Page 32 of Lovesick
What do you hear?
I hear the rumble of the crowd and the hushed voices of my teammates.
What do you smell?
The bite of artificial ice. A hint of rubber masquerading underneath the clean, pristine air.
What do you taste?
Mint from my gum.
What do you feel?
Hot. Cold. Antsy. So wound up that my thoughts won’t stop racing.
What do you see?
When I open my eyes, I can only see the lip of the rink from beyond the tunnel, but a familiar voice—one that I could pick out in a room full of mindless chatter—beckons me like a siren’s call, and I dazedly turn around to find Merit talking with her father a few feet away.
She’s listening attentively to whatever he’s saying, and I curb a chuckle when I realize that she’s probably the only person in this entire arena not dressed up in school colors. I know a Merit sighting should probably jumpstart my nerves, but I’m surprisingly calm right now.
Her dad rubs her arm before walking away, and I seize the moment, waddling over to her on my skates.
“You’re here,” I say in awe, committing this exact still frame to memory as I make a mental note of her ambrosial perfume and the adorable ponytail that swings behind her like a pendulum.
“You didn’t give me much of a choice,” she banters, and the sound of her syrupy voice soothes the raging tide of trepidation inside me—its once vicious waves demoted to a gentle ebb and flow that carries away silt and sediment and surly unease.
I chuckle. “Yeah, I guess…”
And then I notice it—the tacky, magnified rat decal on the front of her pink sweatshirt. The little dude is sitting on a toadstool, wearing a strawberry hat and playing the tambourine. A far cry from my white-and-maroon jersey that she wassupposedto wear.
“What’s with the giant rat?” I ask, gesturing to her questionable clothing choice.
She glances down at her sweatshirt. “This isn’t a rat. It’s an opossum.”
“A what?”
“You know, an opossum. They’re the only marsupial in North America.”
It’s like she’s speaking a different language. Though, by virtue of some incredible critical thinking skills and a flashback to my seventh-grade biology class, the name triggers a dormant memory.
I cock an eyebrow. “You mean those things that have rabies?”
She heaves a sigh, as if this should be common knowledge. “That’s a myth. Their body temperature is too low for them to carry rabies.”
Fuck, she’s smart. I could listen to her educate me for hours. This girl is unreal.
“Why do you like them so much?” I question.
Merit shrugs. “Misunderstood creatures deserve love too. People make so many cruel judgments about them just because they’re not nature’s perfect animal.”
I’ve never thought about it that way. I’ve always taken society’s opinion at face value, but Merit sees the light in those born to darkness. It’s one of the many things I admire about her.
I narrow my eyes at that stupid marsupial, like my glare willmagically set her clothes on fire. I got distracted from what’sreallyimportant here.
“Where is it.”
It’s not a question.
