Page 10 of Left-Hand Larceny

It takes one hand to count the number of people I feel like I can understand.

Amma

Katrín

Vic

Tristan

…

Sadie.

Restless energy has me heading back to my phone search engine, using one oversized finger to type in the words, “How to become more comfortable in social situations?” My thumb hits all the wrong buttons and I pause, flexing my hand to loosen my joints. Try again.

I’m back on the forum again, but this time something stands out.

This may not be a smart idea, and I’d never tell someone they have to do what I do,but it’s what works for me. I think of my social persona as a character I put on. If I have to be in social situations, I wear her like a mask. It’s exhausting, pretending all the time, but I think that’s the reality. I’m not sure anyone can change who they fundamentally are. I’m someone who will always find my social battery drained by being in public or around others. I also have a job that means I cannot just fade into the background. I studied some of my more extroverted coworkers. I imitated speech patterns and nonverbal cues. If I mess something up, well, it wasn’t me. It was work me, or Girls-Night-Out me. And then I build in time to disassociate in silence to recover. Again, I’m not saying it’s healthy or smart or whatever, and sure, I run into burn out… but it works. ??‍??

On the television, I watch my past self drop to a butterfly before I go ass over elbow. The dark purple of the Rocky Mountain player jersey goes tumbling over my back. Even in the replay, the sound seems to cut out. A collective gasp for air. I’mstill on the ice. I almost forgot the way the pain burned through my hip, lighting me up from the inside out. Sizzling like acid in my veins. Then I see her.

Her dark braid swings as she hops the bench with the practiced ease of a lifelong player. Spags taught her how to do that. I remember watching them from the crease, my throat burning as I let in shot after shot, unable to tear my gaze away from the two of them, laughing as she tried to get enough height to go over the top.I wish I’d thought to teach her.

She slides to her knees on the ice, her hand hovering over the center of my chest. I know she was telling me to stay still. That Greg was coming. That it was all going to be okay. I remember the way my ears roared before zeroing in on her voice, blocking out the sound of bruising punches being thrown behind the crease. My team standing up for me. Fighting. For me.

On the screen I see the corner of my mouth tip up into an almost smile. I don’t remember doing that. I don’t remember much beyond the pain and the thudding of my pulse and her soothing voice. I’d smiled? Even then?

I watch them load me up and cart me off the ice. The announcers are talking about my injury. The shit luck that had me flattened in the second period of the seventh game of the playoffs. How no one had seen me on the ice since, but I was still on the roster for the start of the season. They wonder if I’m healed. If I’m back.

I watch Sadie slip her way to the bench, her feet almost skidding out from under her. Like she can barely hold herself up. As she reaches the bench, the door is flung open by Robbie and the guys move to the side to let her through. I watch as they duck their heads to talk to her.

Even if I can’t read their lips from the distance and behind their half-shields, I know what they’re saying. They gave her messages for me. Asked her to fix me up good as new. Iknow a critical hit can shake a team. An injury can change the momentum of the game. Over the next twenty minutes of play, my replacement Jacobs couldn’t seem to find the puck and the Rush dumped in three garbage goals. The offense fell apart too, focusing more on putting a world of hurt on the Rocky Mountain offensive line.

I know my teammates were concerned with my well-being, worried enough to stop our assistant trainer and ask her to pass along well wishes and messages, but for the first time watching them bend down to meet her height, it looks like that isn’t all that they were doing.

It almost looks like they were trying to comfort… her.

“There you are, sweetheart.” My mother wraps her arms around me as the front door swings closed. I wait to hear the telltale click of the lock catching. One time when I was around seven, I didn’t wait, and the wind blew the door back open.

“What if the dog had gotten out? Or someone had gotten in? You need to be more careful. Pay better attention to what’s going on around you. See things through to the end.”

We never had a dog.

I hug her back, breathing in the scent of her perfume. It’s the same one she’s worn for as long as I can remember, sandalwood and vanilla and mom, kept in the ornate glass bottle on her vanity. That bottle had come from her mom and her mom’s mom, pink crystal with a little velvet bulb to squeeze. At one point there had been a tassel, gold, hanging from the end.I probably ruined it as a kid.

“How was work?” I ask.

My dad is already in the kitchen, reading the financial times.

“Saved you the crossword, kiddo.” He smiles at me over the top of the Quarry Creek paper, before dropping his eyes again. I buss his cheek in greeting and he pats the top of my head. “Did you finish the one from this morning? It was a doozy.”

I reach around him, opening the silverware drawer and grabbing forks for the table.

“I did.” I grin, thinking of Ragnar’s pink ears as he answered each question for me. “But I admit I had some help.”

“Sadie,” Dad shakes his head, giving me his best fake-stern expression. “Google is cheating.”

I press my hand against my sternum, my mouth dropping open in manufactured outrage.

---