Page 38 of Break Point

I scan her face for more hints, but she simply looks exhausted. I don’t think she wants to quit on Amelia. I think she’s honestly ill, and her I can’t text was probably literal at the time she sent it.

“Boring. You weren’t there. Can I?” I motion toward the door, and Jaden’s eyes flicker wider for a second before she backs up a step and pulls the door open.

“Yeah, come on in. Let me just . . . I need to change.” She glances down at her body and twists her lips up as if she’s surprised to see what she’s wearing.

“Must have been a rough practice. You come home and go straight to bed?” I ask as I click the door closed behind me.

“Uh, sort of,” she says, her voice muffled through her bedroom door.

I make my way to a blue sofa covered in mismatched throw pillows that sits across from a small TV on a makeshift bookcase built from boards and cinder blocks. I grab one of a dozen PEZ dispensers standing next to the TV before sinking into the corner seat of the couch. It’s a Charlie Brown dispenser, and the way the round head splits in half to distribute candy amuses me.

“Oh, I wouldn’t eat that,” Jaden says, appearing from the hallway just as I’m about to place a pink candy on my tongue. “It’s a year old. Maybe more.”

I cross my eyes in my effort to peer at the treat, then shrug before popping it in my mouth.

“I don’t think PEZ has an expiration date,” I say. I crunch down on the hard candy, and while it doesn’t exactly dissolve or turn to dust, it still breaks under the pressure of my teeth. And it doesn’t taste bad.

Jaden reaches for Charlie Brown, and I hand him over. She opens his mouth and takes a candy for herself, then places Chuck back in his rightful spot.

“You’re right. Not bad,” she says, moving to the other end of the couch and flopping backward as if her bones aren’t fully solid.

She’s wearing an oversize, dark-green hoodie pulled over her head and gray sweatpants that are pushed up her calves enough to show off blue-and-gray-striped socks. I think this might be the cutest she’s ever been, but I’m sure she’d disagree. She’s completely comfortable. But she also looks like someone who’s been in a flu coma on the bathroom floor.

She levels me with a lazy gaze, blinking slowly the way Ashton does when he’s completely blitzed. I chuckle and pull one of the throw pillows into my chest, hugging it as I shift to my side and tilt my head.

“Should we maybe make a trip to urgent care?”

She shakes her head and blinks her gaze to her lap, where she kneads her hands together, picking at the sides of her fingernails.

“I lost my spot today. I wasn’t . . . on. No . . . that’s not it. I was bad. Really fucking bad. And I got bumped to number two.” She pops her gaze back to me, her lips twisted with a tired sort of defeat. She lifts her right shoulder, then lets it drop like a sack of potatoes.

Shit. She’s not sick. She’s devastated.

I don’t talk for a few quiet seconds, instead simply holding her stare as I rest my head on the back of the sofa and consider every pain she’s feeling right now.

“Wanna go hit something?” I quirk my lip up slightly, and she shakes with a quiet, breathy laugh.

“I couldn’t hit the ball today. I’m not sure I can be trusted to hit the broad side of a Mack truck right now.” Her lip curves up a hint higher this time. She’s finding her humor, which is her way of coping with feeling embarrassed. I get it. She’s still the best athlete this school has ever seen, but she had an off day. And she’s taking her hits now because of it.

“It fucking sucks,” I mutter, letting my inner thoughts spill out between us.

Jaden nods slowly.

“It does,” she croaks.

I sit with her in her dimly lit living room as the patter of rain starts to tap against the window. Nearly a minute passes, and the room never feels heavy. There isn’t a strain pulling at my chest like I must fill the silence, and Jaden appears just as comfortable sitting with it as I do. Or perhaps she’s simply too crushed to feel anything beyond self-pity. Oh, how I remember that bottomless pit.

I stretch my leg out toward her, tapping her knee with the toe of my shoe, and she flits her gaze up to mine with a soft “Hmm?”

“Let’s get out of here.” I toss my head over my shoulder, and Jaden’s focus flickers to her front door.

“Eh,” she begins, her mouth twisting into a soured scribble. “I’m not really up for seeing people.”

“Yeah, I get that. I promise no people. At least not anyone who will notice us.” I get to my feet and hold my hand out for her to take. She stares at it for a few seconds, then lurches forward as she stretches out her shoeless feet. “You’re gonna need shoes, though.”

She gazes up at me from the shadow of her hoodie and her long lashes, and there’s a playfulness that seems to be trying to hijack its way into her face.

“Come on, Crash. You can handle putting on shoes,” I say, taking her hand without warning and gently tugging. Her body goes exaggeratedly limp as the weight of her pulls back, but eventually, she drags herself to her feet with my mild assistance, then shuffles her way to her bedroom.