DANGER WARNING ;;

five

"Ben is terribly rude." Auden complained on their ride home from practice. Izzy was also on the track team, though she wasn't nearly as serious about it. The only event she focused on was high jump.

"How so?" Izzy picked at her nails, hardly paying attention.

"He told me I wouldn't win."

"Did you win?" Izzy asked, even though she already knew. The coach had announced over the loudspeakers who had won the competition. Both Alex and Auden would join the two seniors on the 4x4 team.

She had known that the top two would get spots, but she'd still wanted the win. She wanted the last leg. 54.71 was a good start, but she needed to drop it. "Well, yes."

"Then I don't see what the harm was."

"And what if I hadn't won?" Auden snapped.

"Audie," Izzy laughed, looking at her sister with an incredulous expression, "We both know you perform better when you're under more pressure. You should be thanking him, really."

She opened her mouth to protest, but couldn't quite bring herself to. Izzy was right. She did perform better under pressure. Still, she gave a huff.

"That's not what he was trying to do and you know it."

"Shut it. You proved him wrong, dumbass." Izzie said nonchalantly, rolling her eyes.

Auden locked herself in her room after practice and devoted herself to studying for the Spanish test. She was getting pretty fluent. Father had told her that if she became fluent by the end of the school year, he'd send her to Mexico for a week to go see his cousin Edison. He'd told the same thing to Izzy, but Auden hadn't seen her sister even pick up the Spanish homework.

She paused only to go to the bathroom. She dumped her stuff off of her lap and marched to the hallway, running right into a tall figure... Ben.

"Ben." She said as a way of greeting and tried to sidestep him.

"I heard you won."

You didn't even watch to see if you were right? She crossed her arms over her chest. "I did."

"Sounds like you could still work on your time, though. The state winner was only a Junior and she ran 52.68 last year. She's going to come back stronger." His tone was taunting.

"I'll work on that while you work on your attitude, Benjamin." She retorted, sidestepping him and locking herself in the bathroom. She heard his laugh from the other side of the door. She was fuming even after she left the bathroom and returned to her room.