You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott Read Free Book Online

sunflowers, dark and sodden, drifted across the acid-blue surface of the pool, Hailey had pressed herself against Ryan’s chest and all was forgiven.
    The next morning, Katie saw them in the lobby sundries shop, their arms around each other sloppily, their faces glazed with sex.
    Ducking behind a rack of energy bars, she tried to sidle past them unseen. She could hear Hailey whispering, over and over, in his ear, “You make me crazy, baby. You make me crazy.”
    Turning sharply Katie hurried into the lobby, thick with exultant eight-year-old gymmies, high on mochas, nose-high with whipped cream.
    But Ryan had spotted her.
    “Mrs. Knox,” he said, running after her as Hailey paid for something at the register. (What had she bought? All Katie could think was condoms, the word whirring in her head.)
    “I’m sorry,” he added, shoving his hands in his pockets. “About last night. I saw you guys on your balcony. What a couple of jerks we were.”
    “Young love,” she blurted, trying not to look at Hailey’s ballet-pink lipstick on his jaw.
    “Young idiots,” he said, shaking his head.
    His hair still wet from the shower, the wrinkled shirt—boys that age, everything was so easy, and that ease was the centerpiece of their charm, wasn’t it?
    “You should enjoy it. It’s a great time,” she said, without even thinking. “You…you feel things so deeply.”
    “But then you stop?” he said, smiling. “Feeling deeply?”
    She was startled to hear her own laugh, sharp and fast, almost like a bark.
    Then, in an instant, Hailey was behind him, smiling at Katie, giggling. “This creep!”
    Her arms wrapped tight across his chest, like a shield.
      
    When they returned from the trip, Coach T. convened a strategy meeting at his home, Mama T.’s famous sun tea and biscuits, Eric and Katie in those stiff-backed dining-room chairs.
    Pulling out his flow chart again, he directed their pensive faces back to the Track, dog-eared, coffee-rippled.
    “It’s not over,” he said, his voice firm, eyes intent. “Not for our girl.”
    “You think she can try again? For Junior Elite next year?” Katie asked. They’d talked and talked about it, she and Eric, endlessly. But Devon refused. Didn’t even want to hear the word Elite .
    “She could,” Teddy said. “But I think she feels like she’s going backward. And she’s aging out soon, and if she—she won’t—but if she fails again, the crush to her confidence, the impact on her ranking…”
    “So what are you saying?” Eric asked. “Tell us.”
    “I didn’t want to raise the possibility before, but that pit, it’s a game changer,” he said, slapping one hand on the damask tablecloth. “Listen to me, you two: There’s a loophole. A shortcut.”
    With the thickest marker he had, he drew a line that went from Level 10, through the doomed Junior Elite, and straight to the next arrowed box.
    Stopping there, he circled Senior Elite, drew a looping star around it.
    “You can do that?” Eric asked. “You can skip?”
    “No one does that,” Katie said. “Do they?”
    Teddy looked at them, the pouches under his eyes quivering with intensity.
    “Very few. But there are exceptions.” He drew another line, even thicker this time. “And we all know Devon is deeply exceptional.”
    Eric nodded, Teddy nodded, their eyes locked on each other’s.
    After countless nights spent talking about Devon, raising money for the gym, watching footage of Devon’s routines, standing below her as her feet fastened on the practice beam, the two of them didn’t even need to speak.
    “And she’s stopped the clock,” Coach T. added. “You know?”
    At first Katie didn’t. Then she did.
    “Devon’s going to get breasts, Teddy,” Katie blurted. “And hips. And everything else. She’s going to be a woman.”
    “No one’s disputing that,” Teddy said, laughing a little too loudly. “After all, only Peter Pan gets to keep his baby teeth!”
    Katie turned to Eric, but his