I chuckle. I never thought I’d laugh when talking about this. I’ve yelled, I’ve cried, and I’ve gone silent. But I’ve never laughed. “A disease-modifying antirheumatic drug. It does thesame thing… I think? Honestly, I kinda zone out at my appointments. Don’t really trust the doctors anymore.”
Peyton flashes me an earnest glance, but I keep going, my voice steady. I don’t understand it. Even just thinking about it sometimes causes a flare in my chest, forces my eyes to well. So how can I suddenly let it all spill out, no Smirnoff, no tears? It doesn’t make sense. Peyton being easy to talk to doesn’t make sense. “And these two are for the pain.”
She nods, her throat visibly working as she swallows. “Does it—sorry, you don’t have to answer that actually,” she says quickly, shaking her head.
I shrug. We’ve gotten this far. “I’ve already told you pretty much everything,” I say. “In short at least. Ask away.”
Her eyes snap back to mine, searching me. A soft worry pools in the golden flecks, and that, that right there, is what I was afraid of.
“I was just gonna ask… like,whereit hurts.”
A heavy sigh slips from me before I can stop it. I grab my water bottle, twisting the cap open.
“Everywhere,” I reply quietly, and I tilt my head back, swallowing the pills with a few large gulps. I wipe my lips, nodding again. “Everywhere.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “And you can’t play anymore? Like, at all?”
I want to lie. But the last time I lied to Peyton, I didn’t enjoy it. “Ican,” I admit, and I have to force the rest of it out. “But leisurely. And after I had to quit… I just can’t bring myself to do it.”
“That’s why you get so upset about me practicing so much,” she realizes softly. I nod.
“I lost hockey over something I couldn’t control. I couldn’t imagine losing it over something I could.”
”Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks. “That morning in the rink, when you threw the puck? You could’ve shut me up so fast.” She says the last words with a half-laugh, but it fades quickly.
I prop my back against the wall beside her.“That’swhy,” I say, pointing to her. She tilts her head. “If I had told you, you’d have shut up. Not because I had experience, but because you’d feel bad that I lost it.”
Her head snaps toward me, a defensive look knitting her brows together. “That’s not true,” she testifies. “If I’d known you had a spot on the Portland Porcupines, whatever you said next wouldn’t matter.”
I force a smile. “I love that you think that’s true.”
“Itistrue.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what the look in your eyes says.”
She blinks rapidly, like she’s trying to flush the pity from her gaze. “What look?”
“The ‘I’m scared to break you’ look.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” I cut in softly. “It’s how everyone looks at me when they find out.”
Going silent, her arms tuck tightly across her chest. She sits there for a moment, pondering. Finally, she speaks. “I’m not scared to break you.”
“Sure.”
She rolls her eyes, jumping off the bed with an energetic bounce. “C’mon,” she encourages, jogging in place. “I’ll prove it.”
My brows furrow as I watch her move around the room. She reaches for my phone, and before I can grab it, she’s already got it in her hands. “Hey, that’s mine!” I shoot, trying to snatch it back, but she grins and pulls it further away.
“Then get up,Coach,” she teases. “Show me you can take it.”
I cock a brow. “Takewhat, exactly?”
She rolls her eyes before grabbing me by both wrists and pulling me to my feet. I stand reluctantly, crossing my arms, trying to figure out where this is going. She flips the phone toward me, silently prompting me to enter my password.
I don’t know why I comply.
