Page 108 of Give Me a Shot

“Thanks,” Sophia said. She took a step toward the door when Jess returned her test. “I…um…I hope the stuff works out soon,” she said.

Jess was caught off guard by the sting in the backs of her eyes.

“Thanks, Sophia. That’s kind of you,” she said.

After Sophia was gone, Jess waited a couple of beats then stood to cross her office and close the door. She sighed and let her head rest against it as she turned the lock.

Unprofessional in class, unprofessional with my grading. Unacceptable.

The Faire was fast approaching. She’d been grateful for the distraction of practicing with Brian and Keith, trying to nail down the routine for the show. When she hadn’t been shooting with them, she’d been shooting at an indoor range she’d found a week earlier. The need to shoot had been intense. When she was in the middle of shooting, everything else disappeared. It was a reprieve from the physical and emotional pain of grieving Cassie, and from missing Mo. She just had to go to the Folk School as little as possible to avoid running into him. Otherwise she might crumble and beg him to get back together.

Then we’d both be miserable.

—

She sighed, pushed off the door, and returned to her desk. The joints in her hands were wailing, but she only stretched them once and got back to inputting the grades. Her phone beeped, and her heart jumped, hoping it was a message from Mo. Instead, it was Doug with more of his rambling excitement now that the Faire was a little over a week away. As she put the phone back down, she rolled her eyes, as much at Doug as at herself.

Just keep going. You wouldn’t force a lung cancer patient to chain smoke.

She wasn’t sure that was the best analogy for the situation. But she was going to be toxic waste for a while. She refused to poison Mo. Her eyes burned again, and a wave of sadness started to rise. She shook her head hard.

It’s fine. You’re a big girl. You can do this.

She whisked a rebellious tear off her face and returned to the grades.

—

That evening, after a cup of tea for dinner, Jess stuffed her pillows against her headboard and settled in for her video call with Alice and Stephanie. She’d already skipped the one right after she broke up with Mo; she couldn’t avoid this one, as much as she wanted to.

They’ll probably be happy I went to Rockford, at least.She didn’t know if she’d be able to talk about Mo.

She let out a deep sigh and clicked on the icon to start the call.

“Hola, cariño!” Alice said as soon as she appeared on the screen.

“Um…hi?” Jess asked. “That sounded pretty.” Steinem hopped up on the bed and nudged himself into her lap, forcing Jess to make space for him. He stretched in view of the camera and Alice laughed.

“Good, I’m glad,” she said. “Been practicing. The ladies have been saying it to me and it’s supposed to be like, ‘Hi, dear,’ so I think it fits.” She winked. “And hello to you, too, Steinem.”

Jess smiled.

“It sounds like things are still going well,” she said.

“They are. We had—” Alice glanced down, out of range of the camera. “Hold on a sec,” she said. “Lemme just reply to this message.” Jess nodded, stroking a hand down Steinem’s back.

“Okay, sorry,” Alice said. “We had a great community meeting a few weeks ago. Some local politicians came and heard what our volunteers had to say. It went really well,” she said.

“That’s great,” Jess said. “Do you want to wait for Steph to talk about it?”

“Oh, we can talk about it now,” Alice said breathlessly.

She began explaining the event, the planning, its goals. And while it interested Jess, Alice seemed off. She was speaking quickly but repeating herself every now and again. It seemed like she was having trouble catching her breath. She also kept looking to the side a lot.

“Al,” Jess said, interrupting her. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alice said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You seem stressed. Or nervous,” Jess said.

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