Playing Defense (Corrigan Falls Raiders) (17 page)

She shook her head. “When you got off track, maybe. But it wasn’t a mistake to get
on
track again. No.”

“It was if I don’t like the track. If it’s not going where I want, it’s a mistake.”

“It
is
going where you want! Nanotechnology is—”

“I want a
life
!” I screamed. I knew I wasn’t supposed to raise my voice. I knew I was supposed to be calm and logical and keep myself under control. I knew all that, but I didn’t care. I whirled and headed for the stairs. I needed to get out of my pajamas and out of that house. I was still alive; I couldn’t waste that gift.

…

Saturday morning practice had scouts from the Big League
and
the national hockey body. The NHL scouts were important, obviously, but the Hockey Canada guys were almost a bigger deal, because they were the ones who invited players to the World Juniors, coming up in a few weeks. I figured Tyler was in for sure, and probably Cooper, but the rest of the team was just wishing for miracles.

But I didn’t seem to care at all. I kept the coach’s warning in mind and practiced hard, but with control. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone in the stands, though. I just wanted to smash into people, wanted to push my body to its limits and exhaust myself and not have any energy left for thinking, or remembering. Or wishing things were different.

After the practice, a couple scouts came down to talk to us and I managed to be polite, but I got out of there as soon as possible. Tyler wanted me to go to Sullivan’s for a while, but I didn’t feel like hanging out with the guys.
Or
with Tyler, really. I was pretty sick of the way he was watching me all the time, like he thought I was going to break into pieces and he’d have to scoop me up and put me back together.

So I ducked out of the arena while he was still putting on the Tyler MacDonald show for the agents and headed for my truck. When I saw someone waiting there in the bright sunlight—someone smaller, someone female—I froze. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t have my defenses up. I knew a clean break was best, and I didn’t want to fight anymore or hear more justifications. I didn’t want to look at Claudia and think about how I used to be able to touch her and now I couldn’t, how she used to smile when she saw me coming, and how the smile I gave her in return seemed to come from way inside me, not just from my face.

She stepped forward as if she knew what I was thinking. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was a bit shaky, and I guess I’m an asshole because that made me glad. I wanted this to be hard for her, too. “I know I… I know it was me.” She came a little closer, and I didn’t seem to be able to do the smart thing and move away.

“I made a mistake,” she said. She was talking faster now, as if she had a lot to say and wanted to get it out before I left. Or maybe before she lost her courage. “I got scared. After all that lecturing about
you
trying, I was the one who quit as soon as things got hard. I know that.” She looked at me as if she was hoping for, or maybe even expecting, some encouragement. But I just didn’t have it to give, and after a moment, she gave up and started talking again.

“Before, it was like I was sleeping, and then I woke up.
You
woke me up. You and Ms. Coyne and Karen and the Sisterhood, but mostly
you
. And I liked it. I
loved
it. But…” She frowned now, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. It would have been the most natural thing to go over and wrap my arms around her, but I forced myself to stay away. After a shaky breath, she kept going. “I got scared. Being awake was great, but it was scary. Living my own life, growing up,
living
now instead of storing up for some future—I panicked. And when Ms. Coyne—when she died, it should have made it
more
clear to me that I needed to live now. But it didn’t. I don’t know why. I guess because it hurt? Because living out here, with people, not numbers—sometimes I’m going to get hurt. And instead of accepting that, I hated it and I wanted to run away.”

She’d shuffled closer now, close enough that I could have reached out and touched her if I dared. I kept my hands locked tight around the straps of my gear bag.

“And I hurt you when I did it. I didn’t
mean
to, but I was too chicken
not
to. And I’m really, really sorry. I made a mistake. I don’t want to be asleep anymore.” She took a deep breath and then lifted her chin, and right there in the parking lot, the sun caught her eyes and made them bright and fierce, and she was Dia. “I’m not
going
to be asleep anymore. I think that’s important, for me and maybe for you. I—I hope you’ll give me another chance. I really, really hope you will. But even if you don’t, I’m going to do this. I’m going to keep going, and keep living.
I’m
going to keep trying, even though it’s scary.” She nodded as if she’d convinced herself.

“Tomorrow night is the poetry jam, and I’m going to do it. I know you have a game, so you couldn’t be there even if you wanted to, and probably you don’t really want to, and I don’t blame you. But I’m going to do it, for me and for Ms. Coyne and for you, and for my mom, in a kind of backward way. I want her to understand that the choices I’m making are
mine
. They’re not about you…not directly. Not
just
about you. I mean, I want to be with you because I want to be alive, but the wanting to be alive part is coming from me, not from you. Does that make any kind of sense?”

I nodded slowly. I was pretty sure I understood, but I wasn’t really sure I trusted her to follow through.

She nodded like I’d said that aloud. “I know I have no right to ask you this, Chris, but please give me another chance.” She made a weird half-laugh, half-sob sound. “I
challenge
you to give me another chance. A Sisterhood challenge, so you can turn it down if you want to. But if you could take the challenge, even if you were being really cautious and careful about it? That would be really awesome. For me. And I’d try to make it awesome for you, too. I won’t let you down again. I promise.”

I heard noise from behind me, then. Familiar voices, coming closer, and I didn’t want to be around the guys right then. I felt like Claudia had ripped all my skin off and I was just a bunch of exposed nerves. Joking that normally would have bounced off me like—well, like I was a rubber wall—would have been too much.

“I get a night, right?” I said quickly. “That’s the deal? You give the challenge, and I get a night to decide if I take it?”

She nodded. “But it’s not a real challenge. I mean, the Sisterhood challenges are supposed to be about suggesting ways to make
you
more awesome. Really, I’m being selfish about this. I want you to do it for me, not for you. You’re already awesome.”

I sure didn’t feel awesome. She stepped away from my truck and I practically ran to it, diving inside and shutting the door without saying good-bye to her, or nodding at the guys who were walking by, watching us curiously, or doing anything else that would remind me that the cab of the truck was mostly transparent and it really wasn’t my safe den where I could hide from all the confusion. I peeled out of the parking lot as if I were running away from something, but of course it all came along with me. There was no escape. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Chapter Sixteen

There were about twenty participants in the poetry jam. Twenty
poets
, I guess, but that sounded weird. There wasn’t a backstage area or anything glamorous, just some seats in the front reserved for us.

I keep turning around to look behind me at the audience. Maybe a hundred people? I know, that’s not a lot, really, but it was about four times bigger than my English class, which made it four times more people than I’d ever spoken in front of before.

And I was committed to doing it right. At least, I
wanted
to be committed. I knew my poem wasn’t all that great, as usual, so it was only going to work if I could really perform it. I needed to use my voice and my body to convey the emotions that were too much for my useless words.

Another peek behind me. Karen and Oliver, Karen’s half sisters
and
their mom, which was a bit weird, Dawn, a couple people from my English class…and they’d all driven hours on the highway to come down and see me. I
had
to do it, and I had to do it right. I felt like this event was the test of my new life; if I wasn’t strong enough to do this, maybe I wasn’t strong enough to do the rest of it, either.

The first three poets were good. Powerful words, and they seemed totally confident, like they owned the stage. The fourth poet totally crashed, like he lost his nerve from the start and his mind from the middle. He ended up quitting before his poem really seemed over, just finishing one sentence, saying thank you, and jogging off the stage.

I stopped turning around to look at the audience at that point. I didn’t want to freak myself out any more than I already was.

Three more poets, all solid, and then my turn. My hands were shaking, and my gray flannel dress, the one Chris had said was practically a schoolgirl outfit, felt horribly unsophisticated. I should have grunged it up like some of the others, or dressed up more, or—I should have been different.

But it was too late. I forced myself up the short flight of stairs to the stage, turned and faced the audience, and froze.

There was no way. I hadn’t realized the spotlight would be so bright, hadn’t thought the faces of the crowd would be so hard to see and seem so cruel as they sat in the shadows. I could only see the first couple rows, not far back enough to find the Sisterhood, and there was just no way.

This wasn’t me. I wasn’t a performer. I was quiet, serious Claudia Waring, not Dia the slam poet. Everything was a mistake; my mother was right, this wasn’t me. I had to get off the stage, get out of there…

I half turned, heading for the stairs, and then I heard his voice. “Hey, Dia.” Calm and comforting, too familiar by far, but impossible that he was there. The team had a game in London, a couple hours away, and he wasn’t even my boyfriend, and he couldn’t be there.

But he was. Every head in the small auditorium turned to watch him stride down the aisle, but he kept his gaze on me. I watched him, trying to understand.

He reached the base of the stage and said, “You just need to try, Dia. You’re awesome, right? You can do it.”

I was pretty sure he was wrong about that. But there was something in the way he looked at me that made me feel strong.

So I nodded, jerky and rough, but when he started to back away I reached out my hand and he froze. I kept my gaze on him, spoke my words to him as if it were only the two of us in the room, or maybe even on the planet.

“My mom says I’m special,” I told him. And I made myself speak a little louder to be sure he heard. “I’m smart, and I know what’s important. My mom says I can
be
someone.” It was true, and I wasn’t angry about it, at least not right then.

“Ms. Coyne said I’m special, too.
She
said I already
am
someone.” I sped up a little, then, falling into the rhythm Karen and I had developed when I practiced with her. “Karen says we’re sisters, fighting side by side. I don’t know how to fight, but she makes me want to learn. Annalise says I’m different, not acting like myself, but I’m not sure she knows who I actually am. I’m not sure I do, either.” And then the crucial part, the part I had to get right. I looked down at him as I said, “Chris says I’m different, and awesome, and beautiful and brave. I want to believe him. I want that so much. Because
he
really is all those things, and I want to be worthy of him.” A bit melodramatic, maybe, but I meant every word. Now I made myself look away from Chris, staring out into the audience as I said, “Everyone says things. They say so much, and I just listen. But I want to start talking.” I grinned a little and said, “I just need to figure out what I want to say.”

And that was it. People were applauding, but the blood was pounding in my ears so loudly I couldn’t really judge whether the applause was enthusiastic or just polite. But it didn’t matter. I knew the words weren’t anything special, but it had felt incredible to say them. To put myself out there, to be honest and brave and try to be real. I was shaking a little as I climbed down from the stage and Chris took my hand, just to support me. But when I made it to the floor he didn’t let go. Instead he leaned down and said, “Do you need to stay for the other poems?”

I knew I should. They’d all sat through mine, so I should sit through theirs. It was the proper thing to do. But this time, just once, I shook my head. “Not really,” I said.

I followed him up the aisle, glancing over at Karen to see a huge grin on her face, and then we were out of the auditorium and kept moving until we were all the way outside. It was cold, a sort of rainy snow driving down around us, and I’d left my jacket with Karen. But there was no way I was going back for it.

Chris looked at me and frowned as if just then realizing how ill-prepared I was for the weather. He started shrugging out of his jacket but I reached up with both hands and pulled it back up on his shoulders. “I’m okay,” I told him. “But how are you here? I thought you had a game.”

“I do. I told coach I needed to do something, and he let me skip it. He wants to give the rookies a bit more ice time anyway.”

I was pretty sure it was a bigger deal than he was making it seem. “Thanks for coming,” I said. “It really made a difference. I think I would have chickened out if you hadn’t been there.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

And then we just stood there, looking at each other. Well, I’d been the one to mess up, so I guess it was my job to keep trying to make it better. “Did you think about the challenge?”

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “Haven’t been thinking about much else. You’re still thinking that way? You still want to give it another shot?”

“More than anything,” I promised him. “I care about you so much. And I care about
us
. And I believe in you, and in us. Truly.”

“I think you just need to believe in
you
,” he said quietly. “I think if you do that, the rest of it will take care of itself.”

“I do,” I said fervently. Then I shrugged and admitted, “Mostly. But I’ll keep working on it. I’ll keep trying. Will you help me?”

“I will,” he said. Then he drew the edges of his jacket around me and pulled me close, and he kissed me and I kissed him back. And neither of us felt the cold at all.