She looks at me a long time, and the quiet rushes into the gap, and she lets me exist in it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done on purpose in years, standing in the not-knowing with my hands open and empty, and I do it. I don’t say another word.
“I want to start from here,” she says finally. “With both of us knowing exactly how the other one breaks things.”
“Here,” I say. “Okay.”
She leans her shoulder into mine, and I don’t move. I let it stay. I turn my head and she turns hers, close enough that I can see the mascara smudge under her left eye she’d kill me for naming, and I kiss her.
It’s slow and not quite steady, and neither of us puts our hands anywhere — just a mouth on a mouth, careful, both of us a little scared — and it doesn’t undo the damage or the days of silence or any of the work still in front of us.
When we pull apart, she keeps her forehead against mine, and I can feel her breathing. “You smell like the inside of a hockey bag.”
“You fell in love with a hockey player.”
“I fell in love withyou. The smell is a tax.” She pushes off the wall. “Meet me at the pool when you’re done here.”
“What?” I say. “Why?”
“If I tell you, you’ll have a plan for it before you even get there.” Almost a smile. “Just walk in not knowing for once.”
“Okay.” I laugh, then look down, noticing her boot is untied. “Can I get that?”
She looks at the lace, then at me, and laughs. “I know nothing on earth would make you happier, but thank you for asking first.”
thirty
ROWAN
It’san hour or so before I get out of the locker room.
Showered and dressed, I head for the pool, which is on the far side of the athletic complex. I’ve walked this hallway a hundred times and never once turned left at the end of it, because swimming isn’t hockey and I’ve never had a reason.
Tonight I turn left.
The door is propped open with a doorstop, and when I head inside, the chlorine hits me first, sharp and thick enough to taste at the back of my throat. Every light is on, too, the surface of the pool blazing electric blue and throwing ripples across the tiled walls.
Sloane is sitting at the shallow end with her feet in the water. “You found it,” she says.
“You said the pool.” I stop short of her and dump my bag. “There’s one pool.”
“Please tell me you showered.”
I nod.
She pulls her feet out and stands, water dripping off her ankles. “I’m going to try something,” she says, unzipping her jacket and placing it on a bench.
“Okay,” I say, unsure.
“But I don’t want you to do anything. Don’t help me. Don’t say anything kind. I just want you to watch.”
So I watch, and I keep my mouth shut, because somewhere in the last week I finally learned the value of silence, of sometimes letting myself be carried along by circumstances, and of not adjusting or fixing everything right away.
The sweater goes first. She crosses her arms, takes the hem, and draws it slowly over her head — and every instinct I own stands up at once: go to her, help, take over. Because I know how hard it is for her to trust me and to show herself in the light and in public.
I’d close the space, say the easy thing, make a joke.
Take some of the weight off her.
But that’s the whole problem with me in a single reflex, and tonight I don’t get any of it. So I keep my hands at my sides and my mouth shut and let her be exactly as big as she wants to be. Because I know it’s not just the sweater coming off.
