Page 6 of Tiny Fractures

“Well, she looked lost this morning, so I offered to show her around.” He leaves out the part where he asked if he could show me to the bathroom. “Your name is Cat?” he asks, and I nod. “I’m Drew.” He holds his hand out, which I shake.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, even though I’m uneasy. Drew has the stature, the face, the air of a guy I try to avoid now—self-assured, cocky, aggressive. A jock, in other words.

“Drew plays on the hockey team with Steve and Tori’s boyfriend, Shane,” Vada tells me.

“Oh, I thought you were a football player, maybe.” I don’t know why I say it.

He snorts. “Nah, those guys are losers. Hockey is where it’s at.”

Vada rolls her eyes.

“Dude, let’s fucking go!” one of the other boys with Drew calls over to him.

“Alright, gotta go. But it was great seeing you again,” he says with a wink and a smile at me. Then he turns with a quick wave to Tori, Vada, and Zack, and rejoins his buddies.

“So, that was Drew. He’s the varsity hockey goalie,” Tori says, noting my apparent consternation.

“Okay,” I say simply, feeling Vada and Tori’s eyes on me.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s like a chihuahua—all yap, not a ton of action,” Zack mumbles, his mouth full.

“Sounds exactly like the way he plays hockey,” Vada opines. “Did you hear about that own goal he scored at the playoffs against the Knights? Steve was so pissed,” she adds with a giggle.

“Have I ever.” Tori nods. “Shane couldn’t stop talking about it. He gave Drew such a hard time for weeks afterwards.”

The talk about hockey continues for a few minutes before the topic veers to other subjects. I enjoy sitting and eating lunch with my new friends, who are funny and down-to-earth, and I’m delighted to learn that I share two afternoon classes with Vada and Tori, and my last with Zack, who introduces me to his girlfriend, Summer.

***

When the bell rings, I head to the girls’ locker room where I meet Vada and Tori to get ready for our softball practice this afternoon.

Practice goes well. Vada giddily introduces me to the rest of the team, and I’m happy to find that nobody really seems to care that I’m new. By the time practice is over and we return to the locker room to change, I have to admit that this first day went better than I could have ever hoped for.

“Hey Vada,” one of our teammates calls from across the locker room, “is it true that Shane is throwing a party at the beach house for Steve’s eighteenth birthday in a couple of weeks?”

“Yeah, are you planning to be there?” Vada calls back.

The girl pulls a hair tie out of her jet-black hair, which plummets all the way down her back, stopping at her waist. She nods, a gleam in her brown eyes. “Will Ronan be there?”

“Uh, duh. He’s Stevie’s brother, of course he’ll be at the party,” Vada says with a shrug.

The girl turns to her two girlfriends, all three of whom stick their heads together, giggling and whispering.

Vada just shakes her head at them, then resumes getting dressed.

“When is your boyfriend’s birthday?” I ask Vada as I sit down on the bench to pull on my shoes.

“May second,” Vada tells me, sitting down next to me.

Tori sits down on my other side. “Shane is throwing him a party on the first; it’s a Saturday. You should come.”

Nope. I don’t do parties. Not anymore. Parties equal people, and alcohol, and sex, and all the things I’m trying to get away from. “Oh, I don’t… I won’t be able to make it, I think. We’re having dinner with my grandparents that night.” I desperately attempt to control my face, to stop the heat rising in my cheeks and giving me away.

“You could come afterwards,” Vada suggests with a smile.

“Those dinners usually drag on all evening, and I haven’t seen my grandparents in a while, so… maybe next time.”

Vada and Tori nod.

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