet labeled “Job Evaluation for Adrian Crawford.” Coming up short, I flail out a hand, attempting to wrest the papers from her. But Sofi’s brow furrows and she bolts upright, eyes scanning.

“You’re evaluating Adrian for a job?” She steps farther out of my reach. “When did this happen?”

“A while ago.” I yank the papers out of her hands and smooth out the one about character that was bent on its descent to the floor. “Please don’t share that. Carla asked me not to tell anyone.”

Sofi still hasn’t blinked. “But you’re sleeping with him.”

I set the rubric on the desk and shut the roll top like this motion will let me close this conversation, too. “It’s not a problem, Sof. I can keep it separate.”

“Keep what separate?”

I face her, arms crossed. “Adrian the coach and Adrian the man.”

“And…how exactly do you do that?”

“When I work on his evaluation, I just think about his coaching. And when we’re together outside of practice, I don’t think about the evaluation.”

Sofi has her face screwed up so tightly it’s like she’s readying to use her eyeballs as a can opener. “That is not how it works.”

I drum my fingers against my elbow. “You won’t tell Carla, right?”

“Of course not. You’re going to tell her.”

“I—what?”

She stares back flatly at me. “You’re going to tell her. At this point, you can’t unfuck Adrian. So, that’s the way you can make things right.”

I step back, nearly ramming the desk with a hamstring. What the hell is she saying to me? After weeks of agonizing over this, I made a choice to be with him—one that I made with much prodding from Sofi herself. And now she’s going to question my decision? Make it seem like it was the wrong thing to do? I don’t want to rehash this.