Chapter 35: Breakaway: Chapter 35

SINCE I STARTED HOOKING UP, I’ve been shoved unceremoniously into closets twice—once because the girl I was hooking up with had a boyfriend she neglected to tell me about, and once because her strict parents would have flipped if they saw she had a boy in her room. I’ve hidden underneath the bed, underneath the covers, and on one memorable occasion, clung to the terrace like Romeo fucking Montague. And those are just the times I didn’t get caught. I still wince whenever I remember getting hit on the ass with a well-aimed slipper while I ran out of a house in nothing but my underwear. That grandmother had some arm.

But until now, I’ve never taken hiding so seriously. I’m barely even breathing in case Coach hears it. I’m not that worried about what will happen to me if I get caught—I just want to save Penny the embarrassment, especially after she was so honest with me about her mother.

“Penelope,” he’s saying, “I thought you went back to the dorms.”

“I did,” she says. I watch through the slats in the door—it’s a shutter-style wooden door, which means I have a sliver of a view, but that makes it even more likely Coach will notice that something is up—as she holds up the lab report data sheet. “I forgot this, I had to come back for it.”

“I hope you didn’t walk all the way from campus,” he says. “Mia still picked you up, right?”

“Yeah.” I watch as she runs her hand through her hair. “I took a cab here. I need this for something due tomorrow and I didn’t want to cut your date short. How did it go, by the way?”

As if in reply, a woman calls, “Larry? Is everything okay?”

“Be down in a moment, Nikki,” Coach says. He’s blushing, which I’ve never seen him do. I didn’t realize he was even capable of it.

“Oh,” Penny says. She’s also blushing furiously. “That’s, um, great, Dad. I’ll grab an Uber back to campus.”

“I can drive you,” he says.

“No, it’s cool,” she says quickly. “You should enjoy yourself.”

“I hope you’re still focusing on school,” Coach says, gesturing down to the book in her hands. “I don’t want you reading too much of that stuff, Pen.”

Indignation erupts through me. Penny crosses her arms over her chest, hugging the book. “I’m still doing everything I need to do for school.”

“You won’t become a physical therapist unless you buckle down. You know that.”

A physical therapist? I didn’t even know that was Penny’s plan; she’s never mentioned it. I’ve been wondering why she’s putting herself through a biology degree when her passions so obviously lie elsewhere. Now I see why, and unfortunately, I get it. She wants to make her dad happy, even if that means studying something she’s not interested in. Wanting to make my dad happy is why I’m at McKee right now instead of possibly in the league already.

“I know,” she says. “I’m working on it, I promise. I’m going to office hours all the time.”

“You’ve seemed distracted recently,” he says. He takes a step closer, concern written all over his face. “You’d tell me if something’s going on, right? It’s not something like Preston?”

“No,” she snaps. She grabs the rest of the books from the shelf and tucks her data sheet into one of them. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Because you could always go back to weekly visits with Dr. Faber. You’re still taking your pills, right?”

If possible, the blush on her face gets darker. She glances back at the closet. I wince, wishing I could put my hands over my ears, because this has stumbled into territory that is obviously not my business, but I don’t want to risk making noise and ruining things even worse.

“Dad,” she says. “Seriously, I’m fine. I’m taking my meds. And rereading a series I like doesn’t mean I’m about to go off the deep end again. It’s not like that was even why I… whatever. I’ll talk to you later.”

She flees the room. Coach Ryder stays there for a moment, arms crossed over his chest. I don’t realize it until he takes in a broken breath, but he’s tearing up. He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and carefully wipes his eyes, then clears his throat.

“Sorry about that, honey,” he says to Nikki as he leaves the room. “Can I get you that nightcap now?”

BY THE TIME I wriggle out the window, brave the jump to the ground, and sneak around the house, Penny is halfway down the block. I run to catch up to her. She’s crying, big gulping sobs that hurt my heart to hear. When I put my arm around her shoulders, she shrugs it away.

“Red.”

“When we get to your house, can you drive me home?”

I swallow back the protests I want to make. “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurt.

She looks over. “For what? For hearing all that? It’s not your fault you were there.”

I latch onto the safest topic to bring up, even though I can’t stop wondering who Preston is and why she sees a psychiatrist. “You don’t want to become a physical therapist.”

She sniffles. “No,” she says thickly. “But you know how sometimes you latch onto something and can’t let it go? After my injury, I got kind of interested in my physical therapy, and he suggested I should do that as a career. It’s not like I have any better ideas, so whatever. It’s whatever.”

“It’s not whatever. It’s your life. What about your writing?”

“You don’t know the whole story.”

“So tell me.”

She stops on the sidewalk, looking up at me with tears on her cheeks; her breath crystalizes in the air as she sighs. “I can’t,” she says, her voice cracking. “Don’t worry about it.”

I can’t stop worrying about it, though. I can’t stop when we get to the house and she gathers up her things. I can’t stop when she takes my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring off my shelf and cradles it to her chest like she’s holding a prize. I can’t stop when she hugs Tangy goodbye, or when we drive to campus in silence, or when she dodges my kiss on the way out of the truck. I worry about it in bed, Tangerine tucked against my side and snoring daintily as I read the first couple chapters of Twilight. My worry is taking on a shape I know it’s not supposed to, but it’s not like I can just make it go away. I told her last week we’re not dating, and I’m going to hold onto that as long as I can, but with every second that passes, my feelings march into territory I’ve never felt before.

She told me about her mother, and I’ve got her favorite book in my hands, and I can see her thirteen-year-old handwriting in the margins, and doesn’t it mean something that she offered it up to me? When she reads The Fellowship of the Ring, she’ll see where I dog-eared the pages, where I broke the spine, where I penciled in thoughts during re-reads where things felt particularly magical. I know I’m not supposed to feel this way for her, and maybe I’m reading this whole situation wrong, but she can’t be feeling nothing.

It’s in my chest like a breathing, palpable thing. Not friendship. Something deeper. Eventually, I won’t be able to contain it, and I’m terrified that the moment that happens, I’ll lose Penny for good.