Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not this again. I don’t want to be defined in his mind as “the girl who almost became a statistic.” Even though I’m not Knox’s biggest fan, knowing that he’s never going to stop beating himself up over an accident isn’t a responsibility I want to bear. Not to mention that every time I’m reminded of my dance with death, nausea overwhelms my sailor-knotted guts like a slow-acting poison.
Change the subject, Staten. Deflect.
A syncopated breath putters out of me, bouncing off our insulated haven. “Did you study at all beforehand?”
“Of course I did.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
For a split second, a frown cuts across his lips, and his eyes glimmer with firelight—firelight that crackles with jealousy.
Knox scoffs, and the sound is abrasive. “Not all of us can be teacher’s perfect pet.” Self-righteousness sharpens his tone, locked away for a deceiving fortnight only to be released on a distant moor.
The truth rives through me in the same way a bullet would, degloving tender meat from brittle bone.
The nine words shatter with the force of a pipe bomb in the unwelcome silence, and I stare down at the abundance of red markings littering Knox’s past classwork, starker than ichor flowing across the ivory bed of a semitranslucent wrist.
I can’t fathom failing a class. I don’t know how he isn’t more freaked out about this. A failing grade means no graduation, no graduation means no degree, no degree means no job, and no job means a future of poverty for me, my family, and my kids (if I can even afford to have any).
Then again, I don’t doubt that Knox’s priorities lie elsewhere. He isn’t some sad scholarship kid like me. This isn’t the end of the road for him, you know? He’s got too much money to know what to do with, and people like him—people who hoard wealth and have a reputation worth knowing—will always find loopholes when the rest of us lesser folks have to play dirty to fight for the same privileges.
“At least I’m not some walking cliché who relies on his bank account to exempt him from working,” I spit, curling my fingernails into my thighs, left to disperse a riot of volatile anger that never truly disappeared from my rearview. Maybe it’s been hibernating all this time, consolidating strength.
“Oh, so that’s what you still think of me then?”
“My opinion never changed.”
“Yeah, you just got better at hiding it.”
My head is spinning like I’ve been slammed with a nasty bout of altitude sickness, and I’m more than aware that the rising tide of our argument is no longer a hushed confrontation. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Knox shakes his head condescendingly. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that?”
“That really doesn’t mean much coming from you,” I retort.
Me? A hypocrite? Oh my God. And to think that I was going tohelpthis son of a bitch. He’s never going to change. He can apologize and buy my silence and put on this good-guy act for the rest of the world to see, but he’ll never genuinely have anyone else’s interests at heart. The whole universe revolves around Knox Mulligan and his stupid hockey career.
“Do you even know why I need to play hockey? Or do you just not care?” he shoots back, the tendons in his upper body roiling, distending the cotton fabric of his hoodie.
I’m straddling a hinge of self-destruction, and I hate to admit that I don’t care who I hurt in the process. I’ve never felt this…small…before. My mother always used to praise me for my selflessness, but all these stupid, life-changing events have driven my sense of self back into the darkness—back into the abyss where my shriveled heart sways from the cavernous ceiling of my chest like a stalactite.
I throw his question back in his face. “Doyoueven know why I need the money? Or do you just not care?”
“Of course I care!” Knox growls, standing up from his chair abruptly and causing a minor commotion in the nonfiction section of the library.
When a dozen eyes magnetize to his outburst, he scrambles to take his seat, fearing public scrutiny.
His timbre flattens into a whisper. “I’m not…I’m not some heartless dick, okay? My dad—he’ll disown me if I don’t make it to the NHL.”
Disown him? Only 0.8 percent of college hockey players make it to the NHL. How could his father do something like that? To his own child? A parent’s love should never come with conditions.
For the first time ever, I realize that Knox and I are on the same side of the battle lines. Lost kids trying to keep their families from falling apart—overextending themselves to carry a responsibility that was never theirs to begin with. Like low-strength glue plastered between tightly packed earth, holding together two drifting land masses, and slowly disintegrating by the mutinous waters that stand between freedom and captivity.
I, yet again, have let judgment blindly dictate my emotions. There’s a storm in my stomach that refuses to settle; there’s a bitterness that ripens on an apologetic palate. Since we’re apparently trauma dumping, I see no reason to pass up a free therapy session. I’m aware that I’m breaking coveted rule two.
“If I don’t come up with enough money by the end of the semester, I’ll lose my tuition. I won’t be able to attend MU anymore, and everything my mom sacrificed for me to get here will be in vain. She works two jobs just to pay rent and cover the cost of utilities,” I blurt out, the pressure blunting my ribs lifting infinitesimally.
Knox’s hackle-raised stiffness deliquesces into something like understanding, the blaze in his eyes dimming in the low light of the library, and his pinched features no longer serve as a receptacle for his rage.
