“Never mind. Let’s just get to work.”
“Look, I’m sorry.” She slouched. “I’m just…I am pissed, but you—I shouldn’t have said that. You weren’t the only one at fault…”
“It’s fine.” I was pissed, too. Partially at her, but mostly at the doctors, at my head, at the fact I couldn’t ever play hockey again. It wasn’t fair.
On cue, the never-ending headache jacked up to an eight out of ten on the painful scale.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I needed to calm down, and that paired with the medicine would help. “So, your brace, you were saying your brace was supposed to help? How does it work?”
“I…well, my hand, my fingers, just curl up ’cuz they’re not working right. This brace helps stabilize them.” She cleared her throat, then flipped a few pages of the yearbook. “While they get stronger.”
I nodded, not really sure what to say, so I focused on the mess in front of me. We worked in silence for a while and even made it through several boxes. I noticed she kept a pile of yearbooks she’d found, though.
“Oh my freaking god, these shorts are hilarious.” Grace tapped a page of a yearbook she was flipping through. “That white stripe down the side.”
I scooted toward her to see. There on the page was our computer science teacher.
“Dang. That’s Mr. Carlton.”
“Who?”
“Computer science teacher. He’s worked here forever.” I laughed out loud. “We’re so going to have to show him. I mean, I am. I will…show it to him.”
“So, looks like he was a track star, huh? Why isn’t he the track coach?”
“No idea.” I leaned in more to see the picture better. “There’s the 4x100 team. Wow. They look so old.”
“I know, right? Check out those mustaches. I mean, come on…seventeen and that much facial hair?” She pointed to a box highlighting their stats. “Wow. They threw down some good times back then. Is your relay team that fast?”
I huffed.Myrelay team. No. My team was the hockey team. With Brodie and the gang. Track had always been something I’d done to stay in shape. To help out the team. I happened to be okay at it, so I did it.
But now?
“So…I take it they’re not as fast then.”
“It’s not my team.”
“Sounds like it is the way Brodie and Willow talk about it.”
“Willow? You’re talking to Willow?”
“Is that a crime? She’s my lab partner. And pretty nice.” Grace shook her head, then focused back on the yearbook. “Though I’m not sure why she’s hell-bent on defending your ornery ass.”
“You know what?” I pushed up from where I was sitting. “Let’s just finish so we can go.”
“So you can’t run track because of your head or something?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You’re right. Excuse me for trying to have a conversation. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”
“Just…everything is so fucked up right now. I don’t even know if I’m going out for track, okay?”
“You obviously love it.”
What did she mean by that? What did she know about anything? She’d lived here for, like, five minutes and thought she had everyone figured out?
She stood, holding a few yearbooks in her good hand, and pinned me with a look. “I could see it in your eyes.”