Page 66

She squeezes my hand. “Thank you. Sometimes I still need to hear that.”

“I’ll say that as many times as you need. What you went through was never a problem, and I shouldn’t have let it get caught up in mine.”

She rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. “I still think about going to the clinic, you know. Sometimes I feel so ashamed, and sometimes I feel so fucking tired of being ashamed. I believe it was the right choice, but that doesn’t mean I can just forget about it.”

I remember sitting in the waiting room with her just like this, with her head on my shoulder. A Celine Dion album was playing through the room’s speakers. I remember wondering who the hell decided Celine Dion should be the soundtrack for an abortion clinic waiting room.

“It was the right choice. I’m proud of you. You were brave and strong. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

It definitely felt like there was something to be ashamed of when we got back to my place afterwards and Lisa was hanging around, waiting to ask me why I wasn’t studying at the library like I said. I had no answer for her, other than to say Kala needed me and that it wasn’t up for discussion.

That’s the only answer I had when she told the whole team what happened.

“You’re the best.” Kala sits up and reaches for her wine again. “Let’s talk about happier things. Tell me how things are going with this girl.”

“I don’t know if I would call that a happy situation...”

She makes a face. “Oh, come on, you’re clearly crazy about her. You haven’t even said anything, and I can already tell.” She wags her eyebrows. “Have you done the nasty yet?”

I burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you still call it doing the nasty. What are you, ten years old?”

“Well have you?” she urges.

I glance down at the floor.

“Oh my god, you have! When? Tell me everything!”

“It was, uh...a couple nights ago. After the game.”

“So much scoring in one day!”

I laugh again, but I trail off into silence after. We aren’t just chatting about some girl I met at the library who has no connection to the team, and I can’t keep ignoring reality.

“Becca,” Kala says in a soft voice, “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I think this might all be a lot less complicated than you realize. People weren’t mad that you and Lisa dated. They were mad that things exploded the way they did and cost you guys the league qualifiers. That wasn’t your fault. That was Lisa’s, and anyone who believed otherwise left the team with her.”

I stay quiet, waiting for her to realize those weren’t the only people who left the team.

“And me,” she adds after a moment, “but I left because my life was better without the team. I needed to focus on myself and get my grades back up. Did things with Lisa spur that decision on? Yes, but I know I would have left eventually anyway.”

I want to believe her. I really do. I want to believe this is all simpler than I realize, that I could just date Hope and have it all be fine, but I still remember the whispers. I remember the dirty looks. I remember the disappointment and anger all aimed at me every time we lost, and I can’t help thinking I deserved it. I got involved with Lisa in the first place after all.

How I feel with Hope is so different from how I felt with Lisa. I can’t even compare the two, but that doesn’t mean things with Hope couldn’t go wrong in their own way. I made it through nearly losing the team once, but I don’t know if I could make it through losing the team and Hope.

“I know the team is special to you,” Kala says, displaying her knack for reading my mind, “but you need relationships too, of all kinds, and this seems like it could be a really good one.”

“If I don’t fuck it up,” I mumble. “I’m already so nervous about all this that I don’t know how I’m going to get through our next practice, never mind our next game. We’re not even actually dating, and it’s already having an impact on the team. She doesn’t even know anything about us yet. I feel like I’m wrecking it already.”

“Okay, back up the bus.” She brandishes her wine glass at me. “How about we take this one step at a time? You only did the nasty for the first time two nights ago.”

She smirks and wiggles her eyebrows again, so of course I have to laugh.

“Your game is next weekend, right?” she asks. I nod. “So why don’t you just focus on getting through that? You’re always kind of...tense leading up to games anyway, so there’s no point trying to face every single complication when you’re already stressed. Maybe after you guys get back from Montreal, you, me, and her could have lunch or something.”

“Really?”

She chuckles at how incredulous I sound. “Yeah, of course. I’m not saying I would have been down to get friendly with Lisa, but I think it might help for you to be like, ‘Want to meet my best friend? We randomly dated for a few months in high school and it was so awkward we went right back to being besties. I would love for us to hang out!’ Lisa only found out we dated, like, what? Two months into your relationship?”

Kala was still in the process of coming out around campus back then, and I didn’t want to tell Lisa about our history before she was ready to be out to the whole team.