She sends me links to articles and photos about us online, and says she deserves all the credit for me being named the hottest player of the week.
My aunt and uncle try to call me. I don’t answer, I’m not brave enough for that yet, but I do text back. More than I have in months. They ask me about the beautiful redhead from the game, and I’m not sure how to describe Ren to anyone, even myself, so I just send them a picture of the stadium.
Yas forwards me every single positive article from online gossip columns and even the ones from SportsCentre, proclaiming me to be back on top when everyone thought the death of Matt might be the death of my career, too.
It’s nice, if people stay off my back because they think Ren and I are dating.
It’ll be nice if I can leave it all behind, even though that might be the cowardly thing to do. Even though, maybe, there’d be things worth staying for.
Yas calls me the night before we’re set to fly home again to tell me she thinks things are looking promising. That she and Shay talked to Olson, and every day he seems more and more amenable to the idea of trading me. Especially when my value skyrockets with my stats.
That’s nice, too.
But nice isn’t all Ren is.
She’s room to breathe because, maybe, the press have finally untied their noose.
She’s hands brushing down my spine, telling me it’s okay to stand properly, and those same hands catch all the shit that sits so heavy on my shoulders when it starts to fall to the ground, so it doesn’t bury me.
She’s not a distraction or a smoke screen or whatever PR relationship Yas thought she could cook up that could secure a good trade or maybe brand deals and partnerships and all kinds of sponsorship money.
Matt died on the water. It didn’t take him from me, exactly. But I think, it took me from me. That when he went to sleep forever, I slipped under and I did, too.
Until a woman a bit like the sun started shining down and whispered to me that it was safe to swim for the surface.
Ren
My sanctuary in the fossil lab is haunted.
And not by the ghosts of dinosaurs past, or an unseen infestation that threatens the preservation of all the specimens we keep in here.
By someone very, very living, even though I’m not entirely convinced he actually has a soul.
I recognize the distinct sound of his loafers against the floor. The slow, measured, purposeful—self-important—strides over to my lab bench.
“What do you want, Scott?” I don’t look away from the coelacanth, focusing on the drips of Paraloid B-72 from the pipette into the small cracks along its vertebral column.
His polished shoes edge into my vision, and even though I don’t see it, I can imagine him frowning when he puts his hands in the pockets of his slacks, asking, “Why’d you rotate this one out?”
“Consolidants age, Scott,” I mutter, pinching the end of the pipette before flicking my spare hand towards him. “As does your presence in this lab.”
“Pithy,” he starts. “Contrary to whatever it is you believe about me, Ren, I’m not here to double-check your work. Graham wants to see you in his office.”
I snort, tempted to turn around and chuck the pipette at him. But I roll my shoulders back, setting it down gently beside the coelacanth, and turn in my chair to face him. He looks down at me, an unfazed brow arched, and I blink up at him through a tight smile. “I’m sorry—we aren’t back in school. You aren’t my TA. You don’t get to summon me on his behalf.” Pointing a singular finger to his ID badge that contains his name, his credentials, and his job title, hanging from a lanyard with a stupid tyrannosaurus on it, I continue, “I studied the job description pretty thoroughly, and I don’t remember that being a part of it.”
His brows dip from unfazed to displeased. “I was in his office, and we were working through some budgeting items pertaining to the new collection.” Scott points towards my lanyard, draped over the back of my lab chair. The one with my name, my lesser credentials, and my role beneath him. “The same ones you and I will have to work through together, too.”
My shoulders start to slump at the sight of his extended finger, pointing down at me while he stands tall. I think of all the ways he made me feel stupid—the ways I let him make me feel stupid—and I try to straighten my shoulders again.
I think they might roll into the curve of Miller’s smile.
The one he made at trivia each time I got excited over a question or an answer.
The one that made me feel anything but stupid.
“Is it urgent? I’m a little busy.” I gesture back to the fish, frozen in time and waiting to be fixed.
His eyes flick to the coelacanth, and I know he’s not checking to see how much work I have left; he’s checking for corrections. It’s a piece of him—of us and our relationship, really—I only started to see after I left.
