“You better hope it doesn’t happen again.”
I practically tuck my tail between my legs like a reprimanded puppy.
His chest eventually deflates with a sigh, and he palms his forehead. “You’re one of the best players on the team, kid. I don’t want to have to bench you. This is just how responsibility operates. No work, no play.”
I need hockey right now. It’s the only thing that makes me feel normal. This school is a prison, I can’t run from my now-viral mistake, and it’s like I’m trapped in a maze of overthinking. Each dead end is another three a.m. deep dive into the ticking time bomb of existential dread.
I curl my fingers into my gloved palms. “I understand, sir.”
“How about that tutoring solution I proposed? Think it would do you any good?”
Right. Tutoring. The only surefire way to keep my spot on the team because cheating is immoral. Plus, I’d never stoopthatlow again.
Or would I?
Fuck, I’m having an identity crisis on top of everything.
It’ll only be for like, what, a few weeks? Then I can go on my merry way and pretend like I never needed any help in the first place. If I’m lucky, my tutor will forget all about me and I’ll just become another cog in the school’s money-hungry machine.
Come on, Knox. One person who sees you at your lowest doesn’tcompare to the whole school seeing you on the bench at the next hockey game.
Considering my dignity is already pulverized beyond repair, I really don’t have anything to lose. “Yeah, I actually think it would be the best course of action,” I reply, the tiniest flame of hope igniting in the cove of my ribs.
“Atta boy.” Coach slaps me on the back, the first smile of the day appearing between his puffed cheeks. “With a little extra help, I know you’re gonna turn your grades around.”
Fuck, what have I just gotten myself into? It’s going to take a tutor with the patience of a saint and the work ethic of a correctional officer to make me a B student, and I’m fresh out of miracles. Nobody in their right mind would take me on as their client.
4
A MINOR SETBACK
STATEN
Getting pulled into the counselor’s office for an impromptu meeting is the last thing I want to do on a Wednesday morning. Between studying my ass off and trying to bury the humiliating memory of my vehicular assault, reacclimatizing to life has been harder than I anticipated. My incident has been splayed across MU’s headlines, and now everyone knows that I was the almost-roadkill holding up the early morning traffic last week.
I have no idea why Mrs. Winslow wants to see me. She’s head of the student employee office, which can only mean one of two things: I’m getting fired from my job, or I’m getting promoted. I like to think that I’m good at my work—competent, diligent, reliable. My past clients have all passed their classes with flying colors.
The fluorescent lights sear my retinas, sleep crusted in the corners of my eyes from a restless battle with my sheets all night. My body still hurts like a motherfucker—torrid fire threading through the meat of my muscles whenever I move wrong. Getting wrung through an industrial-sized shredderwould’ve been less painful. Not to mention that I’ve gone through a whole bottle of concealer just to cover up the bruises.
My nerves are staging one hell of a rebellion right now as Mrs. Winslow and her clinically sterile environment trap me in shadowless limbo, the rustle of disclosed paperwork deluging my eardrums and flipping my brain into static mode. My leg bounces against the edge of my seat, my bitten and semi-bloodied fingernails prying at a fraying hole in my jeans. All the saliva in my mouth has seemingly evaporated, and I pray that this consultation doesn’t rely on me contributing anything of substance.
Mrs. Winslow clasps her hands in front of her, luring me into a false sense of security with her deceptively cheerful smile. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice, Ms. Renault.”
“Of course,” I croak, hyperaware of the slow-moving heat tunneling through my body, cooking me from the inside out.
Oh my God. What is she going to say? Why do I have a bad feeling about this? If it wasn’t urgent, she wouldn’t have arranged a meeting so early in the morning. I can’t be jobless. I have a symbiotic relationship with this school, okay? I provide tutoring, and in turn, my scholarship is paid for.
She rifles through her very professional-looking stack of papers. “It’s come to my attention that one of your scholarship donors—Mr. Chamberlin—has pulled from the program due to a lack of funds,” she informs me, her tone taking a turn for the worst—darkened by a pity so palpable that I can choke on it from here.
My brain recalibrates; my heart pounds against my ribs like wings fighting against the pull of a tempest. No. No, no, no. That means…
“He’s not paying for my scholarship anymore,” I finish numbly, staring at an unvarnished spot on her desk where splinters form a miniature escarpment in the marbled wood.
“I’m so sorry.”
Three words. Three words that destroy the measly chunk of earth below my feet, my body nosediving through a coal-burnt empyrean. No sense of direction. No steadiness. Just a plummet into the greater unknown where all good souls go to die.
Fuck. From what I know, Mr. Chamberlin didn’t cover the entire scholarship, but he covered a decent amount. I didn’t even do anything wrong.
