She Was the Quiet One. Michele Campbell

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СКАЧАТЬ arms around her again, his breath on her hair. And she finally understood that Heath Donovan wanted her to love him. Otherwise, why—out of fifteen students in the room, seven boys, eight girls—why would he look directly at her at the very moment he said those words? This wasn’t just a foolish crush. It wasn’t a one-way street. She meant something to him, too.

      There were other signs.

      Bel had joined the cross-country team at Heath’s urging, and he was teaching her how to run. (Okay, he was teaching all the girls on the team, but he paid special attention to Bel. She wasn’t imagining it.) There was so much more to running than she’d known. Form, pacing, strategy. Appreciation for the terrain. The sprawling Odell campus was situated in a valley ringed by rugged hills. The nature preserve, and its hiking trails, were their own private wilderness to train in. After a brutally hot Indian summer, the weather had turned wet and raw, and Bel’s afternoons were spent slogging through the muck on the trails with twenty other girls. They had practice five days a week, rain or shine, and meets on Saturdays. At first, it was torture, and she did it only to be near Heath. But as the weeks went by, calluses formed on her feet, muscles hardened in her legs, and she got faster, until she was keeping pace with the best girls on the team, and with Heath himself.

      Heath ran alongside them on practice days. He was that kind of coach: He didn’t spare himself, even in the worst weather. He’d start at the front of the pack and slowly drop back, checking on each runner or group of runners in turn, giving them pointers, boosting their spirits. Bel made sure to run alone. She wanted to be certain that, whenever Heath caught up with her, they would have privacy. She’d get ten or fifteen minutes alone with him on a long run—more than he gave any other girl. They’d set a pace where they could comfortably maintain a conversation. The gray skies and whistling wind would drop a cloak of intimacy over them as they ran. Other girls might be in sight, but they were out of earshot, and Bel could say anything. She looked forward to these runs as if they could save her life, and in a way, they did. Bel told Heath all her troubles. He was the only person on earth she could talk to; with everyone else, Bel put on an act, full of snark and bravado. None of her friends or even her own sister suspected how lost she felt inside. But Heath knew the true her.

      Out there in the woods, just the two of them and the wind, Heath listened like he really cared. He told her things about himself, too, personal things. As successful as Heath Donovan had been during his student days at Odell, he’d felt like an outsider then, as Bel did now. Heath got into Odell on a tennis scholarship, and he came late, not till junior year. As soon as he got there, his parents split, and money was tight. He couldn’t keep up with the rich kids—not even with Mrs. Donovan, who was his girlfriend then, and later became his wife.

      That was the only time he mentioned his marriage. He didn’t speak of his children to Bel, either, even though she could see him with them in the dining hall on any given night. She understood this to mean that he was being sensitive to her feelings. She couldn’t bear that he belonged to these other people and not to her. Heath understood that, so he didn’t shove it in her face, and for that, she was grateful.

      If there was a doubt in Bel’s mind that Heath knew her feelings, and maybe even felt something in return, it was put to rest the day she blew out her knee during practice. It happened just a couple of days after the moment that their eyes met in class. (Bel was still floating from that.) They were out for a six-mile run, the trails slick from days of rain. The weather had turned dramatically colder. Bel was running by herself, wondering when Heath would catch up with her, when her foot flew out from under her on a steep, icy stretch of trail. She hurtled downward, trying desperately to arrest her fall, and landed hard against a granite outcropping with her leg twisted underneath her. A bolt of pain shot through her right knee, so bad that it took her breath away.

      Lucy Ogunwe, one of the faster girls on the team, came up to Bel from behind, and bent over her, panting.

      “Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

      Tears flooded Bel’s eyes. She was too stunned to reply.

      “No worries, Donovan’s right behind,” Lucy said, nodding toward the trail above. “Hey, Coach, Enright fell,” Lucy called out to him. “I think she’s hurt.”

      Heath ran up to them, taking in Bel, crumpled on the ground, clutching her knee, the sheen of ice all around her.

      “Do me a favor,” he said to Lucy. “Go back and tell the girls behind you that there’s an ice patch here. Tell them to slow it down to a walk. Stay safe.”

      “Got it,” Lucy said, and set off in the direction Bel had come from.

      Through a scrim of pain, Bel realized that Heath had just sent Lucy away. They were alone now. He knelt down beside her.

      “Where does it hurt?” he asked, tenderness in his voice.

      “My knee.”

      “Can you sit up and lean back against the rock? Here, let me help you,” he said.

      Heath put his hands on her waist and gently lifted her to a sitting position. The motion tweaked her knee, and she cried out.

      “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said.

      The endearment was too much for Bel. Something came loose inside her. As Heath bent over her, his face mere inches from hers, his eyelashes wet with rain, she reached out and laid her hand on his cheek.

      “I love you,” she said.

      He stopped dead, looking at her so intently that she felt like he must see straight into her soul.

      “Are you part of that ridiculous game? I know about it, you know. I’d be very disappointed in you, Bel.”

      Despite his words, Heath didn’t move away, or shake off her hand. The warmth of his cheek under her cold fingers spurred her on.

      “Never,” she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “I hate those girls. They’re childish. What I feel for you is real, Heath. It’s not a game. I know you feel it, too. Please, tell me you do.”

      His eyes, as they locked on hers, were troubled. “I’m married. You’re a kid. You’re my student. It can’t be,” he said.

      That wasn’t a denial. He wanted her. She could see it in his eyes. Bel’s lips parted, and she leaned in, desperate to feel his mouth on hers.

      “Tessa,” Heath said, snapping back abruptly.

      Tessa Romano had just come over the top of the hill. Tessa was the sturdy redhead with freckles and a potty mouth who’d caused so much trouble in Bel’s relationship with Rose. Bel couldn’t think of a worse girl to discover them like this. Tessa didn’t really like Bel. Of all the Moreland seniors, Tessa was most likely to spill her guts to Darcy the second she got back to the dorm.

      “What have we here?” Tessa asked, her eyes lighting up luridly.

      “Bel took a fall and hurt her knee,” Heath said, his face going stony, as if a mask had dropped over it. “Come here, please, and give me a hand. Let’s see if we can get her to her feet without her putting weight on the right leg.”

      They got on either side, and Bel draped her arms over their shoulders. Leaning on them, she managed to stand up and hobble down the steep slope. Every step was a blur of pain and anxiety. What must Heath think of her now, that she’d been so undisciplined, in such a risky situation? Would Tessa tell people? Could Heath get in trouble? СКАЧАТЬ