“What do you mean?”
“Why did you stop playing? I heard you were injured.”
“Yeah. I was,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“Well, what did you do? Get in a fight? Knock your head too hard into the boards and get a concussion?”
“No, nothing that simple.”
“A concussion is simple?”
“Well, the truth is complicated.”
“I’ve got time,” I said, sitting down on the bed. I felt the crystal heart bounce against my chest, underneath my shirt. I’d worn it every day since Christmas. “So?”
“The short answer is, it was bad enough that I stopped playing for a long time.”
“And the long answer?”
Will stood by the window and stared outside. The Donigers’ holiday lights were on, the trees outside his room woven throughout with tiny white twinkling strands. I waited for him to say something more but he didn’t.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said.
“I know.” After a while he came over and sat down next to me, leaving about a foot of space between us, and I was suddenly aware that we were hanging out on his bed. I had never been near a boy’s bed that wasn’t Chris’s or my brother’s. Will took a long breath before he started to speak. “I guess you could say my mind was injured and that’s why I didn’t play.”
This was not what I had expected. “What do you mean?”
He fell back against the bed and covered his eyes, his legs dangling off the sides. “The reason I stopped playing hockey was because of my dad—I was too sad.” He crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling. “I couldn’t handle being on the ice anymore.”
This was a reaction I understood. I waited for him to go on.
“Before my father got sick he never missed a game. He was always telling me I was good enough to go pro someday, and how playing varsity at Lewis was like a stepping-stone to a college scholarship and then the NHL. He believed in me like nobody else ever has.” Will stopped and the only sound left in the room was from our breathing. “It never occurred to me that my father wouldn’t get better, that the last game he’d gone to of mine was his last ever. And then he got sicker and sicker and then—” Will stopped. “And then he died.”
Silence gathered around us again, like the wind swirling the cold air. Slowly, I lay back against the bed, until Will and I were side by side. “So that game in November, was that the first time you’d played since, you know, your dad?”
“No. I tried once before at the beginning of sophomore year.”
“What happened?”
“I got kicked off the ice and ejected from the game for fighting within two minutes of the ref dropping the puck. I had my gloves off and the guy’s jersey pulled halfway over his head and everything.”
“That’s intense.” I knew by now that when fights got really bad, a player tried to get his opponent’s jersey up his arms to trap him in a vulnerable position. It was the cardinal sin of hockey.
“Yeah, slightly. Anyway, I couldn’t bring myself to go back again afterward. Every time I got on the ice all I felt was rage, so I took some time off. At first Coach thought I’d only need a couple of weeks but then it turned into a couple of years. He redshirted me to save my spot on the team.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He was pretty understanding. And it means I get to play an extra year to try to get the college scouts’ interest back. I have a lot of coursework to make up, anyway.”
“Really,” I stated. Will and I had never talked about whether he was planning on going to college after he graduated. Lots of people in Lewis didn’t, and then, I hadn’t let myself think that far ahead, even though occasionally I wondered if Will would disappear from my life almost as suddenly as he’d become a part of it.
“Last year Coach started pestering me to come back, and I practiced with the team here and there. It wasn’t until this fall that I felt ready to try again.”
“Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
“I thought I was the only one who avoided stuff that reminds me of painful subjects.”
“These last couple of years, I’ve learned just how good I am at avoiding things.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What made you decide you were ready?”
He laughed a little, but it was a sad laugh. “My dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I realized if there was anything that would upset him, it would be finding out I’d quit hockey because of him.”
I turned to face Will, the comforter soft against my cheek. “I’m sure he would be happy to know you went back.”
Will looked at me, his eyes shining in the darkness. “I’m glad I did. It was the right thing, and if I hadn’t, I don’t think you and I would have started hanging out.”
My breath stopped at these words and my face grew warm. I shifted my attention to the ceiling and suddenly I saw stars. I waited for them to fade, but instead they only became clearer, until I realized there were entire constellations taking up every inch of space. “Wow, you’ve got Orion’s Belt up there,” I gasped. “And the Great Bear.” They reminded me of the star that awaited me in my Survival Kit.
“They’ve been there since my dad and I put them up after a trip to the planetarium when I was six,” he explained, and the two of us stared at his makeshift night sky for a long while without saying anything. “So what do you avoid?” he asked eventually.
“Everything,” I said at first, even though this wasn’t a real answer. “Music, as you already know. Basically, anything that reminds me of my mother, which is a lot. And I try to avoid having feelings.”
“That’s impossible, you know that, right? It forces you to shut people out altogether.”
“I’ve gotten good at it.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Is that why you and Chris broke up?”
I was a little surprised by such a forward question. “Probably,” I answered after some thought. “It was at least part of the reason. Or most of it.”
“My girlfriend and I broke up when my dad got sick,” Will said, and I half sat up, caught unawares by this new piece of information about his past. “I couldn’t deal with being in a relationship anymore either.”
“Your girlfriend.” The word choked out of me.
“Is it that hard to believe I would have a girlfriend?”
“Um, no. It’s just that—” I said, and stopped. I’d never allowed myself to think about it. “I don’t know. It’s not hard to believe at all. So who was it?”
“No one you’d know. She was from another school.”
I felt strangely relieved by this. “Interesting.” I wanted to ask more about her, to find out what she looked like, to get a handle on the kind of girl he would date, but I resisted.
“Enough about my past,” he said. “New topic.”
“Okay,” I said, tapping my fingers against the comforter. My left hand was so close to his I had to consciously make sure we didn’t touch. “Hmmm. Oh, I know.” I got up from the bed and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark so I could find my bag. I fumbled around and pulled out the iPod, scrolling my finger around the menu so it lit up. It became the only glow in the room aside from the stars. “On the topic of things we avoid.” I sat down again and held it out to him. “Here. As promised.”
“Wow, the iPod.”
“You said you’d listen with me,” I reminded him.
“I did,” he said, and took it from my hand, searching through the playlists. He got up from the bed and placed it in his speaker dock. John Mayer’s “The Heart of Life” began playing and he lay down next to me again. I could feel his eyes on me as we listened.
“I went through a John Mayer–obsessed phase,” I explained, when another of his songs came on. The iPod was like a time capsule of music I’d listened to when Mom was still alive.
“
How’s the TBD list going?”
“Nowhere at this point. But soon, I think. I’m getting there.”
“You want to know the name of the playlist I chose?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
I breathed deep. “Sure,” I said, even though I already knew what it was.
“Moody Rose. I was curious to know what was on it.”
“John Mayer, obviously.”
“A bunch of pretty make-out songs,” he said, and laughed. From the sound of his voice, I could tell he was grinning.
“Yeah, hilarious. Well, I don’t have much use for this playlist since I’m done with romantic entanglements. Way too many feelings involved.”
“You sound certain about that.”
“I am,” I said, turning to look at him even as regret began to pulse through me.
Will stared at me hard. “That’s too bad,” he said.
My gut told me to switch topics before one of us said something we couldn’t take back, but I couldn’t help myself. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure. But I can understand why you feel that way.”
“Really?”
“I told you. I went through it myself.”
“I know,” I said, but couldn’t decide if Will being so understanding all the time was a good thing or not. I knew he’d let it go, whatever it was. But for a second, a moment that went by so quickly I almost missed it, I wished he would push me beyond this place where I’d stalled out. As we listened through the playlist, I played with the heart at my chest and thought about how the items from my Survival Kit were beginning to intertwine, one merging into the other. Will had helped me with the peonies and now with the iPod. Was I supposed to fall in love with him, too?
“Will? Rose?” his mother called out to us. “Dinner is ready.”
We got up and both of us stretched. When he turned on the light, which seemed extra bright after all this time in the dark, I wondered what would have happened if his family wasn’t waiting for us right now, whether we might have stayed here, in his room, listening to music all night.
If maybe, just maybe, we would have kissed.
I thought if we had, it would have been perfect.
26
HARD TO EXPLAIN
The first day at school after break was filled with heavy reluctance as the long haul of winter set in. Aside from one long weekend, there weren’t any vacations scheduled until March, and the best to hope for was a snow day now and then. I was by my locker, thinking about this depressing reality, when I saw Will walking toward me in the hallway. We hadn’t yet spoken since all that talk in the dark at his house. I assumed we would continue as always, barely acknowledging each other, but I was wrong. The moment he noticed me his face broke into a smile.
And suddenly, our private friendship became public.
Will leaned his shoulder against the locker next to mine. We usually spent so much time in his truck that I sometimes forgot how tall he was. “Hi, Rose, nice to see you again,” he said, his voice full of confidence.
I bit my lip, nervous about this change in behavior.
“I had fun the other night,” he went on. Suddenly the Will from the photographs, the one whose smile was happy and sure, was standing in front of me. “Did you?” he asked.
I returned the smile. “I did.”
We stood there, grinning, not saying anything else, like we held some delicious secret between us. The minute bell warned that we needed to get to class but neither of us moved.
“See you later?” he said.
“Yes,” I answered. “Soon.”
As the cold days of January passed, some of them heavy with snow, dark and short as if the sun couldn’t bear to see us, something changed and I started to feel as if spring was upon us instead. Each morning a little of the weight my heart had been carrying was lifted. I smiled and laughed more easily and the world and everyone in it seemed to glow. Something invisible inside my chest was working overtime to mend the biggest wounds from the last year and the smaller scrapes and cuts everywhere else, too. Even as the seams were stitched and beginning to heal, my still-tender heart strained against these threads and expanded until I thought it might burst.
Each day before I left for school I took the crystal heart from a tiny dish on my bedside table and clasped the chain around my neck, careful to keep it hidden under the shirts and sweaters I bundled on to stave off the icy air. I carried both hearts, my own, filled with growing feelings for Will, and my mother’s gift, like secrets.
Will and I began to hang out at school all the time—in the hallway by our lockers, at lunch, during free periods in the library. So much that people were starting to talk. Not Krupa or Kecia, who accepted Will’s presence as if he had always been there, but there were lots of others who huddled and whispered when we walked by. After the third time Will came to my house to hang out after school, my family began to have questions, too. The night before Jim went back to college for spring semester and Grandma Madison was scheduled to go home, I was ambushed at dinner.
“So, Rose,” Grandma said, “I take it you’re over that football player.”
Across the table, Jim shook his head before shoveling another forkful of meat loaf and mashed potatoes into his mouth. Grandma had made our favorite dish, enough so we’d have plenty of leftovers after she was gone to give me a little reprieve before I’d be the only cook in the house again.
Dad looked at me, waiting for my answer.
But I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d become spoiled by the willingness of Krupa and Kecia to remain mum on this subject, and had thought I would escape this sort of grilling here, too. “Chris and I have been broken up a long time now.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Grandma said, and picked up her glass of soda between two French-manicured fingers. We now drank only soda, water, or juice in the house, as per Grandma’s orders. Grandma had Dad on a tight leash, and I was impressed by his improvement—he hadn’t come home drunk in weeks and I wondered if this would last after she left. Grandma gave me an uncharacteristically genuine smile. “I’m glad. I like the Doniger boy and I think he’s been good for you.”
I opened my mouth in surprise.
“I agree,” Dad said, chuckling, before he returned to his meat loaf.
“Will and I aren’t dating. We’re just friends.”
Grandma sniffed. “Right,” she said. “I may be old but I’m not senile.”
Jim watched me as he chewed and swallowed. “Well, I don’t know how I feel about it. You’re never going to find anyone better than Chris. Seriously.”
“Can you stop hanging on to this idea that Chris and I are going to get back together, please?” I said. “Why do you even care?”
“I want you to be happy,” he said.
“She is happy,” Grandma said, and glared at him. “Can’t you tell? I wouldn’t be leaving otherwise,” she added gently. She placed a hand over mine, her rings cool against my skin. “I wouldn’t go if I thought you weren’t okay, Rose. I love you so very much.”
A lump formed in my throat. I was so accustomed to Grandma’s jagged edges that this revelation of why she felt it was okay to leave, that she wasn’t here only to take care of Dad or help with the meals and the house with Jim home—that she’d been watching out for me especially—made me unsure how to respond. So I didn’t say anything, not then, and eventually we finished our dinner without the subject of Will coming up again. But the next morning after we said our goodbyes to Jim and the three of us watched him drive away, his car packed with folded laundry and books and food, I stopped Grandma Madison just as she was unlocking the door to her station wagon.
“Grandma, wait,” I said, my voice hoarse. I ran down the driveway.
“If you delay me and I hit traffic I’m going to blame you,” she said, the sarcasm I was so accustomed to back in her voice.
But this time I didn’t buy it. “So I wanted to tell you—”
&nb
sp; She jangled her keys with impatience. “Can we do this over the phone? I know you prefer all communication to go through your brother, but you could try me once in a while. You have my number after all, and that fancy cell of yours,” she said, which was Grandma’s strange, coarse way of telling me that she was there for me.
“Yes, I do. And I will call you more. But this is not for the phone,” I said. Before I could chicken out, I walked up to Grandma and wrapped my arms around her in a big hug. She felt so fragile, so thin and breakable, when everything about her personality was so strong and harsh. She hugged me back and her keys clinked when they fell to the ground. “I love you, too, Grandma,” I whispered, finally answering what she had said to me last night at dinner. “And thank you.” When we let go, I retrieved her keys from the driveway and handed them back. “You don’t want to hit traffic.” I did my best to smile through the sadness, watching as she got inside, fixed mirrors, and let the car warm up. Before she backed out, she rolled down her window.
Her cheeks were stained with tears.
“Call me, Rose,” she said.
“I will.”
I stood there, waving, until she disappeared up the street.
27
COLORFUL
Memories of my mother began to emerge from the places I’d buried them, gingerly stepping out into the light again. Unlike before, now I sat with them, allowing myself to remember a conversation between us that was especially important, or the way she smiled at me when I came home from school full of news to report. These were just little things and they still made me sad, but I became better at being in the sadness and at resisting the urge to chase it away. One memory in particular, a much bigger grief than the others, found its way into the front of my mind. For a while, I let it sit untouched, refusing to acknowledge it, even though more and more each day I was aware of its presence. On February 4, the eight-month anniversary, I decided I was ready to face it.
Krupa and I were at our locker before our last class. “I have a favor to ask you,” I said.
SURVIVAL KIT Page 14
