Something in what she’s said tweaks my curiosity. I tilt my head askance.
“When I got to the bottom, you asked me right away if I was hurt,” I say. I know for a fact that I covered it up well, only a trained eye would have noticed that my landing wasn’t as smooth as it should have been. “How did you know?”
Poppy tucks her hands in her sleeves and curls her fingers around the fabric.
“I’ve watched you ski a lot, Jett,” she admits, casting her gaze downward. “You’re a big deal in Heartwood. We always watched you on TV. And I don’t know, between that and the handful of times I’ve watched you ski in real life… I knew something was off. You’re always so cool and aloof. This time you just seemed… stiff.”
Something about Poppy watching me ski causes a swelling feeling behind my ribs. Not that she watched me compete, she watchedme.Learned my quirks and mannerisms enough that she knows when I’m not myself.Caring.
“Are you a Jett Landry fangirl?” I ask her, and she still refuses to meet my gaze. But a smile takes over my face.
“You have enough of those already. Your ego is so big, your head can barely fit through the doorway.” She finally glances up at me, and there’s a playful smirk on her lips, too.
“It’s been getting smaller and smaller these days,” I admit. “Did you see how many points it cost me?”
Poppy shakes her head, no.
“I was too focused on getting you over to Mark and getting you out of there. I think they were reviewing when we left.” She looks at me for a moment, her mouth twisting to one side before she speaks again. “Don’t worry about that right now, just focus on resting and getting better.”
“I just want to know if this puts me out of the running for the final.” A pit lands in my gutwith a thud.
I look around for my phone so I can see if there’s a message from Dan, or if the scores have been finalized and posted online. Of course, I won’t know my rank until the event is over later today. I was one of the first competitors of the day.
“What youneedis to take care of yourself. You’ll only end up hurting yourself worse at the next one if you don’t take time to heal right now,” she says.
We both know the words are loaded. The next event is in a week, and even if I do qualify to move onto the next event, I don’t know if I can yet.
“You sound an awful lot like Mark when he’s chastising me.”
“Mark chastises you about this because he cares,” she snaps back. She’s right, of course, and I think maybe more people care about me than I realized. I just don’t know what to do with it.
“So, what’s that plan for the afternoon?” I ask, changing the subject, and gesturing to the movie paused on the TV.
“My ideal sick day lineup,” she explains. “I’m kind of an expert in sick days.”
Her admission reminds me of all the days that Poppy was absent in school, how when she came back her arms would be covered with bruises from blood work and getting medications through an IV.
She seems to manage her illness better now, but I know she still has a lot of hard days. My heart clenches for a second, and guilt settles in my gut when I consider all that Poppy has had to go through, how she’s done it all with a smile on her face, a positive outlook.
And here I am complaining about how a knee injurymight stop me from being officially declared the best skier in the world. It’s all relative, but it stops me in my self-pitying tracks.
“Tell me,” I say, enjoying that Poppy is letting me in on this little aspect of her world. One that she’s only ever kept private. “What’s the play?”
“It depends on how much time we have.”
I gesture down at my leg. “Looks like we have all day.”
Cordelia sashays over to the couch and hops up, making herself cozy on my lap.
“In that case, first you need a sick day buddy. My buddy was my cat, Grumpy, growing up. Now I have Cordelia, but we don’t have those days very often anymore, thankfully. So today, we can be your sick day buddies,” she explains. “If time isn’t a consideration, we can do the whole lineup. First a horror movie.”
I wrinkle my nose. Horror isn’t my thing, but I know Poppy loves it, so I’ll watch it if she wants to.
Sensing my discomfort with it, she adds, “if you’re not into that, we can do a creepy classic like an Alfred Hitchcock or something. But then, keeping in the old classics theme, we move onto something emotional, process our feelings. The Notebook is always great for a cry. Everyone needs a good cry occasionally, especially when you’re feeling down. We can lighten things up with a cheesy rom com after that. And finally, because we’ve just put ourselves through hell and back, we need something goofy, end with a laugh. I suggest something like Blades of Glory, but the choice is yours.”
“You’ve thought this through,” I note.
“I’ve had a lot of time to refine my sick dayroutine.” Poppy pulls her blanket up around her neck, her knees tucked up underneath it.
