Page 88 of Challenge
I shake my head. “That won’t work.”
“Yes, it will. Cam, the surgery wasn’t meant for this. If you take any sort of impact with that graft in, you risk worse damage to it. Get the graft removed and then decide not to play.”
“If I get it removed, I’ll be convinced to play. I know my family, and I’m tired of doing what everyone else wants me to do all the time. It’s time I do whatIwant. It’s my knee.”
“Your family loves you. They’re just trying to do what’s best for you. You’re so lucky to have that. If it’s me you’re angry at, I’ll take myself off of your surgery. I’ll be as far away from that OR as humanly possible, okay?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I scoff. “You are not the reason for this. I couldn’t give a toss who saws into me.”
“There’s no sawing,” she groans defensively.
“The drilling.”
“No drilling either.”
“The burning of bone.”
“Stop.”
“The—”
“Camden, don’t joke right now!” Her voice borders on shrill and she cups her face in sheer exhaustion. “This all got so messed up. I thought if I gave you space it might make things better. But now your family hates me, you’re not having the surgery, and all distance did was make things worse!”
My eyes narrow on her. “I think you forgot that you’re the one who craves space, Indie. Not me. I’m a Harris. Space is a made-up word to us.” My voice is flat and emotionless even though she stares back at me with brown, watery eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Camden. For everything. I’m not built for any of this.” She sniffs and turns her back on me to swipe at her face. Her hunched posture guts my insides. My instinct is to go to her like I did the other night. To touch her. To hold her and comfort her until those tears disappear or turn into laughter. But I refrain, because I know it’s not me she wants.
Despite all of that, I offer, “It’s not you, Indie. I’ve just lost the passion for it.”
She scoffs and shakes her head. “You bleed passion. It’s your best feature.”
Her words slice through me. The personal comment sinks into my soul, reminding me of all that we’ve shared with each other. But she’s still over there. I’m still over here. I have to stay strong because what I crave from her is more than this moment right now. Through clenched teeth, I utter, “Please don’t speak like you know me.”I’m not sure my heart can take it.
She nods and her eyes move back to the puns on the mirror. Without speaking, she bends over to pick up the marker from the floor. Finding an open spot, she scrawls something and then turns to look at me one more time. Her face is filled with emotions. Sorrow. Anger. Frustration. But mostly, she looks lost.
She hands the marker to me. “I hope you make the right decision for you, Camden. And no one else.”
I watch her leave. Once she is gone, my mind screams at me to not read her words, but my heart overrules.
I move closer to the mirror:What you seize is what you get.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tanner’s voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn and see him standing behind me, biting down on a banana.
I squint at it again. “The beauty of puns is that they can mean any number of things.”
He shakes his head and watches me. “Serves you right for hooking up with a smart bird. Did she get through to you?”
I roll my eyes. “No, Tanner. Just leave it.”
He pulls his hands back like he’s not trying to pick a fight, his banana still clutched in one. “Slam your fist in the door as many times as you’d like, Brother, but it’s not going to hurt anyone but you.”
My jaw falls open. Then he walks out on me, too.
It’s not a pun, but I hear him loud and clear.
“SO IS THAT IT THEN?” I ask, rushing into the on-call room and finding Belle flipping through a magazine as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. “Is that the end of our friendship? Is that how these things usually go?”
“What the hell happened to you?” she asks, eyeing me from the cot she’s draped over.
