All Pepped Up (Pepper Jones) (13 page)

“You really think your teammates would be disappointed in you? And who cares about fans you don’t even know?”

Maybe he’s right. But still, the pressure weighs on me. “Do you ever feel it with football? The expectations? Doesn’t it get to you?”

“Yeah, of course.” He sounds surprised that I asked. “You can’t tell?”

“Seriously? You act so chill about it, and you’ve never said anything.”

“I could tell you were feeling it because I get that way too. Maybe it motivates some people, knowing everyone’s watching and critiquing, but it messes with me. I just want to play well because I love it. It’s cool when we have a crowd and people are really into it, but the hype about how I’m playing is a distraction. So I just try to block it out
, you know?”

“Kinda. I was on two relays
at the Rocky Mountain Relays last weekend. The first one, once I got moving, I blocked it out and had a great race. The second one, I don’t know what happened. I just didn’t have it. I didn’t feel it.”

Jace traces his finger along my thigh. It’s distracting me but he hardly seems to notice he’s doing it.

“That happens to any athlete, Pep. Just because more people are paying attention doesn’t mean you’re not gonna have races that don’t go well.”

“Yeah, I guess e
very race can’t be a great one. I mean, I’ve had some pretty disastrous ones over the years. But I never felt scared it would happen before the race began. Usually, I assume it’ll go well but now, I assume it won’t. Or at least it won’t go as well as other people think it should.”

I put my hand down to join his on my leg, stilling his movements. He uses his other hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“You just gotta accept that you’re gonna have some bad races and people might say some mean stuff that isn’t true. But it’s worth it, because you love racing.”

“
When did you turn into such a smarty-pants?” I tease.

“It’s sports. I can talk sports,” Jace says with a grin. That’s true, but he’s talking about emotions too
, and it’s good to see him opening up.

We finish
our meal and Jace pays the bill. He takes my hand again as we head out the door and walk down the sidewalk toward his Jeep. I’ve noticed he likes to make sure we’re touching somehow whenever we’re together.

“So, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about…” Jace pauses and clears his throat. I glance up at him, curious about the nervousness in his voice. There’s a wrinkle in
his forehead and I squeeze his hand, hoping he’ll relax.

“My mom.
She’s asked me to invite you to dinner a couple times now.” Jace leans me against the passenger door when we reach the car and puts his hands on my hips. “You haven’t said anything, but I can tell how you feel about her, and about me spending time with her.”

I swallow. Is it fair for me to
hold a grudge against her when it’s Jace that she hurt?

“Just, can you give her a
chance? This is important to me,” he says softly.

I brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Of course.
” How can I refuse a request like that from my boyfriend? “It’s just hard for me to understand how you can forgive her and trust her so easily after all this time. But, if you have, and you want a relationship with her, I’ll do my best to get on board.”

He kisses my jaw. “I guess I feel like I understand when people make mistakes and do stupid things. She regrets it, and it just took her a
while to get well enough to come back. I’ve never been an addict, but I get how all-consuming the stuff is. Don’t let me turn to that shit again, okay?”

“
I won’t.”

“Come on, let’s get some homework done and then we’ll meet my mom for dinner.”

To my surprise, Jace brings all his books over and studies diligently beside me for several hours. I know he has to get homework done at some point, but I rarely witness it.

He talks
me into going to the UC gym later in the afternoon and I do some light lifting while watching girls ogle Jace. And these are college girls. Sheesh.

I’m going
through the motions on the leg machines, but I still don’t feel like I’m pushing myself with any specific goal in mind. I understand what Jace was saying, but I’m still afraid. I can’t just block out the hype around my running success. And it seems like no matter what, I’ll never live up to others’ expectations. Once you’ve won a national title, there’s nowhere to go but down.

On the drive to
Annie’s house, I try to psych myself up and get into the same mindset as Jace. She was young when she had him. She had an addiction. She’s trying to make up for it now. She’s a good person. Who won’t hurt Jace. Ugh. I just can’t bring myself to believe it.

Annie
’s roommate, Helen, answers the door, and we follow her into the living room. “Annie will be home any minute. Her shift at the restaurant went later than expected. What can I get you kids to drink?”

We settle in on the couch
and Helen brings us lemonade. They live in a two-story condo that’s clean and decorated in a modern, minimalist style.

“Pepper, I hear you
’re quite the runner! I actually heard about you before Annie moved in and Jace started coming around. He’s very proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

“You two sure are the Brockton superstars! And with Jace going to UC next year, he’ll probably be starting quarterback as a freshman. People are going to just love having a local boy bring the team back.”

Jace and I exchange
glances. Yup, those are the expectations laid out for him. I never thought about how he deals with even worse pressure to perform well than I do. Football’s way more popular than running, after all.

Annie
shows up a few minutes later with bags of food.

“Sorry I’m late! One of the girls on the dinner shift had something come up with her kids and needed me to cover for her for a couple hours after I finished the lunch shift.”

I get the feeling she’s the kind of person who is always late and always with an excuse.

Jace stands up
to meet her in the kitchen and help with the bags.

“I’m glad you could make it, Pepper! Do you like Thai food? I got a mix of different things so hopefully there’s something here you like. You aren’t
on any special diet for running, are you?”

I shake my head. “No, I love Thai food. Sounds great.”

Why does this woman rub me the wrong way?
Get over it, Pepper!
I yell at myself. Jace has. You can too.

While we put the food out,
Annie asks Jace about his baseball game yesterday. I’m surprised when he tells her that he went to the Rockies game with Wesley and Jim. Isn’t Wesley Jamison a sore subject?

But
Annie’s response has me second-guessing all my assumptions. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Jace. It’s great to hear the three of you are spending time together.”

Huh?
Okay, so she’s not bitter that Jim got another girl pregnant while she was pregnant with Jace. Weird. Jace better not think
I’d
be okay with that.

When we sit down to eat, Annie turns her attention to me. Unsurprisingly, she asks me questions about running.

She looks better than when I saw her a couple of months ago. There aren’t dark circles under her eyes, and she’s gained a little weight. Her teeth aren’t all that great, and her skin is more wrinkled than it should be at her age. But there’s no doubt she was a beauty back in the day. And she still has Jace’s striking eyes (they will always be Jace’s in my mind, even if he got them from her) and dark, wavy hair. If it wasn’t for years of addiction, she’d be stunning.

We sit around talking for a couple of hours before saying goodbye. When I leave, it’s not so much anger I feel
toward the woman, but pity. She’s all nerves. And insecure. It’s strange to meet a 40-year-old woman who doesn’t seem comfortable in her own skin. Maybe she’ll settle down once she gets used to sobriety.

But what
surprises me the most is that she doesn’t seem to have an ounce of backbone. Sure, she’s trying to make up for abandoning her son and it’s appropriate for her to act apologetic, but I get the impression she never stands up for herself. And that just jars me because Jace isn’t like that one bit.

As we drive home it occurs t
o me that maybe Jace’s protective nature is at play here. He’s always been like that toward me, even though I think I can handle myself just fine. Is Jace trying to save his mother? I sure hope not, because that’s not a burden he should have to carry.

Coach
Tom pulls me over to talk after practice later that week. I knew I couldn’t avoid this conversation much longer.

“Have you thought about your goals for the season?” he asks. We’re sitting in the bleachers by the softball field, and I watch my teammates stretch on the other side of the field.

“Not really,” I admit. “What do you think my goals should be?”

He shakes his head. “You know that’s not how I like to do this, Pepper. First, you tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll let you know if I think those goals are reasonable. Then we talk about a plan for the season.”

I sigh. “I know. I just don’t want to have any goals this season. Is that an option?”

“Why don’t you want to have any goals? You’ve always been a goal-oriented athlete, Pepper.”

“I just want to have fun. I want to enjoy it. Everyone else seems to have expectations for me. Do I really need to put more on myself?”

“Goals aren’t expectations, Pepper. You know that.”

He’s right. Maybe if I can focus on a goal, I can forget about other people’s expectations.

“Okay, how about winning the 2-mile at State?”

Coach nods in approval. “That’s a great goal. You placed second last year in 10:45. And how about the mile? You’ve doubled with those two events the past two years.”

“Can I just focus on the 2-mile and relays? I’ll probably be in two relays this year, right?”

“I can put you in three events max at State. So, if you do the 4 x 800 and the DMR, the 2-mile will be your only individual race.”

“That’s fine.”

“Okay. But why don’t we put you in the mile at Districts then? You can shoot for first at that meet.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“What about times? We can’t control who your competition is, but the beauty of track is that we can shoot for some time goals.”

“You said I ran 10:45 last year?”

“Yes, that’s your PR in the 2-mile. And it’s 5:02 in the mile.” PR means personal record in running lingo.

“How a
bout 10:40 in the 2-mile and breaking five in the mile?”

“The State meet record is 10:36
.”

“Fine! I’ll try to get that, then.”

Why does this feel like a negotiation?

Coach shakes his head. “Look, Pepper, what’s going on? You
’re doing well in practice. You ran some great splits on the relays. I don’t understand why you’re so reluctant to talk about your racing plan for the season. We normally would have had this conversation weeks ago.”

Ignoring his question, I ask the one I really don’t want to hear the answer to. “What about Nationals? Should I be thinking about that?”

“Only if you want.” Coach goes on to explain that there are two major national meets, and when and where they take place. But I zone out after I hear the words “only if you want.” I don’t want to train for Nationals. Just the thought of it exhausts me. And if Coach isn’t pushing it, then I’m not going for it.

“Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you don’t want to put Nationals on the racing agenda this season.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, then let’s talk about the plan for the next
eight weeks leading to State.”

Eight
weeks? It seems so short. I guess I’ve wasted a lot of time already. Coach talks me through the meet schedule, and writes down what events I’ll plan to do at each one. I’m only half-listening.

What if I can’t even win at
State?

I head back to the locker room instead of rejoining the team to stretch. They’ll be disappointed I’m not going for Nationals.

The tennis team is leaving when I head into the girls’ locker room. Lisa gives me a tight smile while Andrea and Kayla make themselves comfortable on the bench by my locker.

“What are you up to tonight, Pepper?” Kayla asks.

“Uh, homework?” It’s Wednesday night. What else would I be doing?

“You should come hang out at Lou’s with us,” she says.

“Well, my Gran usually expects Jace and me for dinner…” Although she doesn’t mind when I change plans on occasion. Usually for something related to running or a class project. But Lou’s does have the best pizza in town.

“No problem. We’ll invite the guys too,” Andrea says happily. She reminds me of Zoe sometimes. Always so… cheerful.