Going in Circles (22 page)

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I shout. “Thanks, but I'm okay, thanks.”

“So polite,” Bang-Up says with a smirk. “We gotta change your name to Nice-N-Easy.”

I laugh, but I still feel woozy, and I wonder where Francesca has gone. She must have left the track, because even if we were just having our first fight, I know she would have checked on me after that wipeout. Maybe she went to find ice or painkillers or a doctor.

Bang-Up has started practice again, and the sound of wheels on wood makes my ears hum.

“What happened?” I ask the two girls still by my side.

Sweetheart Wreckline, a girl with enormous thighs and two flame-red pigtails, says, “Holden Wood slammed into you when you weren't looking. This is why I don't like playing with the boys. They're too rough.”

“It was a legal hit,” bone-thin Stick-N-Stoned says. “I've been hit by Skate Beckinsale harder than that. The girls play
ing on the Hot Wheels teams hit harder than any boy on this track.”

“Broke-Broke's still a Super-Wheelie,” says Sweetheart.

“She chose to be here,” Holden's defender says, shrugging. “That's roller derby.” She skates back to the track.

Sweetheart pats me on the shoulder. “Glad you're not dead,” she says as she takes off to join the others.

Practice has resumed, and I'm the only one sitting in the infield holding an ice pack to my head. The class has split into two packs and they are working on keeping an equal distance between them as they skate, rotating within their formations. I scan the bodies, looking for Francesca's pink helmet, but I still don't see her.

Even though I'm in pain, I feel left out. I want to be back up there. I'm a little wobbly when I stand, and my neck would prefer it if I just went home and fell into a hot bath, but we've only got fifteen minutes left of practice, and I know I can do it. I hop-step into a stride, joining a pack as it whizzes past.

“Up here, Broken!”

This time, when I see Bang-Up's outstretched hand, I reach out and take it. I whip past a skater, increasing my stride, and then I'm in the pack, I'm with the others. I hear Stick-N-Stoned call out that she's on my left. I reach back my hand and feel a grip on my wrist guard. I swing my arm, swooping her around and past me.

“Awesome!” she shouts as she disappears in front of another skater.

There's grunting and panting and the pounding of skates as we move as one machine. Bodies push into each other, striding in and out of the formation. I look back and notice
we're falling behind. I call out to the girl behind me, “Pick it up, pick it up!” and as I'm saying it, I'm doing it, too. I don't feel the pain right now; right now I am so freaking proud of myself for getting back in here and doing it.

When the whistle blows, I'm almost a little sad that it's over.

Almost. I'm still not
that
crazy.

•   •   •

I stumble off the track, mouth guard between my teeth, my arms too tired to hold my water bottle in any other way than in the crook of my pit. I am drenched in sweat, my elbow pads slipping down my arms from the slickness of my skin.

I find Francesca sitting by my bag, huddled over her cell phone. She's in full gear aside from one wrist guard, which she seems to have flung away in frustration. Her phone balances atop her knee pad as she tries to type with one hand.

“What are you doing?” I ask her. “Is this where you've been?”

She ignores me and keeps typing.

“Pastor,” I say, which still sounds foreign to me, like we're undercover when we're in the Wheelhouse. “Pastor! What the fuck?”

She's still not answering, so I start ripping the Velcro straps off my wrist guards, dropping my gear in front of me. I ease myself down to the bench so I can take off my skates. I am mad that she skipped out on practice. There's a 90 percent chance I have a concussion and I still hung in there. What could Jacob want that's so important?

By the time I finish getting out of my gear and packing my things, she still hasn't said a word to me. “Bye,” I tell her as I loop my skates over my shoulder by their laces.

“He's not writing back,” she says.

I turn back around. “What?”

“It's been three days. I keep texting him, saying I just want to know if he's still alive. But I'm getting nothing.”

“Do you think he's dead?”

“He will be when I kill him.”

My legs are trembling and I really want to get home. I want that bath. I have earned that bath. “Maybe you're bothering him.”

“I haven't done anything wrong.”

“Some people don't like to get one hundred texts in a row.”

She looks up from her cell phone and stares me down. Her eyes are burning with anger. “I don't give up, Charlotte.”

A girl skating past me pats me on the ass. “I never took you to be a Charlotte, Broke-Broke,” she says, chuckling. “Nice work out there.”

“Thanks,” I tell her over my shoulder. When I turn back to Francesca, she's sending another text. “Frannie, leave him alone.” I reach for her phone, but she pulls it away.

“No!” she shouts. “What he's doing is rude.”

“Maybe you should break up with him, if he's not treating you the way you want.”

“Is that it?” she asks, standing up. I forget how tall she seems in her skates, so tough and scary in all that gear. “You just quit on someone because they aren't making you happy all the damn time? If you want something, you fight for it.” Then she looks me over, like head to toe. “Not that you'd understand that.”

“I don't? What do you think I've been doing all this time?”

“Waiting! Waiting for someone else to make this decision for you.”

I'm too tired for this argument. “Forget it,” I say. “I'm going home.”

“Nice. I have to hear about Matthew every second of the day, literally nurse you back to the world of the living when your therapist puts you on medication that practically gives you a lobotomy—”

“I had a bad reaction! I wasn't trying to—”

“And now you don't have any time for me when it's my turn to be sad? You kind of suck right now.”

Trash skates in between us with the swiftness of a boxing referee. “Okay, you two bitches need to get to couples counseling,” she scolds. “No more fighting at my practices or it's toilet detail for both of you. You can yell it out while you scrub the bowls clean. Understood?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Francesca says, her eyes still fixed on her cell phone.

As Trash skates off I take a moment, trying to get us both to calm down. “You're going to hear from him in the morning and then everything will be fine,” I say. “It always is. Why should we go through hours of anxiety for nothing?”

“Because that's what friends do, you asshole.” Then she skates past me, bumping my shoulder. She keeps going, skating out of the warehouse, into the parking lot.

“She okay?”

It's Bang-Up asking. She's sitting across from me, shoving gear into a rolling suitcase slapped with a sticker that reads,
MY DERBY WIFE CAN BEAT UP YOUR DERBY WIFE
.

“She will be,” I say.

“Take care of your head,” she says. “You probably shouldn't have gotten back up there, but it's pretty badass that you did. And get a new helmet. Your old one's useless now.”

Francesca's car is gone when I get to the parking lot. But
someone's standing next to my car. It takes a few seconds for me to realize it's Holden.

“I know I'm not supposed to say it,” he says, “but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you that hard.”

“I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. I was looking the other way. I'm fine. But I am getting a mother of a headache.”

“I would imagine.”

It always takes me a second to relearn what someone looks like without a helmet or gear. Holden is all right angles, a thick forehead, angled chin, ears that seem pinned into the sides of his head like afterthoughts. He's got dark, short hair that's jagged and wild, sticky spiked from sweat. His black T-shirt is sagging across his chest, damp and worn. His arms are crossed in front of him, and I notice a bird tattoo on his biceps, near the crook of his elbow. He catches me staring and rubs at it. He lowers his head to catch my eyes, and I am suddenly aware of how close we're standing. I take a step back.

“So, I'm going to get in the bath,” I say. “And try not to slip into a coma tonight.”

“Right. Listen, Broken, I don't know if this is okay to ask, but are you—”

“No.”

He pauses, thinking. His eyebrows knit together in confusion. “No, it's not okay to ask, or no to whatever I didn't get a chance to ask?”

I'm aware of how ridiculous I sound, as my mouth goes dry. “I don't know,” I say quietly. “Both, I guess.”

“Sorry,” he says. “For asking. And for not asking.”

“Not your fault,” I say, trying to ease the tension. “I'm the one with the head injury.”

“Right,” he says, pointing at me. “Or maybe you're just smarter than I thought.”

He puts out his hand and I shake it. He slides his hand across my palm and grips my fingers with his. I pull away like he's hit me with a joke buzzer. I don't want to bring on another panic attack, and I don't know how to tell Holden it's not his fault that I can't seem to handle a man touching me.

“Okay, then,” he says, and heads to his car. A red Honda, covered in bumper stickers, including one for Obama and another for the Hot Wheels. As he drives away, he ducks his head and raises his hand, one more apology for the road.

There's a breeze on the back of my neck as I toss my gear into my trunk. My head aches and I just want to go home and hide.

I'm not waiting,
I tell myself.
Francesca's wrong. I'm just not ready.

But then I have to wonder:
Ready for what?

S
o, call me today, tonight, whenever. I'll be up. Okay, bye.”

It has been two days since we fought, and I can't get Francesca on the phone. She even called in sick to work. I kind of have to admire her dedication to avoiding someone. I used her office while she was gone so that I didn't have to be near Jonathan. It's awkward between us right now, and I know he wants things to go back to the way they were, but he'll just have to wait. He's not my first priority.

I open my laptop to check Matthew's Facebook page, but stop myself. I actually don't want to know any more. I just don't care. It's not a decision that requires any further thought. Right now there seem to be more important things than trying to figure out what Matthew is doing with his time without me. I have to figure out what to do with my time without him.

Charlotte Goodman realizes she's just repeated to herself something her friend Francesca has told her a million times. If Francesca were in charge of the narrator in Charlotte's head, right now she'd be telling him to say: Suck on that, Charlotte Good
man. Now watch your tiny friend dance around your apartment with the freedom that comes from the satisfaction of being right.

I delete my fake profile, which removes my access to Facebook. It feels like I've made an executive decision, one that should come with . . .

A certificate.

I text Francesca:
I QUIT THE INTERNET. WILL THAT MAKE YOU FORGIVE ME
?

No reply.

This leaves me with just the couch and the Fuck You Television. How easily I can just stay here again, like I used to, falling asleep to Jon Stewart, only to wake up disoriented and depressed. The couch is calling to me, asking me to curl up around a cushion and give up. Give in and stay there until everybody has forgotten about me, until I've forgotten about everything.

But I can't do that. I've come too far.

I call Andy.

Two hours later we are at a dark Chinese-themed bar, crammed into a wooden booth, mashed against a brick wall from elbow to shoulder. The truth is we are grateful for the structural support, as the drinks in this place are superstrong. We haven't come here in years, and I had forgotten how much I love this place. Having to squint through the dark to see each other, the jukebox that plays every song so loudly you have to lean in to understand each other, the red bulbs everywhere making everyone look mysterious and foreign. I find it to be incredibly romantic, and just what I want as I sip my martini.

That said, I don't think I should have a second one.

“Too late. I've already ordered it,” Andy says, as he pushes the drink in front of me.

“I owe you one.”

“You owe me nothing.” Andy steals my skewer of olives and pops one into his mouth before returning it to my drink. “Except maybe some of your time. I was going to pretend to be mad at you, but you look so pitiful I just don't have the strength to go through with it.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you ever wonder how many times a day you apologize? Because you do it a lot.”

He scratches at his wrist, a habit he's had as long as I've known him, which means he is uncomfortable.

“What's wrong?”

He fiddles with his glass of Scotch. “I don't know, Charlotte. It feels like there's too much to cover, really. You kind of dropped out of my life.”

“So you weren't going to pretend to be mad at me. You
are
mad at me.”

“I'm not mad,” he says, still scratching at his wrist as he searches for the words. “I'm surprised how quickly I got dropped.”

“I didn't drop you. Derby's been kind of hectic, and—”

“I lost my job.”

This shuts me up.

“I got another job, so it's fine. But you never even knew that I was unemployed.”

“I'm sor—”

“At first I thought you ditched me because I reminded you of all the shit you've gone through, but then I figured that couldn't be it, because I never even liked Matthew to begin with. No offense.”