Page 18 of Finding Her

bear

Crossy’s plan was insane but strangely, also made sense: make Poppy hate me so much that she complained about having to be my partner.

If Mrs. Dixon complained about having me in the class again, then there was no chance they would keep me in the class.

And, we hoped, then the teachers would realize that they couldn’t put me in any gym class and just take one of my ideas of either extra credit or letting hockey act as my second gym credit.

Because technically, I wasn’t doing anything bad enough to get me kicked out of the class, which meant it wouldn’t be fair of the school to make me retake the class next semester or in the summer.

If they tried, I was sure my father would be fighting on my behalf.

He wouldn’t let anything slow down my progress to become a professional hockey player, especially not something as pesky as gym .

The first chance I had to try out our plan was in the middle of the week, when Mrs. Dixon announced we would be running the mile. Poppy already looked like she was dreading this and I couldn’t blame her—and unfortunately for her, I was going to be making it even worse.

“Want to run it together?” I asked, hating the words as they came out of my mouth.

It would have been so easy not to say anything and put off this ridiculous plan for the next time we were actually doing something with our partners, but if I wanted out of this gym class, I needed to get on this as soon as possible.

The camping trip was only two weeks away.

Poppy’s eyes immediately brightened in a way that made me unsure about this plan all over again. “Sure!”

Before we could do the run, though, Mrs. Dixon made us all stretch.

Of course, Poppy stuck to my side like velcro as I found an isolated enough spot on the field.

I was glad to notice none of the freshmen tried to follow us over.

Dealing with Poppy on her own was tiring enough without adding a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls trying to get my attention into the mix.

“You know,” Poppy said brightly as we both began to stretch, “I think if we’re going to be partners all year, then we should get to know each other a little.”

I bit back my retort that we weren’t going to be partners all year, because I didn’t need to let her in on what I was planning. But I also really did not want to play a get-to-know-you game, so I just continued to stretch in silence.

“I’ll start,” Poppy continued, totally undeterred. “My name is Poppy Wade.”

“I knew that already,” I said flatly. I had a feeling that would be my response to a lot of facts she shared about herself, because she had told me pretty much everything there was to know about her on that first day we became partners.

I wasn’t sure there was anything she could say that would surprise me at this point.

“Well, I have to start somewhere, don’t I?” she asked rhetorically. Then, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, she sank into the splits. I stared at her in bewilderment.

“How the heck do you know how to do that?” I asked. Truthfully, the very concept of the splits freaked me out. There was no reason anybody’s body needed to be able contort like that. It was unnatural.

She smiled. “I’ve always taken dance classes. And I was on the cheer squad at my last school. It’s too bad Hartwell doesn’t have one or we could cheer on the hockey team.”

And then she did something crazier by leaning forward to stretch over her front leg. She turned her head to the side so she could look at me.

“Now tell me something about you, Bear.”

Yeah, I wasn’t playing this game. “I’ve got nothing to share.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. I hated that I thought she looked cute like that. “Fine. Tell me about your name.”

I frowned. “My name?”

“Yeah, like, why do they call you Bear?”

“I told you already,” I said, moving into another stretch. “It’s based on my last name, Barrett.”

“Okay, sure,” she said. “But most people don’t go around saying, ‘Okay, give me a nickname based on my last name.’ Where did it come from?”

I huffed, not wanting to answer but knowing that she was going to keep pushing me if I didn’t. “It’s a thing on the hockey team. We all go by nicknames based on our last names. Like… I’m Bear. Michael Valentine is Tino. Jace McIntyre is Mako. Things like that.”

Poppy seemed satisfied with my answer, because she then asked me about my family.

After that, she asked me about my house, my roommate, my classes, and everything else under the sun.

She didn’t stop asking for the entire time we stretched.

And since I didn’t ask her any questions, she happily answered the ones that she asked as well.

So, by the end of the ten minutes, I knew a lot more about her than I had any reason to.

Her dad worked some big corporate job that meant they had to move around a lot, so this was the fifth school she’d been to.

She was hoping she would stay here until she graduated, but she didn’t trust that her parents wouldn’t pull her out of Hartwell next year if they moved.

She hoped to stay close for college somewhere in the area because this was her favourite place she’d lived so far and her older sister, Ivy, was planning to stay close as well.

Her sister was also her best friend in the world and they still talked every day, even while Poppy was at school.

Her second best friend was Saylor, the girl Crossy had been eyeing at the beach.

They’d lived together last year, but now she was rooming with Lilah.

She said she liked the living arrangement fine, although she wasn’t sure if she and Lilah would ever be as close as she was with Saylor.

Her favorite color was yellow because it reminded her of sunshine—something I could have guessed easily.

She used to play the trombone in middle school and she could still play it badly.

And my favorite fact was that she once almost failed gym class too, though for her, it had been because she had an injury but the school wouldn’t excuse her from gym without a doctor’s note and since she had just moved, she didn’t have a new doctor yet.

I smiled triumphantly when she said that and said, “See, I’m not the only one who can fail gym class.”

“At least I had a legitimate reason. You just chose not to show up.”

I pretended to be wounded, although she was completely right, even if I would never admit it to anybody.

In turn, I found myself answering her questions as well, mostly because if I tried to stay silent, she would stare at me until I answered.

Normally, I didn’t mind sitting in silence, but the way she was staring me down made it uncomfortable.

So, I found myself telling her about my family too.

About how both my parents had gone to Hartwell, but didn’t start dating until they were in college.

How coming to boarding school never seemed like much of an option because they’d both wanted it for me and in the end, I thought it was the best fit anyway.

How my dad was in the NHL for years and he wanted the same for me.

She just stared at me and asked, “And what do you want?”

I switched my stretch so that I didn’t have to look at her and try to answer.

Because the truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted.

I didn’t know it at all. I knew that hockey was the most important thing in my life.

I knew that I couldn’t let anything else get in the way of it.

Did I want it for me? Or did I want it to make him happy? I couldn’t tell.

I told her all the mundane things about me too. When she asked my favorite color, I just spit out the first one I thought of. “Dark gray.”

And she stared at me and said, “Like black?”

And I doubled down and said, “No, dark gray. Like the color of that girl’s shirt.” I pointed at a girl who was wearing one of the unusual Hartwell shirts that was gray with Hartwell along the front, instead of the purple ones the rest of us were wearing.

She nodded and said, “That’s a stupid favorite color. But, I like that you’re unique.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was an insult or not, so I just stayed silent.

I guess she didn’t mind because she kept asking me questions, leading me to tell her about my friends.

About how Tino was roommate, and about Crossy, who she remembered from the day on the beach.

She asked if I knew what was going on between him and Saylor, and I honestly answered no, because I didn’t realize there was anything actually going on.

He was obviously interested in her, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure there was anything to say.

Finally, when she seemed to be running out of questions, I asked her the question that had been plaguing my mind since the first day we met.

“Why did you choose me?” I asked.

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“To be your partner?” I said, realizing I hadn’t clarified the question at all. “You chose me. Why?”

She just stared for a minute and said, “Well, why shouldn’t I?”

That answer threw me so much that I barely heard Mrs. Dixon call us all up.

As I walked over, I thought about the answer.

Why shouldn’t I? I could think of a thousand reasons, beyond the obvious fact that I was the only boy in the class and everybody should probably be giving me a wide berth.

The fact that I had hit her with a dodgeball the previous day.

That I’d refused to speak to her. That I had a reputation for being rude around school.

That everything about me screamed stay far away .

Because she was her and I was me, and there was no reason two people like us should spend any time together.

When Mrs. Dixon blew the whistle for us to start running, I took off like a shot.

Screw starting off with a jog, I just started full-on sprinting.

I was sure that I was going to immediately leave Poppy in the dust and then she would be upset because she couldn’t keep up when I had asked her if she wanted to run with me.

But to my surprise, she was right there the whole time.

Every time I looked over, there she was.

I would push myself ahead, push myself so hard that I felt like my lungs were burning and my legs were going to fall, and she would stay by my side for every moment. She never slowed down. Not once.

Even though she wasn’t chattering away the way she normally would, she was smiling hard. A huge smile on her face, looking so pleased. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why.

It was ridiculous. Was this girl secretly super-woman or something? I mean, I was killing myself with how hard I was running, how fast I was running, but she looked like she was just going for a nice jog around the neighbourhood.

By the end of the class, I was dripping in sweat, had a stitch in my side, and I was slightly worried that I was gonna throw up. But still, Poppy never stopped smiling. I was starting to wonder if she was physically incapable of stopping.

“Great…” The word was barely audible out of her mouth and she had to catch her breath for nearly a minute before she could manage to add, “Class.”

I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to open my mouth, so I just nodded, still huffing and puffing.

She raised her arm just barely in a wave and stumbled off toward the locker room.

I watched her go as I rubbed the stitch in my side, grudgingly impressed with how much she’d managed to keep up with me.

But she’d also ruined my plan because if doing that hadn’t made her want to get rid of me altogether, I wasn’t sure what would.