After all the runners had passed, even the slowest ones that would finish in thirty minutes plus, Jessie stayed rooted to the same spot on the ground. She flipped her hood over her head and tucked her hands inside the front pocket of her hoodie. The people who had been cheering around her had trickled away until it was just her and a jumpy squirrel checking out the acorns on the opposite side of the course lines. She looked over to the finish way off to the left and could see Katie's tall figure in her blue and maroon warm-ups. She could see that Katie was encouraging the runners, but she was not leaping about like the girls in blue and maroon beside her. She seemed subdued, almost unaware of the race around her. Jessie laughed to herself.
What am I doing? I don't even know this girl, yet here I am intently studying her from afar. I'm starting to creep myself out. It's not like I like her or something…what is up with me today?
Right as Jessie forced her eyes away from Katie's lanky figure, she felt an arm drop across her shoulders. She jumped and had to stop herself from punching the tall boy now suddenly standing next to her. He smiled and drawled,
"Oh Jessie, you needn't wait for me here. I would've met up with you back at the tent." On second thought, Jessie withdrew her earlier decision and socked him in his shoulder. He let go of her shoulders to gently rub his own.
"Don't flatter yourself Tad, I was trying to hide here until you were on the bus. Alas, the game is up, might as well go back to the team."
Tad's grin turned into a wince as she patted his newly wounded shoulder with vigor and trotted off towards the rest of the green and gold sweatsuits. Apparently convinced he wasn't permanently maimed, Tad chuckled and hurried to catch up with the feisty girl who packed more power than it seemed.
Before he caught up, Jessie chanced one more glance at Katie from Oakridge. When she found her, Katie wasn't looking at her or the race. She was looking at the spot where Jessie had been standing only moments hence. Before she could react, Katie's head turned towards her and their eyes locked. Jessie could feel the intensity radiating from the girl's green eyes all the way down into her stomach. Each helpless to break their stare, there was no way to know how long the girls would have remained locked to each other's eyes if it hadn't been for Tad bumbling to a stop right in between them.
"Jessie? Sorry to break your concentration, but the tent is another hundred yards that way," he said, pointing towards the distant clump of green and gold, "what are you staring at anyway..?"
Before he finished turning to look, Jessie had shut her jaw and grabbed his hand,
"Nothing! Thought I knew one of the old men, but you know they all look alike from this far away," she started off towards the tent once again, with a confused Tad in tow, "can't wait for that pizza! Boy am I starved…how many pieces do you think you'll eat?" Still rather lost, Tad stammered,
"Uh…I dunno, probably four?" Jessie nodded in agreement,
"Me too! Four pieces…I can't wait!"
She let go of his hand and started shoving her uniform and racing waffles into her duffel bag with wild abandon. Tad stood there in a slight shock, before coming back to himself,
Four pieces? Is she nuts? She'll probably explode if she eats more than two. I don't think that Jessie's totally with it today.
He squinted back at the spot where Jessie's eyes had been fixed to, but the race had finished and the spectators were breaking up. Not seeing any old men, he shrugged and started to gather his own things into a pile that could be condensed into his obnoxious orange duffel bag.
Jessie watched him for a moment and, with a sigh, resumed her own war-zone clean-up. Not sure what to make of the foreign feeling dancing through her stomach and chest, Jessie did what she always did to forget her troubles: she slipped on her headphones and walked away.
As soon as the tall, dark-haired boy stepped between them, Katie sucked in a breath so deep the woman next to her patted her shoulder,
"Are you okay, dear?"
Katie squeaked out something resembling "yes ma'am" and wheeled around, fully aware of the possible consequences, with the sudden urge to be somewhere else. The somewhere wasn't anywhere in particular, as long as she put some distance between herself and the emotions that were just injected so forcefully into her ill-prepared body. She wasn't sure if she wanted to puke, scream, or pass out, but none of those options seemed appropriate for the current situation. She decided to get her bag and wait for the rest of her team on the bus.
Upon her arrival at the tent, Kellyann, a sophomore who was in the midst of a breakout season and had settled comfortably into the number four spot in today's race, tried to ask her about a suspicious pile of fake dog poop she found next to her bag, but Katie quickly cut her off,
"You're welcome! Enjoy it for tonight, but don't forget to pass it on!"
She scooped her bag up as the confused sophomore held the surprisingly realistic pseudo-feces in her palm. Smiling her patented Katie grin she waved at the stupefied runner while her legs carried her across the parking lot and grassy field to the first of two team buses. Swiftly selecting the girls' bus for the ride home, Katie boarded it like a refugee who had been offered a room in the Ritz. She collapsed into a seat, not even bothering to make sure it was her carefully selected left-side-third-from-the-back spot she staked claim on for every one of their previous cross country ventures. Pulling her knees to her chest, Katie closed her eyes and listed the state capitals in her head, twice. Somewhere between Carson City, Nevada and Columbus, Ohio during the third round, she managed to forget Jessie's blue eyes and fell into a light, restless sleep.