Knee Pads - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Corinne was exactly where I'd expected her to be.
She was still sitting in the parking lot, while I refused to think about the possibility of her having been there all along, waiting for me, and rose from the ground as soon as she saw me. It didn't make much of a difference, as she was barely taller than the cars, but she was distinguishable from the gray background thanks to her hair.
Fortunately, she didn't ask any questions when I stopped next to her, holding the helmet as though it was a tiny, fragile baby. I was certain it was written all over my face I hadn't had the best of times inside the clinic, but she was tactful enough to keep her mouth shut in front of my parents.
We all just stood there, waiting for something. I waited for my parents to leave, refusing to look at them after the stunt my mother had just pulled, and they waited for me to introduce them and Corinne. Corinne herself was harder to read; I wasn't sure if she wanted to be introduced to my parents or if she, like me, just wanted to get the hell out of there.
Then, miraculously, my father came through.
"You must be Wren's friend," he said, reaching out a hand towards her.
She blinked, surprised, but accepted the handshake. "In theory, yes. I'm Corinne."
"Are you one of Wren's skating friends?" my mother asked. Neither of them bothered introducing themselves to her, with my mother not even attempting to greet her with a handshake. I didn't expect them to be nicer than what was strictly necessary, anyway; they were plenty of things, but amicable and sociable had never been one of them. "She doesn't talk much about her college friends."
"I suppose." Corinne briefly glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "I'm the team captain."
"Co-captain," I corrected.
She stiffened. "Yes, that."
I momentarily felt bad for calling her out, especially in front of my parents, who she didn't even know, and while knowing just how personally she had taken being made the team's co-captain. It had just come out, courtesy of my tendency to run my mouth, and she didn't need to be looked down on by my parents. She stood her ground, regardless, whereas I knew I would have been a lot less graceful had our roles been reversed.
"Wren doesn't talk much about skating anymore," my mother continued. I wasn't sure if she was still trying to rile me up, but I certainly wouldn't put it past her. I could only hope Corinne would see right through that and not take the bait, but, after I had ever so gently made her look bad, I shouldn't be pushing my luck. "What exactly . . . is it that you do?"
"It's not the type of skating Wren was used to, that's for sure," Corinne remarked, playfully elbowing me in the ribs. "For example, it's a contact sport. I think Wren was used to spinning around and jumping by herself. No partners, right? Roller derby is a team sport and everyone is equally important. The entire team has to pull their own weight."
"Isn't it . . . dangerous, though?"
"We wear pads. Lots of padding. It's a matter of watching how you fall; you need to fall on your pads." She shrugged. "You're bound to get bruised and hurt regardless, but it's not dangerous. People know what they're signing up for, and they know they need to be careful, but I've always said roller derby isn't a sport made for the faint of heart. As long as you don't drag other people down along with you when you fall and you pull your weight and do your job, you're golden."
My mother looked at me. "And this is something you want to do? Voluntarily?"
"Yeah. It's fun. Besides, I missed skating and this felt like a nice way of going back to it."
"Right." She didn't sound too convinced. If Corinne Fontaine herself hadn't managed to make a profitable presentation and make her change her mind about roller derby, I wasn't sure who would. After all, she'd been skating ever since she'd learned how to walk. "We're heading home, 亲爱. We'll let you know when we're asked to come back." She tugged at the pearls around her neck. "We'll be expecting you for Thanksgiving, so try to not make any plans around that time. We'll be eating dinner as a family."
No, we wouldn't, as Jordan wouldn't be allowed to leave for the holidays, perhaps not even Christmas, but I wasn't that big of a dick to say that out loud. Corinne certainly didn't need to hear me say that and it was best if she was kept in the dark as much as possible. People prying into my personal life had never failed to annoy me to no end and there was no telling what she would do with that information.
I supposed I should give her more credit instead of reducing her to a mean girl. After all, she'd confided in me about her mother and about struggling with finding her identity—drunkenly at first, but she'd been sober in my bedroom when she went into deeper detail—not to mention she had given me a ride to the clinic, no strings attached, no questions asked. I had no evidence of her being a chatty gossip besides my own convictions, and she'd gain nothing by spreading the word about Jordan.
It kind of felt like betrayal, though, for some reason I couldn't quite explain. It had taken me years to trust Theo enough to fill her in on what was happening until the night he nearly crashed his car and almost killed her, so I couldn't hide things from her any longer. Not even Katrina knew, and I spent more time with her than I did with anyone else. Telling Corinne before I told her didn't completely sit right with me, but it was far from being the worst thing I could do.
Then, Jordan. It was his life, his illness, his destruction. I didn't want to make it about me or my suffering when he had it so much worse.
"You need some cheering up," Corinne said, after my parents drove away, and mounted the bike, carefully putting on her helmet.
"Do I?"
"Oh, definitely. I know just the thing."
▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂
Corinne's plan to cheer me up included a lot of fast food. It was far from what I had expected, as I'd always seen her be so careful with her food intake and work out routines, but I found it to be exactly what I needed the second the greasy smell of fries reached my nostrils. Sometimes, it made me nauseous, but it was only then that I realized just how hungry I was.
"I'm usually not allowed to eat fast food," she confessed. "Mom's rules, and all. She doesn't think I need fat and carbs to live and they only do more harm than good, but I like treating myself or my friends every once in a while. You looked like you needed a nice, warm meal full of calories. You'll burn it during practice tomorrow, anyway, but don't tell my mom. It's best if you stay on her good side."
"It honestly feels like she controls every little thing you do," I told her, as we waited to be seated.
Corinne shrugged. "That's not far from the truth, but she means well. It's not good for me, but my soul needs some nourishment every now and then. Nothing wrong with that."
We occupied a booth near a window and sat across from each other, setting our helmets down on the empty seats next to us. We accepted our menus and, while we let our eyes wander across the wide variety of plates, we fell into a comfortable silence I never expected to share with Corinne Fontaine. The entire restaurant felt like a hug in a building, warm and familiar, as opposed to the uninviting cold weather from outside, and it took me back to outings with my friends back in California, back when everything was okay.
After Jordan got sick, I barely saw any of them. It had been exhausting trying to keep those two parts of my life separate, as letting them intersect was bound to have disastrous consequences, as evidenced by the night Theo had nearly died. Slowly, but surely, Theo was the only one of them I hung out with on a regular basis. I still saw the rest of them at college and, sometimes, we went out, but it wasn't the same.
Things would never go back to how they used to be.
"Aren't you going to ask?" I questioned, when I couldn't take the silence anymore.
"Huh?" She lowered the menu. "Ask what?"
"Why I was there."
"Wren, I think you might be overestimating just how much I care about what you do in your private time. I'm only responsible for you when we're skating." She went back to browsing the menu, but her eyes weren't as focused on what she was reading as much as they previously were. "I figured that, if you wanted to tell me anything or if you wanted to talk about it, you would, since you're always so annoyingly talkative. I didn't feel the need to intrude."
I knew she hadn't. Deep down, I knew she wouldn't run around and spread gossip about my personal life, as she had no reason to, not even out of pettiness. However, the uncertainty of what would happen as soon as I explained everything left me paralyzed.
"Corinne—"
She raised a hand to shut me up. "It's fine, Wren. You don't owe me an explanation and I don't need you to give me one if you don't want to. As long as it doesn't affect your spot on the team and makes things harder for everyone else, I don't need to get involved."
"Are we friends?"
She huffed, setting the menu aside once more. "Does it matter?"
"I mean, getting a straight answer would help. Being in this . . . confusing middle stage is quite frustrating."
"That's the kind of conversation to have with someone you've been fooling around with but also have feelings for."
"We're not fooling around."
She straightened. "I have a boyfriend."
"Good for you. Are we friends or not?"
"I suppose. Can we order now? I'm starving."
We ordered the damn food just so we could change the subject. It was good, better than I'd imagined it would be, like the food in those commercials that deflated the second you actually ordered it, and I realized it was one of the rare times I saw Corinne at peace. She was usually busy being snarky, downright mean, or so unbelievably stressed out I feared she'd kick me in the mouth while wearing skates, but I'd also seen her so drunk she cried. Now, she was just a normal girl, carefully wrapping a napkin around a dripping burger.
She even advised me to taste the special garlic sauce, something that would ruin my breath, but would taste amazing with my fries. I wasn't looking forward to being stuck with garlic breath while wearing a helmet, but she was being so insistent that I had to try it out. She was right and she knew it, so I forced myself to ignore the smug smile she threw me as I swallowed my fry.
Then.
We both reached out for the napkin dispenser at the same time, hands brushing, and an electrical current pulsated through my nerves. She hadn't even been looking at me until I drew my hand back and, when she did, I began to think I was swimming through dangerous waters.
It was no secret she was attractive and she was well damn aware of that. Acknowledging that wouldn't be a problem by itself, but I didn't want to be attracted to her. I didn't have the time or the emotional availability for a relationship, let alone a friends-with-benefits situation or even a crush, and it wasn't like I even knew she was into girls. She and Drew seemed to be pretty serious and crazy about one another; while that didn't necessarily scream 'straight!', I didn't want to have it all blow up on my face.
Being her friend was all I could handle. Corinne was complicated and I carried my own fair share of baggage, so this was as far as I was willing to go so as to not compromise what little stability I'd managed to build so far.
Then, her lips twisted into the smallest of smiles and my stomach tightened.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
"So, quick question," she eventually said, apparently oblivious to my mental agony over the catastrophe that was having the tiniest crush on Corinne Fontaine. "It's none of my business, like, at all, but my job as the team captain is to ensure there's little to no drama between my girls. I'm asking you this question as a captain, so don't go all defensive on me or threaten to slash my tires, or something."
"Depending on what it is, I might do that."
She tilted her head to the side. "And how would we go back to campus?"
I groaned. "Ask away."
"Ah, you know." She pushed a lone carrot slice around her plate with her knife. "I was just wondering about you and Marley. Is it, like, serious? Are you . . . seeing each other?"
For a split second, I considered lying to her and saying yes, just to see how she'd react and to calm the inner turmoil in my brain. It was absolutely not to see if she'd get jealous, or anything along those lines. Obviously not. Then, I remembered all she had to do was talk to Marley to hear her side of the story and all of this would have been for nothing.
"No, not really," I said. "We've barely hung out, to be honest. I did tell her I wasn't looking for anything serious and she agreed, so."
Something washed over her face, something I couldn't quite decipher. "Oh, okay."
"Yeah. We met at that party at the beginning of the school year, on my first day. We hit it off and bonded over California, but it was never meant to be anything past that."
Corinne leaned back on her seat. "Has she . . . ever mentioned me? At all?"
I knitted my brows together. "Not really, I don't think. Whenever she did, it was just because of the team. Why? Is this about her being the co-captain? Because, if so, I have no intention of choosing sides between the two of you. You can keep me out of your little feud—"
"I thought she was using you to make me jealous, that's all." She set down her knife and looked back up at me through her long lashes, examining me closely. "I wouldn't put it past her, but it's nice to know one of you has been mature through all of this."
"And why in the world—"
She threw her head back in frustration. "Jesus, Wren. You really are that dense, aren't you?"
"It would help if you got straight to the point, you know. It's hard to keep up with every dynamic."
Corinne sighed. "Marley and I used to date."