“Thirty-six,” I whisper to myself. “How have I completely missed this?”
He’s always been twenty. Since we were kids.
Recalling memories, I can see it now. The varsity print letters I told myself were twenty are now replaced with thirty-six. Us in his bedroom, how he collapsed on the floor and crawled to me. He traced them on my back before I changed.
I walk back out of the closet to find my sister and roommate sitting on my bed, cross-legged and biting their tongues.
“He changed his jersey number. When? Why thirty-six? What was wrong with twenty?” My words come out slow, as I keep trying to catch up.
They make eye contact.
“Well…” Meave starts.
“You see…” Elliot chimes in.
“You both knew?”
“Knew is an extremely loose term for inferring.” Elliot gives me a placating smile, dragging her long bubble braid over her shoulder.
“When you think about it, it’s quite romantic—” They talk over and around each other. I don’t know who says what.
“But makes a little sense in a weird way. I haven’t asked to confirm though.”
“Same,” Meave agrees.
“Would you two mind clueing me in?” I demand, fisting the damp jersey.
“Sutton. Babe, you are light-years ahead of us when it comes to being book smart, supposedly an obsessively observant athlete. Think. About. It. Do. The. Math.”
I stare blankly at them. Was that a backhanded insult?
“Thirty-six minus twenty.” Meave circles her hand, encouraging my intellectual skills.
“Sixteen,” I answer, then repeat, “Sixteen. Sixteen. Sixtee—you’ve got to be kidding me. That’s my number.”
Meave makes an explosive hand motion from one side of her head, complete with a sound effect. Elliot shrugs.
“When did he do it?”
My sister nudges Elliot to tell me. “After you decided to stop playing.”
They give me my minute—okay, it might be more like twenty minutes of disbelief before reminding me we need to leave.
Meave finishes painting my face with thirty-six. The last stroke of her brush has my stomach somersaulting.
He changed his number for me.
He changed his number for me when I wasn’t able to play.
He’s…he’s been playing for me. All these years and I…I never noticed.
I change, a stupid, partially naive, smile on my face the entire time. How many other things has Cooper done for me all this time?
The overalls I put on are epic, and for an actual minute, I’m jealous of how talented my sister is. Besides his—or should I be calling it ours?—number stitched into the pocket, there are patches on the legs. An outline of a bear with a star and hockey stick print, Lakeland ironed one in navy blue and silver. My left back pocket has a twenty and a thirty-six. What must be an old shirt is now the other pocket.
Everything about them is perfect.
We meet up with the rest of our families at the rink, but don’t sit with them. We aren’t even sitting in the student section but adjacent, closer to the plexiglass per Cooper’srequest.
