Free Choker by Elizabeth Woods

room seemed overly warm today. In fact, it was like a freaking sauna, Cara thought, as she let the door swing shut behind her. She dropped her gym bag on the bench and examined the thermostat on the wall. Eighty-three degrees. Jesus. Like Saudi Arabia. She tried to dial it back, but the thing was impossible to move. What the hell? Was this some new sadistic training trick of Coach Sanders’s?
    Cara could already feel a trickle of sweat trailing down her back as she collapsed on one of the floor mats to stretch. She pulled her T-shirt over her head and pitched it in the direction of her bag, then stretched both legs out in front of her and bent toward her knees. The air felt odd flowing over the newly naked back of her neck. God, her hamstrings were tight this morning. She pressed her spine a little farther toward her legs.
    She was going to debut her new look this morning, the green shirt and makeup tucked in her bag for after her shower. Don’t worry, Zoe had told her before she had left. No one’s going to say anything mean. I just know . And the funny thing was, Cara believed her. Zoe always just knew. Like when Cara’s new kitten wouldn’t stop peeing in the living room fireplace when she was eight. Her parents told her they’d have to give Tennessee away, and she sobbed for hours. But then Zoe told her that she shouldn’t worry, that Tennessee would get to stay, she just knew it—and she was right. It turned out he simply didn’t like his litter box. Once they got him a different kind, he was fine. Cara sighed and reached for her ankles. Well, Tenny was gone now. Replaced by fat, ugly Samson.
    The training room door banged open. Cara looked up to see Ethan barreling in, a distracted look on his face. He stopped short when he saw her. “Oh, hi,” he said. “I, ah, didn’t know anyone else was here.” A faint flush crept into his cheeks as his gaze traveled from her face down to her bare shoulders. Cara snatched up her T-shirt and pressed it to her chest. Her ears grew hot.
    Ethan turned. “I can leave,” he said. “I was just grabbing my spikes.” He took them out of his locker and went over to the door.
    “No, no!” Cara pulled her T-shirt over her head. She frantically searched for something to say, anything so he wouldn’t leave. She took a deep breath. Now was the time.
    “Great meet yesterday,” she said, just as she’d practiced with Zoe, with the right mix of airiness and confidence. The fact that she’d gotten a sentence out around Ethan, something she’d seemed incapable of doing before, gave her the courage to go on. “Was that last runner killer in the relay, like Coach said?”
    Ethan sat down on a bench nearby and leaned over, resting his forearms on his knees, the spikes dangling from his hands. His shoulders pushed at the fabric of his gray T-shirt.
    “Yeah, he was tough,” Ethan replied. “I remember that guy, actually. I think I ran against him last season, too. He used to go to Country Day.”
    “Guess he’s just following you around,” Cara said with a smirk. She didn’t know what had come over her, but suddenly she wasn’t feeling uncomfortable anymore. Maybe it was the thickness in the air, which had made her muscles loosen immediately. If only all of high school could take place in a sauna.
    Ethan grinned and nodded. “Seriously. Too bad I beat him again.” A rubber band was looped around one of his wrists, and Cara couldn’t take her eyes off it. Ethan’s face grew serious. “Hey, by the way, Sydney lived next door to you, right?”
    “Yeah,” she said slowly, wondering where he was going with this.
    “Did you see her, you know, that night?”
    Cara flashed on Sydney’s laughing face, staggering around the pool. White jeans floating in the water. Part of her wanted to talk about what happened, but she didn’t know how to tell Ethan what she’d seen without revealing she’d been watching the whole time. “No. I went to bed early.”
    He nodded. “I was