Page 157 of Jaded

“You have my number. Text me. I’ll come, and I won’t ask questions. Even if . . .” Another sigh. “Even if you’re at the Ice Out.”

Avery turns towards me, full-on, but before either of us can say anything, the door swings open and the doctor strides in.

I leave for the exam, per the doctor’s request. Go back down the hall and out into the waiting room, where I find Syd, huddled in a chair in the corner, her knees drawn into her chest.

And now, finally, it’s just me and my thoughts and the teenage girl curled into the chair. I take the seat next to her. “How you holding up, Syd?”

She lifts her face, giving me a glimpse of reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks beneath her mussed hair. “How do you think?”

“Shitty.” I lean forward, elbows onto my knees. Take off my hat so I can dig my hands into my hair. “It’s been a shitty fucking day.”

“Yeah.” She sighs, drops her head back down. “It was supposed to be an amazing day.”

I settle my hat back onto my head. “Because of the tourney?”

I think at first she won’t answer. That our fight from this morning will linger, stilting our words behind a wall of our making.

“Olli got Coach to give me a backstage pass,” Syd says, her voice muffled in her arms. “I was going to go around, posting pictures, getting player quotes, all that kind of shit.”

“Damn. That would have been awesome.” I glance at the clock on the wall. “You could still make it.”

She shakes her head without lifting it from her arms. “Not without Avery.”

“He’s gonna be okay.” I lift a hand like I’m going to rub it over her shoulder blades, but think twice, lower it again. I don’t know whether she’s still mad at me. “We’re gonna get this worked out, and he’s gonna be okay.”

“No, he’s not.” Syd’s red-rimmed eyes appear again over the crest of her folded arms. “He was gonna skate in the tourney.”

“Oh.” Realization strikes me. He wasn’t at the Ice Outtryingto get into the tournament—hegotin. Got a ticket, and that’s what his father found. That’s what set him off. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” Syd bounces her forehead off her arm a few times, frustration evident in the jerky gesture. “Today was gonna be such a good day.”

“Sometimes, those are the ones that wind up being the worst,” I murmur. I lace my fingers together, stare at my hands. Ink and scars and bruised, bloody knuckles. “Because you have such high expectations for them.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Syd sighs. Buries her face in her hands again, and I don’t know whether she’s crying or simply lost in her own thoughts, her own dark world. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, either—reach out and bridge the gap between us? Let her be? Wait for her to come to me?

“It’s my fault.” My words tumble out, and I don’t know if that means they’reright, or just desperate. Whatever the case, I need to break this silence. “I fucked it all up. When I burned your toast this morning.”

Another pause. Syd cocks her head sideways so one of her green eyes appears, like she’s assessing whether I’mseriouslyjoking at a time like this.

She must decide that I am; her mouth twitches upwards in the shadow of amusement. “Yeah. Started the day off with bad vibes.”

“At least it was just the top layer?” I lift my brows. “You scraped, right?”

“Yeah.” Syd huffs out a little laugh. “I scraped. And I thought you could cook.”

“I can, you know that.” It’s mostly the truth, anyway. “I was distracted.”

“Distracted by what?” Syd still looks at me, the side of her face resting in the cradle of her arms. I decide it’s an improvement, even if my stomach still churns.

“Tournament shit. Same as you, I guess.”

“Deciding whether you were going to go.” It’s not a question; Syd knows me pretty well.

“Yep.” My hands clench tight into fists, making the scabs stand out dark over blood-drained knuckles. “I hadn’t decided.”

“Why not?”

When I look up from my hands, a pair of green eyes stares back at me, a question scrawled across them.

---