All I Never Wanted

Chapter 20

Luke found the following week to be much easier than the first.  He still didn’t see Annie very often but he knew she no longer avoided him on purpose.  Between her classes and the training schedule their paths didn’t cross very often.

He also kept tabs on Kim, making sure he was available if she needed him to do anything.  But she wasn’t anywhere near as sick as he’d expected.  He’d done a little reading of his own and anticipated her tossing her cookies and living on ginger ale and saltines for a while.  But it didn’t happen.  She complained that she was always nauseous but it never really progressed into anything else.

Overall, she wasn’t sick enough that he needed to wait on her hand and foot.  She continued going to classes and still met with the cheer squad even though she couldn’t actually cheer anymore.

This weekend would be the first swim meet since the one where Annie collapsed and it was a two-day invitational.  Annie would dive both days, preliminaries on Friday night and then the final dives on Saturday.  Luke intended to go to both until Kim called to inform him there had been a change in her doctor’s appointment.

Apparently this office had weekend hours and due to a cancellation they were willing to squeeze Kim in on Saturday.  Luke didn’t want to miss Annie’s dives but he knew going with Kim was more important.  Annie would kill him if he didn’t.

Stiller accompanied him on Friday night and promised to keep him informed of Annie’s scores the next day.  She held second place after the preliminaries and Luke knew she had bigger guns to pull out the next day.  He was disappointed that he would miss it.  He told Annie as much when she met up with him after the meet.

“I know you’re going to pull out a first place dive tomorrow and I won’t be here to see it.”

“Luke, there’s still the PSAC finals.  It’s not like tomorrow’s the only chance you’ll ever get to see me dive again.”

“I know.  I just love to see you do it.  The stuff you can pull off in midair before hitting the water is wild.  I like watching you wipe the floor with your competition.”

Annie grinned.  “I wouldn’t go that far.  But I’m glad you have so much confidence in me.”

Her smile faded and Luke knew she was thinking about where he would be tomorrow.  “Let me know when you’re on your way home.  As much as I don’t want to hear the details, I want to hear the details.”

Luke laughed.  “Now that makes a whole lot of sense.”

Annie gave him a dirty look.  “You know what I mean.”

Luke nodded.  “I know what you mean.  And I promise you’ll be the first to know anything.  Unless you’re still on the platform and then Stiller will probably know first.”

Annie had wished him luck and kissed him goodnight before heading back to her apartment for a good night’s sleep.  Luke wished he could do the same but his nerves got the best of him and he tossed and turned more than he slept.

When he picked Kim up the next morning he nursed a large cup of coffee to stay awake.

“Thanks for doing this with me.  I know it’s got to be weird.”

Luke waited for her to buckle her seat belt before pulling from the lot and heading out of town.  “You’re welcome.  It doesn’t matter how weird it is.  I helped get us here and I plan to see it through no matter what.”

Kim offered him a smile in response and then she changed the subject, asking about Annie and the swim meet.  She surprised him wanting to talk about Annie, but he followed her lead.  He tried not to gush too much, sticking mostly to the caliber of Annie’s diving.  He knew Kim didn’t really want to hear how much he loved her.