Page 36 of Unbound

My brow furrows but I nod.

“Maybe you could ask her to get coffee.”

There’s an immediate discomfort that forces me to shake my head. I take it back—I don’t want to spend more time with her if that’s the only way.

“No—but maybe she’ll ask me.” The way it has always been. Rhys asked me to skate first. Freddy shoved his way headfirst into our group. Paloma asked to help with my routine. Saying yes is easier. Starting that conversation is nearly too much to even picture.

Dr. Anya readjusts herself in the seat across from me. “I think making a friend that isn’t Rhys and isn’t on the hockey team is really important for you. Why don’t we practice how it might go? Then you can ask her to get coffee with you after your next poetry class or at the arena. Whatever comes first.”

I want to say no. I think I’d rather talk about Rhys and my ever-present fear than this. Hell, maybe even Dr. Anya’s favorite topic—the divorce.

Except—

“I’m not really a big fan of poetry like this. It’s really . . . there’s a lot of rules.”

“It’s . . . you should try it again.”

Paloma smiles, eyes bright as she looks up at me. Her long, light brown hair is haphazardly pulled back in a messy braid, pieces falling over the smooth, dewy skin of her face. The back of my neck feels hot and damp. “Maybe I will.”

“Okay.”

• • •

I wait a week and one day before deciding to try it.

With my dad’s encouragements as he went through it all with me again over dinner last night—mixed with the hidden disappointment of my therapist that I hadn’t asked her yet—I don’t think there is a possibility of feeling more ready.

My knee thumps in competition with my heart throughout the class, so much so that I barely hear a word our professor has said until he announces yet again, “We’re partnering up.”

Brown eyes find mine immediately, a smirk hidden in plush, pinkened lips as Paloma makes her way over to me. As if no one else exists—her first choice, even if we were originally the last two chosen.

Dr. Britton looks at us with a questioning expression, but I barely notice him or hear a word he says over the pounding of my pulse. It’s so loud I worry she can hear it.

Step One: Compliment her backpack—

“Hey,” she says.

I nod, sitting up a little straighter in my seat.

“So, listen, I—”

I’m cut off by our professor stepping up to our cluster of desks.

“Not the best listeners in the group, but somehow psychic.” At our confused expressions he sighs. “I was pairing everyone up for the project—not that you two seem to have heard a word of it. But, that doesn’t matter, since tah-dah—” he taps his cane three times. “I was already going to pair you two—the free-verse girl and the structured sonnets boy. Like a weird, poetry superhero duo.”

Paloma snickers, so I laugh lightly and smile at him with a nod.

“Are you hoping we fight to the death? E. E. Cummings versus Petrarch?”

Again, I’m silent while our professor broadly grins at her quick sarcastic wit.

“I’ve chosen elegies for the both of you. Or odes, should you prefer them?”

Normally, I’d enjoy the verbal sparring performance between them, but I can’t focus on anything other than the directions in my head, repeating them over and over so I don’t forget.

Step One: Compliment her backpack.

Step Two: Give her time to settle into her desk.