Knee Pads - Chapter 30: Chapter 30
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I survived.
The team hadn't had an issue winning the bout without me, which brought me great relief, but it was also a hard blow to my ego, reminding me that I wasn't nearly as important to them in the grand scheme of things as I'd liked to believe.
Kat hovered around me like a drone, having made it her personal mission to ensure I wasn't making any unnecessary efforts and putting more strain on my poor left ankle than what was absolutely necessary. She helped me with the ice, the elevation, and the compression whenever needed, but she'd drawn the line at helping me shower the second I told her it was absolutely not required. Though it wasn't easy, showering was something I was still able to do on my own.
Her insistence on helping me out in any way she could wasn't the issue. I was more concerned with her not letting me properly apologize to the rest of the team for flaking on them, but her frustration grew with each additional time I tried to bring up the subject.
"Stop," she begged, with a pen stuck between her head and her ear. Bothering her during her songwriting sessions was forbidden, but I repeatedly broke that rule, so it was no wonder she was growing tired of my presence in the room. "I will literally pay you to stop."
"Kat," I whined. "This is the one thing I need you to validate me on—"
"If there's one thing I won't do, it's letting you wallow in self-pity. How many times do I have to tell you there's nothing you need to apologize for? Injuries happen all the time. It could have happened to literally anyone."
"You don't understand."
"No, you don't understand. Nothing I say to you matters and you're just going to do whatever you feel like doing, so it's not like I can stop you from apologizing. I'm just saying you should save your breath and worry about things that matter instead of being so focused on an apology that shouldn't even exist. The rest of the girls are going to tell you the exact same thing, but maybe someone else has a better chance at getting to you than I do."
There wasn't much I could do after she'd decided she wasn't having it, so I returned to my own textbooks to dwell on my misery all by myself. If the team wouldn't listen, if not even Kat and Corinne would let me apologize, I could always try to talk to Coach, but that was my absolute last choice.
We hadn't had many one-on-one conversations ever since Christmas Eve—the few words we'd exchanged immediately after my injury didn't count—and I never knew how to approach any subject around her, so I was setting myself up for failure just by considering talking to her.
Out of anyone I knew, she was the most serious about roller derby, so I knew she would understand where I was coming from, but that also made her dangerous, and I hated feeling like I was walking on a tightrope. I was out of options, but I wasn't necessarily desperate; all I needed was some validation, some confirmation that I was allowed to be upset over this injury, even if it wasn't career or championship ending.
It was my third day of dealing with a sprained ankle and I was slowly but surely regaining my ability to walk properly, so I'd already returned the crutches to the nurse. She hadn't cleared me to skate or to make any other 'unnecessary efforts' yet, so I couldn't get back on the track to practice or play, which meant I was surely going to miss the championship semi-finals. I was less than thrilled about it, even though all that extra time just gave me an opportunity to catch up on all the coursework I'd fallen behind on, not to mention I was finally allowed to sit back and rest for once in my life.
It was funny, I thought, how I only had time to rest when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
The silence that had descended upon our dorm room was far from comforting. Though I usually didn't mind sitting in silence with Kat—not that it was common, as there tended to be music playing in the background, either playing from some device or by her own instruments—this one felt different. She was annoyed and I could feel the tension emanating off her, but I wasn't sure whether it was just because of me or if there was something else going on.
I spun around on my chair, turning to face her, but her back was still facing me, and I couldn't actually get a glimpse of her facial expression to confirm my theory. With March approaching, so was her birthday and finals season, which, to her, meant she needed to prepare for the Summer Showcase. It was one of the two things she wanted—and needed—to win this semester to prove herself in the eyes of her family, even though she already stood out to all of us, holding more talent in a lock of hair than the rest of us combined, but I understood her side. She needed to stand out in a family of talented people, which included her sister Dani, who just so happened to be coming to Yale to watch the Summer Showcase ceremony.
So, like, no pressure.
Kat could deal with a roller derby championship just fine, regardless of how violent it could get, but singing and performing competitions just left her weak in the knees. I tried to support her the best I could, being as unable to hold a tune as I was, but she could handle the pressure a million times better than I ever could, so my advice fell on deaf ears. I was certain she'd do well, but there were times when just well wouldn't cut it. Kat Stone was destined for success, and, for that, she'd have to keep winning these showcases.
The question was: was I willing to make both of us swallow our pride by trying to help her more than I already had? Was she willing to open up to me when I'd repeatedly shut her out? Would she want me to be there when she inevitably won, or would she want me there in case things went south and she didn't?
Would I even be able to help her then, when I couldn't properly deal with my own failures? Would she call me out on my hypocrisy?
"Kat," I called.
"No."
"You didn't even hear me out."
"Do I have to? I already told you—I'm not listening to another word of your pity party. No one on the team is going to accept an unneeded apology, so you need to stop—"
I huffed, wondering when she would ever let me have the last word. She was exactly like Corinne in that regard; it was no wonder they got along so well. "That's not what this is about."
"Of course it isn't—"
"It isn't! It's actually about you being super stressed about something and taking it out on me!"
Kat let out a sigh so dramatically loud she could have raised the dead on a fifty-mile radius, then the characteristic sound of her chair's wheels rolling shuffled as she turned to me. "I don't pay you to psychoanalyze me."
"You don't pay me to do shit."
"I really don't."
"Don't you ever feel like we're going in circles? You, me, and Corinne? We're always telling each other it's okay to open up, it's okay to trust people, it's okay to ask for help, but then we never apply that same advice to ourselves? Isn't it exhausting?"
She crossed her legs over her chair and leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. "So, what's up? What can I help you with that's totally unrelated to what we were just talking about?"
"I was actually trying to help you, not the other way around." She scrunched up her nose like a rabbit. "I know I'm not allowed to mess with your songwriting and I know it's not my place to tell you how to do . . . whatever it is that you're doing, but it's obvious you're upset over something. There's not much I can do to help you finish writing your songs, but you know I'm here if you need to talk. I've been told I'm a good listener—"
"Only sometimes."
"Fair enough. Do you want to . . . vent? Scream a little? Sing about it?"
"Ideally yes, but I'm trying to save my voice. Losing my voice or getting tonsillitis right before the Summer Showcase would probably make me spiral and no one wants to deal with that, trust me. You've been told you're a good listener; I've been told I'm a little bit of a diva before important competitions. We're not the same." She threw her head back, then straightened her shoulders. "Yeah, okay. Venting would be nice, I suppose. Where should I start?"
I didn't think she was a diva. If anything, I found her dedication to her major and her interests admirable, wishing I had the same willpower to stay focused on my own coursework, but that just reminded me she had a lot more to lose when it came to her studies than I did.
I was a senior now and had a decent GPA, in spite of a sudden move to the other side of the country and my inability to ignore my tunnel vision while plagued with an injury eerily similar to the one that had ended my brother's skating career. I had a bright future ahead of me with a guaranteed internship once I graduated, which would catapult me into the limelight and the sights of prospective employees thanks to my parents.
Kat had her talent, but that alone didn't make or break careers. She needed connections, exposure, and she had an entire family of talented people to impress and one-up, while I was my biggest threat, competitor, and enemy. I only needed myself to be sabotaged, whereas things with Kat were far trickier. Even if I got injured, I could still type and work with a computer, but she needed her voice to be intact.
To me, there was nothing more destructive than self-imposed pressure, but it was even worse when everyone else expected you to be perfect and successful all the time.
My parents—and Jordan—no longer needed me to be the perfect daughter or the perfect sister, and, in reality, I was the only one blaming myself for everything that had gone wrong for me lately. To them, I was fine, I was great, I was doing my best, but sometimes my best didn't feel good enough; most of the time, it didn't feel good enough. That was my own issue.
Kat had other people doing it for her, even in an implicit way, as no one would ever say to her face she was mediocre—she wasn't—but she knew just how much people expected from her. She'd been delivering quality performances year after year, semester after semester, and people had grown used to it. Like me, she'd gotten addicted to the praise. However, success and fame were fickle, especially in the entertainment industry, and I needed her to have a secure safety net in case she ever fell.
I was part of that safety net. I just hoped she knew that.
"It's just nerves, I guess," she eventually said. "Maybe I'm overthinking things as usual, but everything is piling up and I'm not that great at managing my time or setting priorities. I have to prepare for the Showcase, but I still have lectures and coursework before then, not to mention there's the championship and we're down two team members . . ."
I recoiled in guilt, remembering my absence wasn't just affecting me, and it was easy to forget the team had to rotate the roster after losing both the pivot and a jammer.
After Corinne, we'd bounced back, but it had taken all our strength and unity to do so—that was our captain, after all—and it had been so early on in the championship, so we'd had time to readjust our strategies. I didn't want to overestimate my importance once more, only to be confronted with a harsh reality where I didn't matter that much, but there was only one bout separating us from the finals. There wasn't a lot of time to change things, even with rotating rosters, and every day I spent away from the track was a day where my guilt ate me alive.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked. "I know I've been complaining a lot recently, but I never meant to make things worse for you."
She shook her head, then brushed her curls away from her eyes. "It's not about you. You're allowed to be upset about what happened. I get it. I think I'd be, too. This is something no one can fix but me, but I don't know how to do it. There's no tutorial on how to write your magnum opus and, even if there were, I'd have to save that for next year. Senior year." She shuddered. "I just need to get back on track and set a schedule that works, otherwise I'll keep getting distracted. Frankly, I don't know how you seniors are holding up. I feel like I've been cracking under pressure since freshman year."
"Well, personally I'm not that great at managing my time, either. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing, so I basically just wing it. I like to think I'm good at thinking on my feet; I have to be doing something if I want to come up with a decent plan of action. If you give me too much time to prepare, I'll inevitably procrastinate and get absolutely no work done." She cracked a small smile. "It's why I study Economics, Math, Physics. I like being able to see things coming from a mile away. I like algorithms. I like knowing how things will work out because, if I have too much time ahead of me and know nothing about what will happen, my mind just . . . goes into overdrive and I'll probably end up doing something stupid. I need to know what will happen or I need to be able to come up with a plan on the spot. Suffering in anticipation is simply not my jam."
She groaned, rubbing her cheeks. "I just don't understand how some people seem to have it all figured out. Everything is so easy for them—writing songs, thinking of innovative performance ideas—and then there's me, struggling to find words that rhyme. Believe it or not, Drew was the one who helped me write these stupid lyrics when I was struggling, but it just feels so awkward to reach out to him."
I raised an eyebrow. Drew and Kat weren't two people I remembered seeing hanging out together, just the two of them, as Corinne tended to be part of the package deal, but things had changed. Now that they were no longer together and I was Corinne's plus one to every event, I understood why Kat was hesitant about reaching out to him, but I had. We weren't running together now for obvious reasons, but we wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't gotten injured, so why stop writing with him?
Kat's loyalty to Corinne had a much different nature than mine. Corinne was petty, but I didn't think she'd be petty enough to be upset with Kat for asking Drew for help with her songwriting now that they had moved on. Corinne could be the one to help her, too, as both she and Drew were English majors and she no longer had time slots occupied with roller derby practice, but it was a decision Kat had to make, not me. All I could do was give unsolicited advice she could very well ignore.
"I think sometimes you just gotta go for it," I said, like I was qualified to help her with such a thing when I had also kept my morning runs a secret from Corinne—at first. She was very much unbothered by it, having been more upset over me not telling her when it first started than over anything else, and I doubted she'd make a fuss over this, especially when it had been going on for years, apparently. "If it was helping you, if you guys made good music together, then I don't see why not reach out to him, especially now."
Kat frowned. "I don't know. I don't want people to think I'm unable to write on my own."
"Would anyone think that, realistically?"
"Look, it's not like he helped me write every single song. It was just a few of them. No one has to know, and you wouldn't have figured it out had I not opened my mouth, but still." She briefly looked out of the window. The weather was opening up now, with the snow giving way to the regularly scheduled rain, and the temperatures were ever so slightly warmer. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we had one or two sunny days a week. "You know no one ever believes a woman could be talented enough on her own, let alone me. I just don't want to give people a reason to think I'm not good enough."
"Fair enough, but what about Corinne? Can't you ask her to help you out if asking him feels too awkward?"
"Oh, I did. Have been trying to rope her into this ever since I first met her, but it's the one thing we can't do together, believe it or not. She's not into poetry, which is what songwriting is, with more rhymes and all, and Drew actually knows what he's doing." She turned back to me, face lighting up like she'd just had an epiphany. "You know, there might be something you can do for me."
"Why am I suddenly scared of this?"
"You could, hypothetically, talk to Corinne in my place." She set her feet down on the floor to help her propel herself forward towards me, her chair sliding across the floor. When she reached me, she took both my hands in hers. "You could ask her if she'd be comfortable with me working with Drew again, just for the Showcase."
I hesitated. "You're her best friend."
"Yes, but you're the only person she actually listens to, especially now. I really don't want her to think I'm betraying her or anything—"
I nibbled at my thumb's fingernail, still not convinced this was a good idea. "I don't know. She might feel betrayed over you asking me to talk to her in your place instead of doing it yourself. Isn't honesty the best policy?"
"Wren," she whined. "Please, please, please do this one thing for me. I'll be in debt to you forever. Please. I promise I'll handle everything else on my own and will be the best-behaved roommate you could ever ask for. No jamming sessions at three in the morning until graduation. I swear."
She made a tempting offer, I'd have to give it to her. With her finals and the Showcase approaching, it was frequent to have her wake me up in the middle of the night practicing chords and melodies. Though I, more than anyone else, wanted to see her succeed and understood she needed to practice, I also valued my sleep, especially now that my sleeping schedule was all over the place thanks to my stupid, weak ankle.
"Fine," I acquiesced. "You really do owe me one."
She squealed, then threw her arms around my neck, nearly knocking both of us down. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂
The thing about me was that I was a dirty coward, so I was doing everything in my power to avoid bringing up the subject around Corinne. There was no reason for me to be afraid of her, but I didn't want to hurt her by withholding information or by being a voluntary participant in something that would, inevitably, blow up on multiple people's faces, yet there I was.
I knew I owed it to Kat to at least try, but it was laughable how scared I was to even do it.
Luckily for me, a distraction in the shape of Coach Sylvie Fontaine saved me from having to do it the day after my conversation with Kat, but I wasn't thrilled about it. Nothing good ever came out of one-on-one talks with Coach and, following my little stunt that could have cost us the title, I was so nauseous on my way to her office that I could barely see straight.
So, like, no pressure at all.
The last time I'd been there, I'd been accompanying Marley, which convinced Corinne the three of us were somehow conspiring to ruin her life. Now, I was the one being summoned to the dragon's den, all by myself; I wouldn't bring Corinne here when I was actively trying not to drag her into upsetting situations.
(Cue me nervously laughing around her, the one person I couldn't keep secrets from. It was agonizing.)
Coach was sitting at her desk, hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, and, if she weren't so blonde, it would be easy to miss her in the middle of all the medals, diplomas, and trophies scattered around the office. It was the room of a champion, someone who had been in the business for decades, and it was inspiring, even if I didn't want to pursue a sports career.
If one thing could be said about her, it was that she was the person most dedicated to the craft anyone knew. She was tough, sometimes unreasonably so, and her way of coaching couldn't be praised all the time, but I knew she cared about the team—I knew that now, now that I was no longer butting heads with her.
My family therapy sessions had helped me see people in a new light, particularly parents, and this was everything Coach herself had been trained to be and to do—she was meant to be a competing machine, ever since birth. It wasn't sustainable and she had made gross, heartbreaking mistakes while coaching, including throwing her own daughter under the bus out of sheer pettiness, but she was still human.
I cleared my throat. "Hey, Coach." She raised her head. The similarities between her and Corinne were still so obvious to me. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes. Yes, I did." She set down her pen. "I know you're busy, so I'll be brief. No need to sit down," she said, once I gripped the back of the armchair opposite to her. I needed to be sitting down because of my ankle, but I obeyed like a well-trained puppy. "It won't take long."
"Sorry."
"Long story short, we need Corinne back on the team. I need you to help me with that."
The team hadn't had an issue winning the bout without me, which brought me great relief, but it was also a hard blow to my ego, reminding me that I wasn't nearly as important to them in the grand scheme of things as I'd liked to believe.
Kat hovered around me like a drone, having made it her personal mission to ensure I wasn't making any unnecessary efforts and putting more strain on my poor left ankle than what was absolutely necessary. She helped me with the ice, the elevation, and the compression whenever needed, but she'd drawn the line at helping me shower the second I told her it was absolutely not required. Though it wasn't easy, showering was something I was still able to do on my own.
Her insistence on helping me out in any way she could wasn't the issue. I was more concerned with her not letting me properly apologize to the rest of the team for flaking on them, but her frustration grew with each additional time I tried to bring up the subject.
"Stop," she begged, with a pen stuck between her head and her ear. Bothering her during her songwriting sessions was forbidden, but I repeatedly broke that rule, so it was no wonder she was growing tired of my presence in the room. "I will literally pay you to stop."
"Kat," I whined. "This is the one thing I need you to validate me on—"
"If there's one thing I won't do, it's letting you wallow in self-pity. How many times do I have to tell you there's nothing you need to apologize for? Injuries happen all the time. It could have happened to literally anyone."
"You don't understand."
"No, you don't understand. Nothing I say to you matters and you're just going to do whatever you feel like doing, so it's not like I can stop you from apologizing. I'm just saying you should save your breath and worry about things that matter instead of being so focused on an apology that shouldn't even exist. The rest of the girls are going to tell you the exact same thing, but maybe someone else has a better chance at getting to you than I do."
There wasn't much I could do after she'd decided she wasn't having it, so I returned to my own textbooks to dwell on my misery all by myself. If the team wouldn't listen, if not even Kat and Corinne would let me apologize, I could always try to talk to Coach, but that was my absolute last choice.
We hadn't had many one-on-one conversations ever since Christmas Eve—the few words we'd exchanged immediately after my injury didn't count—and I never knew how to approach any subject around her, so I was setting myself up for failure just by considering talking to her.
Out of anyone I knew, she was the most serious about roller derby, so I knew she would understand where I was coming from, but that also made her dangerous, and I hated feeling like I was walking on a tightrope. I was out of options, but I wasn't necessarily desperate; all I needed was some validation, some confirmation that I was allowed to be upset over this injury, even if it wasn't career or championship ending.
It was my third day of dealing with a sprained ankle and I was slowly but surely regaining my ability to walk properly, so I'd already returned the crutches to the nurse. She hadn't cleared me to skate or to make any other 'unnecessary efforts' yet, so I couldn't get back on the track to practice or play, which meant I was surely going to miss the championship semi-finals. I was less than thrilled about it, even though all that extra time just gave me an opportunity to catch up on all the coursework I'd fallen behind on, not to mention I was finally allowed to sit back and rest for once in my life.
It was funny, I thought, how I only had time to rest when it was the last thing I wanted to do.
The silence that had descended upon our dorm room was far from comforting. Though I usually didn't mind sitting in silence with Kat—not that it was common, as there tended to be music playing in the background, either playing from some device or by her own instruments—this one felt different. She was annoyed and I could feel the tension emanating off her, but I wasn't sure whether it was just because of me or if there was something else going on.
I spun around on my chair, turning to face her, but her back was still facing me, and I couldn't actually get a glimpse of her facial expression to confirm my theory. With March approaching, so was her birthday and finals season, which, to her, meant she needed to prepare for the Summer Showcase. It was one of the two things she wanted—and needed—to win this semester to prove herself in the eyes of her family, even though she already stood out to all of us, holding more talent in a lock of hair than the rest of us combined, but I understood her side. She needed to stand out in a family of talented people, which included her sister Dani, who just so happened to be coming to Yale to watch the Summer Showcase ceremony.
So, like, no pressure.
Kat could deal with a roller derby championship just fine, regardless of how violent it could get, but singing and performing competitions just left her weak in the knees. I tried to support her the best I could, being as unable to hold a tune as I was, but she could handle the pressure a million times better than I ever could, so my advice fell on deaf ears. I was certain she'd do well, but there were times when just well wouldn't cut it. Kat Stone was destined for success, and, for that, she'd have to keep winning these showcases.
The question was: was I willing to make both of us swallow our pride by trying to help her more than I already had? Was she willing to open up to me when I'd repeatedly shut her out? Would she want me to be there when she inevitably won, or would she want me there in case things went south and she didn't?
Would I even be able to help her then, when I couldn't properly deal with my own failures? Would she call me out on my hypocrisy?
"Kat," I called.
"No."
"You didn't even hear me out."
"Do I have to? I already told you—I'm not listening to another word of your pity party. No one on the team is going to accept an unneeded apology, so you need to stop—"
I huffed, wondering when she would ever let me have the last word. She was exactly like Corinne in that regard; it was no wonder they got along so well. "That's not what this is about."
"Of course it isn't—"
"It isn't! It's actually about you being super stressed about something and taking it out on me!"
Kat let out a sigh so dramatically loud she could have raised the dead on a fifty-mile radius, then the characteristic sound of her chair's wheels rolling shuffled as she turned to me. "I don't pay you to psychoanalyze me."
"You don't pay me to do shit."
"I really don't."
"Don't you ever feel like we're going in circles? You, me, and Corinne? We're always telling each other it's okay to open up, it's okay to trust people, it's okay to ask for help, but then we never apply that same advice to ourselves? Isn't it exhausting?"
She crossed her legs over her chair and leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. "So, what's up? What can I help you with that's totally unrelated to what we were just talking about?"
"I was actually trying to help you, not the other way around." She scrunched up her nose like a rabbit. "I know I'm not allowed to mess with your songwriting and I know it's not my place to tell you how to do . . . whatever it is that you're doing, but it's obvious you're upset over something. There's not much I can do to help you finish writing your songs, but you know I'm here if you need to talk. I've been told I'm a good listener—"
"Only sometimes."
"Fair enough. Do you want to . . . vent? Scream a little? Sing about it?"
"Ideally yes, but I'm trying to save my voice. Losing my voice or getting tonsillitis right before the Summer Showcase would probably make me spiral and no one wants to deal with that, trust me. You've been told you're a good listener; I've been told I'm a little bit of a diva before important competitions. We're not the same." She threw her head back, then straightened her shoulders. "Yeah, okay. Venting would be nice, I suppose. Where should I start?"
I didn't think she was a diva. If anything, I found her dedication to her major and her interests admirable, wishing I had the same willpower to stay focused on my own coursework, but that just reminded me she had a lot more to lose when it came to her studies than I did.
I was a senior now and had a decent GPA, in spite of a sudden move to the other side of the country and my inability to ignore my tunnel vision while plagued with an injury eerily similar to the one that had ended my brother's skating career. I had a bright future ahead of me with a guaranteed internship once I graduated, which would catapult me into the limelight and the sights of prospective employees thanks to my parents.
Kat had her talent, but that alone didn't make or break careers. She needed connections, exposure, and she had an entire family of talented people to impress and one-up, while I was my biggest threat, competitor, and enemy. I only needed myself to be sabotaged, whereas things with Kat were far trickier. Even if I got injured, I could still type and work with a computer, but she needed her voice to be intact.
To me, there was nothing more destructive than self-imposed pressure, but it was even worse when everyone else expected you to be perfect and successful all the time.
My parents—and Jordan—no longer needed me to be the perfect daughter or the perfect sister, and, in reality, I was the only one blaming myself for everything that had gone wrong for me lately. To them, I was fine, I was great, I was doing my best, but sometimes my best didn't feel good enough; most of the time, it didn't feel good enough. That was my own issue.
Kat had other people doing it for her, even in an implicit way, as no one would ever say to her face she was mediocre—she wasn't—but she knew just how much people expected from her. She'd been delivering quality performances year after year, semester after semester, and people had grown used to it. Like me, she'd gotten addicted to the praise. However, success and fame were fickle, especially in the entertainment industry, and I needed her to have a secure safety net in case she ever fell.
I was part of that safety net. I just hoped she knew that.
"It's just nerves, I guess," she eventually said. "Maybe I'm overthinking things as usual, but everything is piling up and I'm not that great at managing my time or setting priorities. I have to prepare for the Showcase, but I still have lectures and coursework before then, not to mention there's the championship and we're down two team members . . ."
I recoiled in guilt, remembering my absence wasn't just affecting me, and it was easy to forget the team had to rotate the roster after losing both the pivot and a jammer.
After Corinne, we'd bounced back, but it had taken all our strength and unity to do so—that was our captain, after all—and it had been so early on in the championship, so we'd had time to readjust our strategies. I didn't want to overestimate my importance once more, only to be confronted with a harsh reality where I didn't matter that much, but there was only one bout separating us from the finals. There wasn't a lot of time to change things, even with rotating rosters, and every day I spent away from the track was a day where my guilt ate me alive.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked. "I know I've been complaining a lot recently, but I never meant to make things worse for you."
She shook her head, then brushed her curls away from her eyes. "It's not about you. You're allowed to be upset about what happened. I get it. I think I'd be, too. This is something no one can fix but me, but I don't know how to do it. There's no tutorial on how to write your magnum opus and, even if there were, I'd have to save that for next year. Senior year." She shuddered. "I just need to get back on track and set a schedule that works, otherwise I'll keep getting distracted. Frankly, I don't know how you seniors are holding up. I feel like I've been cracking under pressure since freshman year."
"Well, personally I'm not that great at managing my time, either. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing, so I basically just wing it. I like to think I'm good at thinking on my feet; I have to be doing something if I want to come up with a decent plan of action. If you give me too much time to prepare, I'll inevitably procrastinate and get absolutely no work done." She cracked a small smile. "It's why I study Economics, Math, Physics. I like being able to see things coming from a mile away. I like algorithms. I like knowing how things will work out because, if I have too much time ahead of me and know nothing about what will happen, my mind just . . . goes into overdrive and I'll probably end up doing something stupid. I need to know what will happen or I need to be able to come up with a plan on the spot. Suffering in anticipation is simply not my jam."
She groaned, rubbing her cheeks. "I just don't understand how some people seem to have it all figured out. Everything is so easy for them—writing songs, thinking of innovative performance ideas—and then there's me, struggling to find words that rhyme. Believe it or not, Drew was the one who helped me write these stupid lyrics when I was struggling, but it just feels so awkward to reach out to him."
I raised an eyebrow. Drew and Kat weren't two people I remembered seeing hanging out together, just the two of them, as Corinne tended to be part of the package deal, but things had changed. Now that they were no longer together and I was Corinne's plus one to every event, I understood why Kat was hesitant about reaching out to him, but I had. We weren't running together now for obvious reasons, but we wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't gotten injured, so why stop writing with him?
Kat's loyalty to Corinne had a much different nature than mine. Corinne was petty, but I didn't think she'd be petty enough to be upset with Kat for asking Drew for help with her songwriting now that they had moved on. Corinne could be the one to help her, too, as both she and Drew were English majors and she no longer had time slots occupied with roller derby practice, but it was a decision Kat had to make, not me. All I could do was give unsolicited advice she could very well ignore.
"I think sometimes you just gotta go for it," I said, like I was qualified to help her with such a thing when I had also kept my morning runs a secret from Corinne—at first. She was very much unbothered by it, having been more upset over me not telling her when it first started than over anything else, and I doubted she'd make a fuss over this, especially when it had been going on for years, apparently. "If it was helping you, if you guys made good music together, then I don't see why not reach out to him, especially now."
Kat frowned. "I don't know. I don't want people to think I'm unable to write on my own."
"Would anyone think that, realistically?"
"Look, it's not like he helped me write every single song. It was just a few of them. No one has to know, and you wouldn't have figured it out had I not opened my mouth, but still." She briefly looked out of the window. The weather was opening up now, with the snow giving way to the regularly scheduled rain, and the temperatures were ever so slightly warmer. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we had one or two sunny days a week. "You know no one ever believes a woman could be talented enough on her own, let alone me. I just don't want to give people a reason to think I'm not good enough."
"Fair enough, but what about Corinne? Can't you ask her to help you out if asking him feels too awkward?"
"Oh, I did. Have been trying to rope her into this ever since I first met her, but it's the one thing we can't do together, believe it or not. She's not into poetry, which is what songwriting is, with more rhymes and all, and Drew actually knows what he's doing." She turned back to me, face lighting up like she'd just had an epiphany. "You know, there might be something you can do for me."
"Why am I suddenly scared of this?"
"You could, hypothetically, talk to Corinne in my place." She set her feet down on the floor to help her propel herself forward towards me, her chair sliding across the floor. When she reached me, she took both my hands in hers. "You could ask her if she'd be comfortable with me working with Drew again, just for the Showcase."
I hesitated. "You're her best friend."
"Yes, but you're the only person she actually listens to, especially now. I really don't want her to think I'm betraying her or anything—"
I nibbled at my thumb's fingernail, still not convinced this was a good idea. "I don't know. She might feel betrayed over you asking me to talk to her in your place instead of doing it yourself. Isn't honesty the best policy?"
"Wren," she whined. "Please, please, please do this one thing for me. I'll be in debt to you forever. Please. I promise I'll handle everything else on my own and will be the best-behaved roommate you could ever ask for. No jamming sessions at three in the morning until graduation. I swear."
She made a tempting offer, I'd have to give it to her. With her finals and the Showcase approaching, it was frequent to have her wake me up in the middle of the night practicing chords and melodies. Though I, more than anyone else, wanted to see her succeed and understood she needed to practice, I also valued my sleep, especially now that my sleeping schedule was all over the place thanks to my stupid, weak ankle.
"Fine," I acquiesced. "You really do owe me one."
She squealed, then threw her arms around my neck, nearly knocking both of us down. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂
The thing about me was that I was a dirty coward, so I was doing everything in my power to avoid bringing up the subject around Corinne. There was no reason for me to be afraid of her, but I didn't want to hurt her by withholding information or by being a voluntary participant in something that would, inevitably, blow up on multiple people's faces, yet there I was.
I knew I owed it to Kat to at least try, but it was laughable how scared I was to even do it.
Luckily for me, a distraction in the shape of Coach Sylvie Fontaine saved me from having to do it the day after my conversation with Kat, but I wasn't thrilled about it. Nothing good ever came out of one-on-one talks with Coach and, following my little stunt that could have cost us the title, I was so nauseous on my way to her office that I could barely see straight.
So, like, no pressure at all.
The last time I'd been there, I'd been accompanying Marley, which convinced Corinne the three of us were somehow conspiring to ruin her life. Now, I was the one being summoned to the dragon's den, all by myself; I wouldn't bring Corinne here when I was actively trying not to drag her into upsetting situations.
(Cue me nervously laughing around her, the one person I couldn't keep secrets from. It was agonizing.)
Coach was sitting at her desk, hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, and, if she weren't so blonde, it would be easy to miss her in the middle of all the medals, diplomas, and trophies scattered around the office. It was the room of a champion, someone who had been in the business for decades, and it was inspiring, even if I didn't want to pursue a sports career.
If one thing could be said about her, it was that she was the person most dedicated to the craft anyone knew. She was tough, sometimes unreasonably so, and her way of coaching couldn't be praised all the time, but I knew she cared about the team—I knew that now, now that I was no longer butting heads with her.
My family therapy sessions had helped me see people in a new light, particularly parents, and this was everything Coach herself had been trained to be and to do—she was meant to be a competing machine, ever since birth. It wasn't sustainable and she had made gross, heartbreaking mistakes while coaching, including throwing her own daughter under the bus out of sheer pettiness, but she was still human.
I cleared my throat. "Hey, Coach." She raised her head. The similarities between her and Corinne were still so obvious to me. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes. Yes, I did." She set down her pen. "I know you're busy, so I'll be brief. No need to sit down," she said, once I gripped the back of the armchair opposite to her. I needed to be sitting down because of my ankle, but I obeyed like a well-trained puppy. "It won't take long."
"Sorry."
"Long story short, we need Corinne back on the team. I need you to help me with that."
End of Knee Pads Chapter 30. Continue reading Chapter 31 or return to Knee Pads book page.