Page 102 of On His Mind

“It won’t happen again,” I reassure him by meeting his eye.

Coach Fuller looks at me for a long moment, waiting for the rest, but I won’t budge.

“I’ve got a drafted freshman and a senior ahead of you,” he says. “You know what separates a third guy who moves up from a third guy who stays third? It’s not the glove hand. Yours is fine. It’s whether I can trust you in the room. And you just gave me a real good reason to wonder.” He straightens. “Sit the rest of practice. Think about whether you want this.”

Whether I want this.

I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.

I can’t tell him that either.

I sit in the room by myself while they finish on the ice.

I can hear it through the wall — the pucks, the whistle, Stanley yelling something, the ordinary sound of a practice I got thrown out of. The rage is gone. It burned down fast the second Fuller shut that door, and what’s under it is shitty.

The net’s further away than it was on Friday. And I finally know where I stand with her, and it’s the worst place there is.

Chapter 34

Penelope

I’minadownwarddog, and Ivory is in a child’s pose when she looks at me and says, “So Drew did the thing again where he says he’s not ready for a label and then gets weird if I talk to literally any other person, which is—” she waves the glass “—that’s not how it works, Drew, you don’t get the jealousy without the title, those come as a set—”

“They do come as a set.”

“Thank you. And then last night he tells Walker that I’m ‘basically his girlfriend,’ so now I’mbasically his girlfriendaccording to everyone except him.” She sighs, and she sounds a little sad and a little pleased at once. “He’s not a bad person. He’s just Drew. He means about sixty percent of what he says, and you have to guess which sixty.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It’s a little exhausting.” She smiles into the glass. “It’s fun, though. It’s fun right now. I know it’s not — I know I’m not going to marry Drew Faulkner.” She nudges me with her foot. “Speaking of things that aren’t going to happen. Theo keeps coming up. Drew won’t let it die.”

And there’s my opening. I take it, because I decided this before she said his name, this morning, in the shower, clean and clear and for no reason but that I finally know myself again. I don’t know what summer did to me, but I’m finally feeling like me.

“It’s done,” I say. “The Theo thing. It’s over. I’m not doing it anymore.”

Ivory sits up. “Since when?”

“A while.” The yoga class on the TV comes to an end, so I sit. “I let it hang around because it was easy and it didn’t ask anything of me, but I don’t want easy-and-nothing anymore. I’m done with it. He can hear it from me or hear it from Drew. I don’t care, but it’s over.”

She studies me. “Drew’s going to be crushed. He had a whole plan—”

“Drew’s plan was never my problem.”

“No.” A slow grin. “No, it wasn’t.” She grabs her water and clinks it against my shoulder. “Good. Honestly. You’ve been too good for Theo Marsh since the day you met him. I’ve been waiting for you to notice.” She leans back against the couch. “Whoever’s got you drawing again, it’s not him, and I’m glad you finally cut the dead weight.” She shrugs. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

My mother calls at eleven, while I’m getting ready for the firm.

“I ran into Diane Whitmore yesterday,” she says, no hello. “She asked how you were. I had to tell her you’re at some little practice over a hardware store.”

“It’s a good firm, Mom.”

“It’s eight people, Penelope. Diane’s daughter is at Gensler. Chicago. The thing you had, the thing you walked away from—” a breath, precise, measured out. “I’m not going to relitigate it. I just find it hard to smile at Diane Whitmore and explain that my daughter chose a storefront.”

“It’s the work I want to do.”

“You always say that.” Like it’s a symptom. “The work you want to do. As though wanting were a career.” She pauses. “You were on a track that meant something. I hope this — phase — is worth what it cost you. Call your father. He worries.”

She hangs up first as always. I stand in my room with the phone going dark in my hand, and I let it sit on me for a second, the weight of it — the storefront, the phase, the thing I walked away from — and then I put it down, and I finish getting dressed, because she’s wrong, and the drawings on my table are good. I know it even when she makes me feel like I don’t.