I am a gasping fish out of water, too nauseated even to puke. My diaphragm is traumatized, my legs spasming, but when I sit up, the last runner is just finishing, and I know I’ve been incapacitated for no more than ten seconds. Greta appears in front of me, smiling for once, and I want to smash in those perfect teeth I’ve never seen before. She extends a hand to help me up, and I take it. When I am unsteadily vertical, she puts an arm around my shoulders and says, “Congratulations. Not even a photo finish. You wanted it more today.” Then she drops her arm, and her smile disappears without a trace before she walks away. Coach McMillan is making fist pumps so violent I think he’s going to hurt himself. He’ll surely lope over to me once he finishes this initial celebration, but for now I have a moment to myself.
My breath is still raspy and legs not exactly functional, and I really hate Greta for ascribing my victory to a transient desire rather than training or talent or capacity or something, anything, more tangible. I watch her walk off the track with her unmistakable straight-backed gait then catch my sister in the stands four rows over Greta’s straw-blond hair. She is standing and beaming at me, and I turn away.
Racing on this track is a stripped down, painful test of will I can’t conceive of leaving behind of my own volition, and even though this is what my sister has done, I still cannot believe it, feel her betrayal as a cramp in my gut, as a heavy, opaque doubt.