The Line Drive

eight

Mackenzie

Waking up is literal hell. I mentally cuss out Hannah 18 different ways before I manage to make it out of bed. How did I let her talk me into this bullshit?

My eyes feel grainy from crying, but I force myself to shove my contacts in them anyway. I blink rapidly about 500 times before they feel like they are in my eyes correctly. 

"Mack?" Hannah whisper screams at me from the kitchen.

"What?" I hiss back.

"Do you want a protein bar?" 

"Yeah." 

We sneak out of the house as quietly as possible. I drive us to school and Hannah blasts music shockingly loud for 6:13 AM. 

"If we go deaf at 33, I'm blaming you." I tell her as we step out of the car. 

"Eh." Hannah says. "It's not that loud." She must be partially deaf already. 

When we make it inside the student gym, we take a pause. The gym is extremely busy for it being before 7. Usually it's moderately busy, but it definitely looks extra full. 

I spot Dane bench pressing, and look away quickly. Why is the baseball team here? And how has Dane suddenly appeared everywhere that I am now that I've made his acquaintance? 

"Wow, working out with a view." Hannah smiles widely. "Whatever caused them to be here, I hope they never leave." She strides off to start warming up, leaving me on the edge of the gym floor, very uncomfortable. 

I decide that a bike ride is appropriate, since my back will be to all the baseball boys, and I won't have to acknowledge them at all. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through tutoring Dane without ever interacting with a baseball jock, but I'm confident that I'll figure it out.

I get on the bike and start easy. Thirty minutes in, I'm panting and I hate myself. So when Dane slaps me on the back, I start wheezing. 

"Savior!" Dane says, instead of saying good morning like a normal person.

"Hey." My voice is embarrassingly breathy. "Why are you here?" It comes out kind of rude, but Dane just laughs.

"There was a water leak in our gym this morning." 

"Oh." It's all I can manage 

"I'll work out here more often, now that I know you work out here." Dane winks at me. My stomach flips and I tell it to get a grip on itself. 

Dane hops on the bike next to me, and immediately puts it past the resistance that I have it on. He makes it look fucking easy, and while one part of me absolutely hates him for it, another part is impressed. 

"This is convenient, because I wanted to find you today to schedule my first tutoring session." 

"Of course you did." I mutter, not wanting to show weakness in front of Dane and decrease the resistance, but also I'm barely able to speak. 

"Mackenzie. It's nice to see you again." Noah gets on the bike on my other side. I'm ready to kill myself, when I look up and see Hannah looking at me, a massive smile on her face. Both Noah and Dane are looking at me, and Hannah gives me a massive thumbs up. If there was a bridge in front of me, I'd throw myself off of it. I preferred it when no hot baseball boys had taken any interest in me whatsoever.

"Hey, Noah." 

"Sorry, I kind of sicced Dane on you." Noah says. I really like Noah, he'd been my partner on several class assignments my sophomore year and actually pulled his weight. He was a physics major and the man was smart as hell. I just wish he hadn't given me a glowing recommendation to Dane.