CHAPTER FIFTEEN | PIVOT
blocker with a front to back stripe on the helmet.
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In my opinion, there was a clear difference between acknowledging someone's absence and missing them.
Though I had certainly noticed Theo's absence in my life in Connecticut, as I kept searching for her in the people around me and couldn't help but compare them to her, I was still hurt over her betrayal, and that stopped me from fully missing her. It wasn't an aching absence, constantly hovering around me, but she'd been my closest friend at some point, regardless of the romantic aspect of our relationship, if we could even call it that. Therefore, it was only natural for me to feel like there was something missing when she wasn't around, especially when we were living on opposite sides of the country.
Having Theo here, chatting with Katrina as though they were lifelong friends, was a bitter memory of everything I'd had to leave behind in California, and not by my own accord. She acted like nothing had changed, but I knew better; things would never be the same and we'd soon go back to our regular lives away from each other.
Having her here was something akin to emotional torture. She was so close, yet so far, much like the rest of my normal life. With her present, there was someone I could tell the truth to, in spite of my previous attempts to keep her out of it, and, as soon as she left—if she wasn't here to tell me she was transferring to Yale for her final semester of college just because of me—I'd have to go back to omitting information and telling half truths to everyone. It was exhausting, like I was living two completely separate lives, and, with everything on my plate, it was getting harder to keep them apart.
"What are you doing here?" I blurted out, in place of a proper, actual greeting.
"I asked my parents to let me fly here during the break," she explained, eyes darting between me and Corinne, who I was keeping at arm's length. "I have an uncle living nearby. Since it's just him, I'll be keeping him some company during Thanksgiving, but I thought I'd stop by to see you."
"Oh," was all I managed to say. "I see you've met Kat."
"I did! I asked around if anyone knew you, then Kat overheard me say your name, or something, and told me I could wait here until you got back from . . . wherever you'd headed off too." She was staring right at Corinne now, who remained firm. I hardly thought of Corinne as someone who would be easily intimidated by someone, especially someone she didn't even know, so her attitude didn't surprise me. "She didn't say anything about you being with someone."
"Right. This is Corinne"—I gestured back towards her—"and that's Theo. On my bed. Theo's my friend from back home. Corinne is—"
"—the captain of the Yale roller derby team, for all intents and purposes," Corinne completed. This time, I didn't correct her, as I felt like that would only worsen the already palpable tension in the room. She nudged me. "I'll go pick up that book, but maybe I'll stay in my room. I wouldn't want to interrupt anything."
"You wouldn't be interrupting anything." Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. In the background, Katrina scoffed, clearly amused by the whole ordeal. "You can stay if—"
"No, it's okay. I focus better by myself, anyway."
She turned on her heel and headed off towards the end of the hallway, leaving me speechless. It felt so rude to ditch her over Theo, even though I'd known the latter for much longer and she was here because of me, but she shouldn't have felt the need to leave. I found myself going over everything I'd done and said up until now, wondering if I'd given her any hints that Theo and I had once been more than just friends, or that I didn't want her around, but I couldn't find anything.
Silence fell in my bedroom, with everyone feeling too awkward to speak up, and I sighed in frustration, walking towards my desk to dump my bag and bike helmet, which I quickly remembered didn't actually belong to me. Kat, obviously, noticed it, and her eyebrows perked up at the sight of the object, but she didn't dare say a word about it with Theo sitting right there.
"I could have given you a ride, you know," Kat eventually said. She didn't sound hurt in the slightest, so I knew she wasn't doing it to start drama or anything remotely similar, but she also knew I liked Corinne. I wasn't sure if Theo had told her anything about the true nature of our relationship back in California, but I didn't want to take any chances.
"Corinne didn't mind," I explained. "She'd been there before, when I first needed a ride there, so it just made sense to ask her for help."
Katrina frowned. "I really wish you'd tell me where you keep going. What if something bad happens and I have no idea where you are?"
"Well, Corinne was there. So were my parents."
"Oh, were you with Jordan?" Theo asked.
I froze right where I was, dropping a textbook in the process. Though I knew she hadn't said that out of malice, as she probably didn't even know Kat didn't know about Jordan and everything that entailed, it wasn't her story to tell. It was hardly even mine, if we were being honest, but, since I was involved in Jordan's recovery and therapeutic journey, I reserved the right to choose who I wanted to talk to about it.
If Kat needed to know, it should have never been like this. It should have been on my own terms, under the circumstances I'd chosen, and never as a hot piece of gossip or a way to remind her who the real friend was.
The point was that they were different people, who had met me at very different points in my life and were involved in it in different ways. It wouldn't be fair to treat them equally, but I also couldn't turn a blind eye to what Theo had just done.
"Who's Jordan?" Kat questioned, warily. She'd noticed a shift in my attitude and posture; had I not reacted the way I had, she wouldn't have paid much attention. Hell, maybe she would have even cracked a joke or two about Corinne driving me around just so I could get to a booty call faster than I would through public transportation or an Uber.
"No one," Theo quickly said, as soon as she realized Kat didn't know a thing, but it was too late.
"Jordan is my older brother," I replied, through gritted teeth. "Yes, I went to see him."
"How is he?"
"Sober. It's too early to tell."
"I'm gonna go and let you two catch up," Kat said, rising from her bed, and I turned around. "I don't want you to feel the need to speak in code just because I'm here. It's clear you have a lot to catch up on."
"Don't leave," I asked—almost begged—her. "You can stay. This is your room."
She shrugged. "It's fine. I'll go hang out with Corinne, or something, and you can have all the privacy you need to talk about . . . whatever you want to talk about."
After she left, softly closing the door behind her, I couldn't help but feel guilty over it. I knew she was hurt that I wouldn't open up to her, believing that was due to my lack of trust and faith in her, and I was quite tired of explaining myself and reminding her it wasn't about me trusting her or not. I was almost certain she thought Corinne was in on it just because she drove me around, which hurt her a lot more than me simply not opening my mouth about it to anyone.
Never, in a million years, would I think I'd have to remind people Corinne Fontaine wasn't that high on my list of priorities, yet here we were.
I turned to Theo. "You know, you should have told me you were stopping by."
"It was meant to be a surprise," she argued. "Telling you would completely defeat the purpose of a surprise."
"I think I've made it very clear I'm not a fan of the things you do behind my back, especially those done under the pretense of looking out for me or having my best interests at heart."
She sighed in frustration. "Look, I'm sorry. I don't know how many times you want me to say that. Maybe you're still upset over having had to move across the country, but, if I hadn't said anything, you could have died. Jordan could have died."
"That's not up to you to decide! You don't know the slightest thing about how I'm feeling!"
"Well, and whose fault is that? It's not like you bothered to reach out after you moved."
"Communication goes both ways, Theo; if you were really that interested in talking to me, you could have texted me or messaged me on any social media app." I took off my jacket, but still didn't want her to get the wrong idea. I wasn't opening myself up for conversation, nor did I wish to push the subject any further. "Plus, I've been busy. Turns out Ivy League is pretty demanding; who would have thought?"
"I'm guessing you're skating again." She nodded towards the new pair of skates and collection of pads resting by my bed. Kat and I had gone shopping for gear, finally, so now I had proper equipment I could call mine instead of using someone else's. "Roller derby, is it?"
"It's fun. Our first game of the season is right before Thanksgiving break." She hummed, probably expecting a verbal invitation to watch me skate instead of the implicit one I'd just thrown her way, but, if she was stubborn, I was a thousand times more than she was. There had come a point in my life when I'd had enough of letting her walk all over me, always so headstrong I knew I'd had to be the one to compromise if we didn't want to stagnate. "Since you're sticking around, I'm sure you've noticed there's not much Connecticut can offer if you want to do something fun."
Theo pulled her knees close to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Surely this wasn't how she had expected our reunion to go, but, after the bomb she'd dropped on me and Kat, after we'd driven Kat out of her own room thanks to all the awkward tension between us, after we'd made Corinne feel so out of place she had to leave, there wasn't much else I could offer her.
"That girl, Corinne."
I huffed. "What about her?"
"You two seemed . . . close."
"We aren't."
"She literally gave you a ride for you to go see Jordan, something not even your roommate knew about, apparently. You must like her a considerable bit. Or am I wrong?"
She wasn't. However, she didn't need to know that, and she was overestimating how much information about Jordan and my private life I'd given to Corinne on a silver platter.
"It doesn't matter," I muttered. "She's off-limits."
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To my sheer shock and Corinne's well-hidden disdain, I was playing the first game of the season.
She was too stressed over something that didn't concern me to make any snide, petty comments about my newfound role as a jammer, but I, on the other hand, was wary. She'd been in this state for a while now, and even I was getting worried she'd fully lost that pep in her step that used to infuriate me so much. Someone made a stupid comment about her having argued with Drew last week and how they still hadn't solved things, but I didn't think it was as simple as that.
Since they were the type of people who got married right after college, and all. This wasn't me being bitter; it was just me coming to a bitter conclusion.
So, during the game, I was quite ecstatic, but unbelievably nervous at the same time. It was the first time I'd be playing against an actual team, people who would be doing their everything to ensure I wouldn't make it past their pack, and tiny little me tried to not think about how tall those girls were. Theo was watching the game, against all odds, and I saw her strike up a conversation with Drew, out of all people, and something about the smug look on her face left me feeling quite uneasy.
Things were fine. We were winning and Corinne and I weren't playing like we had something stuck up our asses, but I was getting ahead of myself.
It all happened too fast.
One second, Corinne was fine, red-faced out of strain, blocking the opposing team's jammer. The next, the jammer successfully pushed her out of the way, but their skates got jumbled, a mess of legs, and Corinne was just too small to get out. The jammer pushed her away with a jerk of the leg and, in the middle of all that chaos, Corinne slipped and fell, hitting her head on the track floor and being shoved aside with a kick in the stomach for good measure. The jammer never saw a thing and I wasn't sure anyone else had, really, but I was about to complete my jam when it all happened right in front of me.
I expected her to get up and tell me to skate faster before I lost my advantage. Except she never did.
With my breath hitched in my throat, the rush of adrenaline already fading, I stopped skating. I raised a hand, flagging the referee, and sprinted towards the rails without anyone ever noticing why I'd stopped completing the lap. One of the blockers yelled a string of profanities at me, ushering me to complete the lap so we'd win the bout, but I dedicated all my energy to getting to Corinne in time. Matches could be rescheduled; surely they'd understand, even Coach. That was her daughter, after all.
I briefly skated backwards, facing the crowd in an attempt to spot Drew, but he saw me first. He was so tall, with such long legs he easily made it down from his seat a lot quicker than I managed to make my way towards Corinne, but he wasn't allowed in the track. Coach was arguing with the referee, still confused as to why the bout had been interrupted, but I refused to worry about that.
She was wearing her helmet and pads so, regardless of whether she'd hit her head or not, she shouldn't have gotten hurt. I knew all about how roller derby was a violent sport, but so were many others, and not that many people died during matches, right?
Right?
"Jesus, Corinne," I muttered, once I got to her, falling to my knees. She was so still she almost looked asleep, but then she shuddered, with an arm curled around her stomach. As I turned her to the side, very slowly so she wouldn't complain about any sudden moves, she gagged. "No, no, don't throw up. Come on."
"I hit my head," she blurted out, voice muffled thanks to the mouth guard, which she promptly removed. A circle was forming around us, as our team, the opposing team, and Coach realized what had happened. Corinne was too busy dry heaving to notice the people standing around us. "I can't see. Am I blind? Did I just go blind?"
"Nonsense. Come on, let's get you to the nurse's—"
"I have to play."
I huffed. "You're seconds away from throwing up, you literally just said you can't see—"
"I'm fine." She shoved away a hand someone reached out towards her to help her up, but didn't protest when I wrapped an arm around her with the same purpose. It was hard to help someone stand up when both of you were wearing skates, bound to slide away at any given moment, but, somehow, we made it work. "Let's keep playing."
"Absolutely not," Coach intervened. "You're benched. Go see the nurse."
"No. You can't stop me from playing—"
"I can, and I will. If you don't go, I'll bench you for the rest of the season."
Corinne gritted her teeth, jaw firmly clenched, but ultimately nodded. I helped her skate towards the exit, as no one would let me leave to walk her to the nurse's office, but, at the very least, she had Drew.
It was hard not to think about the way she literally slipped out of my fingers into his arms.