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“More than that. I had ten serious offers, and I’d done three campus visits as well. I don’t know where I would’ve actually gone, but I’d narrowed it down to Stanford and Washington. At that point in time, I wanted to get away from So-Cal for a bit, and those are two good volleyball schools. Nebraska is great, too, so they were my third choice.”

“That’s crazy. You were kicking ass, huh?”

“So were you. How many offers did you get? Be honest.”

“A few.”

“I said, ‘Be honest,’ not, ‘Be modest.’”

“Over twenty. But my high school was a volleyball feeder school, so it was more about that than me. People have to know you’re there to get you an offer, and–”

“Stop being modest. You are the best beach player in the world right now. Just enjoy it. Most of us would kill to be you, Aspen.”

“Should I be worried about what was in my water?” Aspen asked and lifted up the bottle, jokingly looking at it.

Kendra laughed and said, “No. You’re safe from me.”

Aspen set the bottle down and said, “I know you don’t talk about it, and that’s totally fine, but… I mean, I said this before, but if you do ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Kendra looked off at the water. The moon was high, and the beach lights, along with the lights from the hot dog stand, meant that she could still see it, and she considered how to respond. If she ever really wanted to have a chance with someone and make it last, she’d have to find a way to talk about it. Her last ex-girlfriend had been her longest relationship, and the fact that Kendra was so closed off when it came to this had been a thorn in their relationship’s side since the beginning, but it had gotten worse the longer they were together when her ex had expected them to be close enough and strong enough for Kendra to tell her.

“I was playing in a match when it happened.”

Aspen didn’t say anything. She sat there and looked at Kendra as if expecting her to continue, so Kendra cleared her throat.

“It was the fifth set, and we’d played two matches that day. Technically, the rules said that a player could only play in a total of six sets in a day, even if there was a doubleheader, meaning I should’ve been subbed out because our first match went to four sets, and I’d played every point of that one, too. Anyway, I went to serve, tossed the ball, jumped, and I don’t know what happened next because the next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm and terrified parents staring down at me. I’d never really been sick as a kid, so no one had ever checked my heart. Well, not since I was born. And they didn’t pick it up then, so no one knew that there was a problem. We found out then, and I was told that I shouldn’t play anymore. Not that I couldn’t, but that I shouldn’t. My coach got into trouble, and we also had to forfeit the second match because she didn’t sit me when she should have. My parents told me I couldn’t play anymore, but I didn’t want to stop playing. I was about to turn eighteen and thought I could do whatever I wanted, so, on my birthday, I celebrated by playing just for fun with the team I’d been forced to leave behind. We all went to the gym without anyone knowing and played a game. I felt fine. I wasn’t even tired or breathing hard. I thought maybe they’d gotten it wrong. Then, toward the end of the game, I passed out for a minute, and even though I came to my senses right after, they freaked out and called my parents. That was the last time I played competitively, if you can call a pick-up game with your team on your birthday competitive.”

“What happened?”

“Do you want the doctor speak?”

“No, I want you to tell me how you want to tell me,” Aspen replied.

“Something with my blood pressure. It went really low. We’d just stopped for a minute to get some water. I was sitting down on the gym floor, and I felt a little dizzy, and then, I felt nothing. I woke up shortly after and tried to tell the team that I was fine, but they’d already called my parents. They showed up a few minutes later, and back to the hospital I went. The doctors didn’t want to repair anything back then, though, saying it would be too risky. And I was fine for a while after that. No issues for years. I’d almost forgotten about it. Then, when I was twenty-five, I passed out again in the same way and went to my cardiologist. He told me I needed surgery, so I had it.” Kendra looked down at her shirt-covered chest. “It’s fine now. All repaired. And I haven’t had any issues since, but like I told you, I go to the doctor at least twice a year just to be safe.”

“I’m glad you’re okay now,” Aspen said.

“That’s it?”

“What else should I say?”

“I don’t know. I don’t tell people about this, so… I don’t know what to expect, honestly.”

“I’m glad you’re here, sitting with me,” Aspen added. “And I’m glad you’re okay, Kendra. I wish it wouldn’t have happened to you so you could’ve had all your dreams come true.” She took Kendra’s vanilla shake, and Kendra thought she was going to steal another drink, but she didn’t. Instead, she held it out for Kendra, who took it. “I think you deserve another one of these, don’t you?” When Kendra just smiled at her in response, Aspen offered, “I’m buying this time. Then, we can walk back to the hotel.”

CHAPTER 19

Aspen stared through the net. She saw a tired team. Truthfully, she was tired, too. She knew DJ was as well. But they needed one more point to win this tournament and the prize money to be able to go to Italy feeling like they were on top of the US. Then, they’d just need to show the rest of the world that they were number one for a reason. A loss wouldn’t hurt anything much this time, but it might ding their confidence, and Aspen knew her confidence was a big part of her game, so she didn’t want that to happen.

The crowd was on their feet for the midday game. The sun, still high in the sky and beating down on them, had caused problems, blinding eyes a bit, but the wind had been the bigger issue, and that was why they were deep in the third set of a match that never should’ve gone to three sets. They’d started on the left side, and that strong wind had been behind them, making even the gentlest serve they tried sail over the back line. They’d lost the first set by two points. In the second set, they should’ve gotten a breather, but the wind had switched to some kind of sideways attack that made their shots and serves all curve a little, and they’d won but just barely. In this set, they were back on their original side, and the wind was behind them once more. Had Aspen believed in conspiracy theories, she would’ve suggested that someone who was a fan of their opposition was in control of the weather.

It was set, match point, though. They were up fourteen to twelve. Her feet were usually used to the burning sand beneath them, but this sand was on a different level, so even though they’d sprayed it with supposedly cooling water, it was still too hot for bare feet. Aspen couldn’t wait to get off it and planned to dump a bucket of ice water over her body before she put her feet into another one.

“Here we go, Aspen,” DJ said.

Aspen checked the signals, and DJ was going to block the cut shot, which meant that Aspen would guard the line. She planned to guard it well because she did not want this match to go on for another point. Since she so rarely paid attention to the crowd, not needing it to rev her up like other players sometimes did, it was odd to her in that moment that she could hear them, so she took a second to look around at the stands before the whistle blew. People were cheering them on and probably also wanted to be out of this heat.

She rolled the ball around in her hands, finding the right spot. When the whistle blew, she tossed the ball, not waiting at all, and jumped. She hit a flat serve, and not all that hard to keep it inbounds. Her goal was to just get it over the net and give the other team something to deal with. She ran to her spot on the court to cover DJ and watched as the team passed the serve from close to the net.