Page 58 of Fall For Me
She sifts through the contents inside, then pulls out a picture of awoman with her arms wrapped around a toddler-aged Jade, their faces smushed together.
“Aww. That’s such a sweet picture.”
“This is my Janelle, Jade’s mother.” She hands over the picture, and I stare down at it, surprised how much she and I resemble each other. “May I ask . . .”
“She died in a car wreck a couple of years ago.”
Oh, God.
My heart breaks for the little girl who will never know her mother. Maybe the loss of our moms is what I felt connecting us.
“Oh, lookie here.” She passes a picture of Janelle and Aiden, making a silly face into the camera.
I slide it on top of the one with Jade and her mother. “Were they high school sweethearts?”
“Oh, they’d date for a while, then break up, date for a while, then break up again. They always kept coming back to each other . . . until they didn’t. Janelle was a grade below Aiden. Too young to be havin’ kids, those two. They were just babies themselves. Janelle’s momma had her young too,andjust like Janelle’s momma left me with her, Janelle left me with Jade. Broke my heart to pieces . . . but I don’t believe in coincidences. Lived too long and seen enough shit to know there are none. Everythin' happens for a reason. They changed my world, ya know? Their time on this earth gave me a purpose. I don’t know what my life would’ve been like without any of them girls.”
“Friend. Friend,” Jade interrupts, patting my arm.
“Her name is Hannah,” Granny corrects her.
Jade slaps the palm of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
She grabs my hand and pulls. “Hannah, come see my big room.”
Why do I get the feeling this little girl is going to change my entire world?
Eighteen
Hannah
It’s the last period of our first exhibition game with just a few minutes to go, and Washington has the lead on us by one point. Dad pulls Sean from the net and puts Petrov, one of our forwards, into the game. I swear I’m about to lose my shit. I’ve always hated this play. Marching down to the box, I pound an open hand against the glass.
“Dad!”
Caught up in the game, he doesn’t turn around.
“Dad!” I slam my palm against the glass again. Some of the players, sitting on the bench, look back over their shoulders, and I jab a finger toward my father. “Get Coach!”
Trevor taps Dad’s shoulder, snagging his attention, and I toss up my arms in irritation. “What the hell?”
Dad throws his arms up right back, giving me a look that says, “Stop fucking bothering me,” and oh-ho-ho,thatjust pisses me off even more. I shuffle past the spectators in the stands and hurl myself over the railing. My feet hit the concrete with a thud, and I flash my badge at security as I storm into the box.
“Put Mac back in!”
“Hannah, who’s the damn coach of this team?” he yells.
“That’s a shit play with a fifteen percent success rate, and you know it! There’s only a one-point deficit. Set up the umbrella and crash the weakside, or better yet, run a hard two-one-two and pin ‘em deep! Number seventy-four is gassed! Look at him. He’s struggling, but you’re over here bailing him out with an empty net!”
“Don’t come down here and tell me how to run my team.”
“It’s just an exhibition game, Rebel. Let him test out the six-on-five.”
“There’s no reason to test a six-on-five because it’s a shitty strategy that we shouldn’t fucking use! You want to test something? Here, let me show you.” I snatch the tablet from Dad’s hands, scrub the last play and redraw the setup, then hand the tablet back to him. “There. Hard two-one-two. Keep Mac in. Seal the wall. Force the turnover.”
Dad’s eyes move from the screen to the ice, tracking number seventy-four as he fumbles another clearance chance up the boards.
“See? Just trust me. Run the play.”
