Chapter Text
August
Amity really had to get into a better habit of putting away her ice packs after she was done using them, because now here she is after her Sunday long run crouched on her knees cleaning up ice chunks after she failed to transfer them from the tray to the plastic bag she was improvising with. As if her knee already didn’t give her enough trouble on a good day. She made a mental note to do some hip exercises after sitting down to ice to keep up on strengthening it. That really needed to become a habit at this point; after every run she needs to cool down, stretch, do some quick exercises, ice, and eat something. Her leg didn’t give her too much trouble now, but it had been progressively getting a bit more irritated over the course of the summer.
“Fucking finally,” she muttered, tossing the damp dish towel next to the sink in her kitchen. Carefully, Amity grabbed some more ice and added it to the bag, before tying it up and plopping down on the couch and resting it on her left knee. She hated laying on her furniture while she was still so sweaty and sticky, the humidity outside feeling borderline oppressive, but the thought of having to stand up in the shower after she just ran 11 miles was despicable. Couch it is, for now. She laid her arm over her eyes.
Amity was a junior Engineering major at Hexside University, but being only a third year didn’t stop her from being awarded the team captain position on the Hexside women’s cross country team. She had found out earlier this May at their last practice of the season, more an event to celebrate the end of spring track than anything. For her, it was a celebration of the transfer back to her favorite sport—cross country. She had kept a neutral face as the senior captain placed their hand on her shoulder and gave her wink, adding, “Make sure to give ‘em hell for us next year, Blight,” but in all honestly she had been just overflowing with joy. She calmly thanked everyone and stated how excited she was to lead the team to victory next season, accepted the high fives and fist bumps from her under and upperclassmen alike, but the moment she started the walk back to her dorm she couldn’t help sending just about a hundred texts with various levels of capitalization and spelling errors to her siblings telling them the good news.
from: Emira
to: sibs
congrats! always knew you could do it mittens!
from: Edrich
to: sibs
i honestly still don’t understand why you enjoy running so much
from: Emira
to: sibs
ed shut up
Running had been Amity’s entire life. She had joined her middle school cross country team on a whim; the park where they practiced happened to be only a mile down the road from her so it would be easy to get to and not interfere too much with schoolwork, much to the satisfaction of her mother.
“As long as your grades don’t dip, I suppose it could be good to have an extracurricular like this under your belt,” Odalia had said.
Amity still remembers the first time she had gone to practice, only 12 years old. It had been a hot August day just a few weeks before school would be starting and the coach sent everyone out on a three mile loop. Amity, having never run that far before in one go, nearly passed out and had to be carried back by a teammate. Despite her brush with severe dehydration, she went back next week, and the week after that, and the rest is history for her. She worked her way to a number one position on the team at her high school, relishing in the fact that she was an essential part of their state championship win the last year she was there, claiming the individual championship as well to help her team compete at regionals.
Unfortunately, a lot of schools start looking for that kind of talent before the runners become seniors, and she hadn’t been able to get a spot on the team at her dream school, so she settled for a school still in the Division I system that had offered her a spot on the team with a scholarship and a good enough engineering program to satisfy her goals. And who needed to know that she lied to her mother about not being accepted into her dream school? Amity was content knowing that engineering and math was where her life would go after school, but there was something else that felt all-encompassing to her, something she wanted to relish during these last few years of school she had left.
Amity just wanted to run. Amity wanted to win while she still could.
And so, the tightness in her knee often caused a tightness in her chest and throat, and she felt frustrated and uncertain at how to handle the pain that had slowly become more prominent during her summer training. Knee pain in runners was ubiquitous, and she knew logically the best way to ease it was to take a break and stop running. But Amity couldn’t afford a break right now. She took to icing and performing recovery exercises as much as she could.
After all, it was already the first week of August, and her teammates were arriving on campus to begin official school training for the season. They even had a new transfer student from a college out west joining the team. Amity would need to get with Coach Eda and Boscha to go over the next few weeks of practices before their first meet.
She swung her legs over when the timer went off on her phone, grabbing the PT band and moving to the floor to do a few mobility and strength exercises. Her knee always loosened up comfortably after this routine. It was about the only way she’d been able to calm whatever irritation was going on in her leg. Amity tied the band around her thighs and went through the motions.
She still couldn’t wait for the season to start.
—
“Okay, let’s just keep it simple today guys,” said Amity as she surveyed the team in front of her, Boscha to her right and Coach Eda to her left. She saw off to the side of the group the transfer student, the only person unrecognizable to her. A tall girl with dark, tan skin, a head of curly, brown hair, clad in a faded tee with the lettering RUNNING SUCKS and shorts that looked like they were cut up sweatpants, along with some bright pink trainers covered in dirt. Amity narrowed her eyes, as she much preferred some more name brand items, and tried her best to keep her sneakers as pristine as possible, but she kept her comments to herself for the moment. She cleared her throat, and started, “So here’s the plan—“
“Hold on a sec, Boots,”said Coach Eda holding up her hand. Amity knit her brow together and frowned at the nickname, never understanding where Eda had gotten it from. “We got a new team member joining us. Luz, do you want to introduce yourself quickly?”
The girl, Luz, smiled and waved happily to the rest of the team. Amity huffed and crossed her arms, annoyed that Eda had cut her off. She just wanted to get practice started.
“Sure! Um, hi, I’m Luz Noceda. I just transferred from Phoenix so… definitely a lot of new things being on a different coast! Uh, I’m an Art major. Yeah!” She looked around excitedly at the team and then towards Coach Eda, Amity, and Boscha at the front. Amity took a breath to keep going, but—“And I love to run! Obviously. This is such a big team. Gosh, I’m looking forward to winning this season, am I right? Okay, thanks Coach Eda!” Eda nodded and looked back towards Amity, who had narrowed her eyes again towards Luz.
“Okay,” Amity began coolly. “So, like I said, Coach Eda and I decided to keep it simple today, but we still need to see how everyone kept up on their summer training, so we’ll be doing a 5K time trial. Do a mile and stretch to get warmed up.” These were university students so she knew there would be no obvious signs of annoyance at her and Eda’s choice for their first practice, but she could see the way some of her teammates gave her a look as they walked over to the trail.
“You know,” Boscha said with a smirk, leaning her elbow on Amity’s shoulder, “pretty hardcore of you to start off the season with a time trial. Not wasting any time, hm?”
Amity moved her shoulder away from Boscha. “We don’t have time to waste. We need to see how the team is shaping out after the summer. Just because you were racing in a top spot last year doesn’t mean you still are now.” She watched Luz disappear with the team into the trail for the warm up, her short, curly hair now pulled back with a headband and dirt kicking up behind her. She looked strong. Amity wondered how she had ranked in her old school. “Come on, Boscha,” she said as she started to make her way towards the trail.
—
The hot August sun was much higher in the sky now as she clapped her hands together, face red and dripping with sweat post-run. “I’m pleased to see everyone kept up with their training this summer. Times are looking good, but I know we can do better. We have a bit more time to work before our first invitational, so let’s get at it. I’ll see everyone tomorrow evening. Coach?” She turned toward Eda and shifted her weight around, ignoring the tightness in her knee. Eda tossed her hair behind her shoulder and cleared her throat.
“Amity’s right. And I’ll say it now, times aren’t just good, they’re looking great. Let’s see what we can do this season,” said Eda. “And if you’re going to start spiking the competition, just do it where I can’t see it, alright?” The group chuckled and Amity gave her a dead pan look, remembering the time a runner from
Glandus had spiked her in the shin during an invitational one time. It felt good to pose with the first place trophy as blood poured down over her sock and shoe. And make faces at the Glandus girl later. And create a fake account to comment rude things on her social media profile.
“Well I’d say it’ll be a pretty exciting season now that Amity has some more competition,” Boscha jeered with a sly grin. Amity rolled her eyes.
“Everyone go cool down. We’ll see you tomorrow.” She pivoted towards Boscha as the others went on to do stretches or a cool down run. “Could you not do that? Why the hell did I make you vice captain anyway?”
Boscha crossed her arms. “It’s true, though! Did you see her?” They turned towards Luz, who barely looked tired despite being caked in sweat, doing a lazy overhead arm stretch that lifted up her shirt revealing a bit of her torso. Amity looked away quickly.
“Well, obviously you saw her,” Boscha said, prompting Amity to whip her head back towards Boscha.
“I was not looking at her, I was—“
“Trailing from behind her, of course. What did you think I meant?” Boscha asked while giving Amity an evil grin. Amity set her jaw and walked away to start doing a few stretches, ignoring Boscha’s taunts behind her.
Amity was chosen as the team captain because she was passionate, smart, hard-working, and a great fucking runner. She was fast. And even if her team hadn’t been able to snag a win at the conference or regional level, she always had confidence that she would be able to for herself.
So she was desperately trying to hold together her barely concealed anger at the fact that Luz had just about run circles around her and the rest of the team. Who the hell was this girl? Amity was very proud to boast quick PRs in everything from her four hundred meter to the 6K. But Luz had just finished almost a minute in front of her, and she didn’t even look the slightest bit exhausted. And now Luz had turned around and oh god she was walking right up to her.
“Hi again! I just wanted to, well, say hi to you since you’re the captain and all. Obviously I’m new to the school and the area, but I’m super excited to be apart of a team and all! I don’t really know a lot of people, so it’s nice to have like a built-in friend group, you know? And the trails around here are beautiful, are you from the area? What are you studying? How long have you been running for? What else do you like to do when you’re not running?” Luz rambled while doing random cool-down stretches.
Amity ignored her questions. “So, what was your old team like?”
Luz was unfazed. “Oh, I mean, the last team I was on was in high school. My old school didn’t have a team, we were pretty small community college.”
Luz continued on about her previous school while Amity glanced over at Eda, incredulous. “I’m sorry,” she interrupted Luz. “But how did you even get accepted to join the team if you weren’t even on one before?”
“Well, I ran in high school, and always ran a lot of road races on the side after I graduated and when I showed my times to Coach Eda, she said she thought I’d be a great fit. Awesome, right? God, I always wanted to go to a school like this, but—“
Amity shifted to her left side and she felt a sharp pain, making her knee buckle. She cursed as she started to trip, until Luz grabbed her by the arm and helped her catch her balance again. “Wow!” exclaimed Luz. “Are you okay, Amity? Your knee—“ Amity pushed Luz away from her.
“Look, I need to go. I’ll see you tomorrow at practice.” Luz watched in confusion as Amity started off on her cool down run despite the pain she felt. Boscha was right, Amity had more competition now. She needed to start working even harder.
—
“I dunno, it’s kind of cute. In the way where a puppy keeps jumping up wanting you to pet it. Maybe she likes you?” said Boscha, barely even paying attention to what she herself was saying to Amity as she scrolled through her phone. Amity leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes.
“Well, I can’t stand her. I don’t know what to do.”
“Mmm… I think you actually can stand it,” said Boscha as Amity threw a rolled up napkin at her. “Hey!” Boscha snapped, shooting her a glare.
Practice had been going good for the past few weeks. Classes would start on Monday, leading into their first invitational that upcoming Saturday, so as a reward for finishing their last long run of the pre-season, Amity and Boscha went out for some breakfast after practice. However, with the way her vice captain had been choosing to tease her recently, Amity was suddenly wishing she decided to lay face down in traffic instead of ever agree to hang out with Boscha one-on-one. She wouldn't dare to even entertain Boscha's jokes, refusing to admit out of shame that a very tiny part of her maybe thought Luz was attractive, objectively, and she chose instead to be extremely mature and box all of those thoughts up and lock them away forever.
Despite whatever that was, it didn't change the fact that Luz had been, to put it bluntly, an absolute fucking nuisance to Amity the last few weeks. Always running by her side, trying to catch up with her after practice, asking her questions, pointing out different birds on the trails, talking about her favorite book series which Amity refused to admit she had once enjoyed as well, and her patience had just about run out. She would give one word answers, no answer at all, try to slow down, try to speed up, stretch and cool down as quickly as possible after practice so she could leave immediately, but Amity just couldn’t avoid her. Amity usually loved the start of the season since her summers were typically spent either alone or with her siblings, but now she was desperately longing for the solitude she had enjoyed for months on end. Her sacred time had been ruined by this transfer student, who much to Amity’s chagrin was also an outstanding athlete.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” replied Amity, taking a sip of her drink.
Boscha perched her head on her hand and smirked at Amity. “You say you’re annoyed by her, which like, obviously I think she’s annoying too, but for you… maybe there’s something else there?”
Amity was glad that her face was still red from the run they had completed because she could feel it getting hot again. Like she already decided, there would be no consideration on this. An image flashed in Amity's mind of Luz in one of her running tank tops, broad shoulders covered in freckles, or the way her hair curled up even more after a run on a humid day, the—
God fucking damnit.
Amity didn’t care about any of that right now, because this was supposed to be her best season yet, her season to PR everything, to snag as many titles as she could, hell, maybe even qualify for the national championships. How was she supposed to do that now when Luz was pulling times over a minute ahead of her in their practices? Amity was downright envious of what was clearly raw talent. She had even googled luz noceda arizona running to find that Luz had been the western regional champion not just once, but twice in high school. So, Amity was doing her best to push away any thoughts of freckles or strong arms or whatever else that was deserving of shame and also totally unnecessary right now.
“Nope, absolutely not,” Amity said, turning her head away from Boscha who continued to tease her. “I’m not doing this right now. I need a shower. Come on, we’re leaving.” Face burning, she stood up from her seat to make her way out, content with the idea of leaving Boscha here without a ride home.