“I’m not quitting playing,” I say adamantly. “Forget it.”
Dee makes a frustrated sound, throwing up her hands just asher cell phone begins to chime in her pocket. She wrestles it out and glances at the screen, sighing when she reads the name there.
“It’s Ian,” she says. “The game must be over.” She glances at me. “I’m going to step outside and talk to him, but this is not over, do you hear me? This game isn’t worth your arm.”
I don’t say anything, because again, I don’t think there is anything I could say to make her understand how I feel. I’ve spent my entire life being the happy guy she needs me to be, the light in the darkness that was our childhood after the death of our parents—and even as adults, it’s a mantle I’ve kept up. It’s almost easy, pretending not to care about anything. It’s second nature now.
But I can’t lose this.
The doctor says something about speaking to a nurse, telling me something about how she’ll be in later to give me some pain medication. The hit I took on the ice just sprained my old wound, thankfully, but still it feels like it might as well be broken all over again. ThatImight as well be broken.
Because if I can’t play, then what the fuck even am I?
I can feel the familiar panic clawing up my throat, one that is always happy to rear its head even as desperately as I try to keep it under wraps. I have medication for it at home, but it’s not going to do me any good here. I know I could ask the doctor about it, but then Dee would most likely find out, and thelastthing I want is for her to know I struggle with that shit. She’d just worry, and worrying my sister is something I do my damnedest to avoid.
I don’t notice at first that there’s someone else in the room, not until the doctor leaves and I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I blink in surprise when I notice Abby tucked in thecorner, looking uncomfortable and out of place as she stands there clutching car keys.
“What are you doing here?”
She jangles the keys. “I brought Lila’s car.”
It should be weird that Abby adopted Ian’s nickname for Dee, given that he’s the only one who ever really calls her that, but I’ve gotten used to it over time.
“Oh.” I feel suddenly embarrassed that she witnessed everything here, my neck flushing as I turn my face from her. “Sorry you had to see all that drama.”
“It’s not drama,” she says with a snort. “How’s your arm?”
I scoff. “Useless, apparently, didn’t you hear?”
“He said it was treatable,” she points out.
“Sure, if I want to give up the best season we’ve had in years,” I answer bitterly. I realize then that I’m being a total downer, trying to force a smile to break up the doom and gloom. “But hey, if my arm is busted”—I wave to my crotch—“I still have two more.”
She makes a face. “Do you always have to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make everything into a stupid joke,” she says. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not worried about all this.”
“I—” My mouth snaps shut. I’m not unused to people calling me on my shit, far from it, but for some reason, when Abby does it, it’s always cut just a little deeper. Almost like she can see right through me. “I didn’t say I wasn’t worried.”
“Lila and Ian will kick your ass if you insist on continuing to play at your own detriment, you know.”
“They wouldn’t lay hands on someone with a disability, surely,” I say with a mock gasp.
She rolls her eyes. “See? That’s what I’m talking about. It’sobvious as fuck that this is scary, but you’re trying to pretend it isn’t. I don’t get it.”
I stare back at her, trying to come up with a response. It’s not often that I’m rendered speechless, but again, from the moment I met her, Abby seemed to have some sort of superpower when it comes to cutting through my shit. It always makes me feel like I need to step up my game around her, that I need to keep the bullshit at an all-time high just so she can’t see through me with those piercing gray eyes of hers.
It doesn’t help that she’s devastatingly pretty. Sure, it’s in an Ian way, but honestly, the more I’ve gotten to know her over the last six months or so, the less that seems to be true. The shape of her nose is different, more petite. Her pale blond hair is a far cry from the bright ginger of Ian’s, and even her cheekbones have a grace to them that sets her apart. So yeah, at first glance, she looks a lot like her brother, but if you look closer, there’s something so inherentlyhersabout her looks that it’s hard to even compare the two.
Which is why I make sure to compare the two as often as possible, because being attracted to my best friend’s sister—despite what traitor Ian thinks—is bad news.
“Iamscared,” I admit quietly, not even entirely sure what prompts me to do so. “But what good does that do me? I can’t quit. Like I said. I’ll just have to push through it till after the season.”
“And why is that?”
Because this is all I have. Because there’s literally nothing elsegoodabout me that I have.
