Page 26 of Finding Her
“I told you already,” I said, moving into another stretch. “It’s based on my last name, Barrett.”
“Okay, sure,” she said. “But most people don’t go around saying, ‘Okay, give me a nickname based on my last name.’ Where did it come from?”
I huffed, not wanting to answer but knowing that she was going to keep pushing me if I didn’t. “It’s a thing on the hockey team. We all go by nicknames based on our last names. Like… I’m Bear. Michael Valentine is Tino. Jace McIntyre is Mako. Things like that.”
Poppy seemed satisfied with my answer, because she then asked me about my family. After that, she asked me about my house, my roommate, my classes, and everything else under the sun. She didn’t stop asking for the entire time we stretched. And since I didn’t ask her any questions, she happily answered the ones that she asked as well. So, by the end of the ten minutes, I knew a lot more about her than I had any reason to.
Her dad worked some big corporate job that meant they had to move around a lot, so this was the fifth school she’d been to. She was hoping she would stay here until she graduated, but she didn’t trust that her parents wouldn’t pull her out of Hartwellnext year if they moved. She hoped to stay close for college somewhere in the area because this was her favourite place she’d lived so far and her older sister, Ivy, was planning to stay close as well. Her sister was also her best friend in the world and they still talked every day, even while Poppy was at school. Her second best friend was Saylor, the girl Crossy had been eyeing at the beach. They’d lived together last year, but now she was rooming with Lilah. She said she liked the living arrangement fine, although she wasn’t sure if she and Lilah would ever be as close as she was with Saylor. Her favorite color was yellow because it reminded her of sunshine—something I could have guessed easily. She used to play the trombone in middle school and she could still play it badly.
And my favorite fact was that she once almost failed gym class too, though for her, it had been because she had an injury but the school wouldn’t excuse her from gym without a doctor’s note and since she had just moved, she didn’t have a new doctor yet.
I smiled triumphantly when she said that and said, “See, I’m not the only one who can fail gym class.”
“At least I had a legitimate reason. You just chose not to show up.”
I pretended to be wounded, although she was completely right, even if I would never admit it to anybody. In turn, I found myself answering her questions as well, mostly because if I tried to stay silent, she would stare at me until I answered. Normally, I didn’t mind sitting in silence, but the way she was staring me down made it uncomfortable.
So, I found myself telling her about my family too. About how both my parents had gone to Hartwell, but didn’t start dating until they were in college. How coming to boarding school never seemed like much of an option because they’d both wanted it forme and in the end, I thought it was the best fit anyway. How my dad was in the NHL for years and he wanted the same for me.
She just stared at me and asked, “And what do you want?”
I switched my stretch so that I didn’t have to look at her and try to answer. Because the truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know it at all. I knew that hockey was the most important thing in my life. I knew that I couldn’t let anything else get in the way of it. Did I want it for me? Or did I want it to make him happy? I couldn’t tell.
I told her all the mundane things about me too. When she asked my favorite color, I just spit out the first one I thought of. “Dark gray.”
And she stared at me and said, “Like black?”
And I doubled down and said, “No, dark gray. Like the color of that girl’s shirt.” I pointed at a girl who was wearing one of the unusual Hartwell shirts that was gray with Hartwell along the front, instead of the purple ones the rest of us were wearing.
She nodded and said, “That’s a stupid favorite color. But, I like that you’re unique.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was an insult or not, so I just stayed silent. I guess she didn’t mind because she kept asking me questions, leading me to tell her about my friends. About how Tino was roommate, and about Crossy, who she remembered from the day on the beach. She asked if I knew what was going on between him and Saylor, and I honestly answered no, because I didn’t realize there was anything actually going on. He was obviously interested in her, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure there was anything to say.
Finally, when she seemed to be running out of questions, I asked her the question that had been plaguing my mind since the first day we met.
“Why did you choose me?” I asked.
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“To be your partner?” I said, realizing I hadn’t clarified the question at all. “You chose me. Why?”
She just stared for a minute and said, “Well, why shouldn’t I?”
That answer threw me so much that I barely heard Mrs. Dixon call us all up. As I walked over, I thought about the answer.Why shouldn’t I?I could think of a thousand reasons, beyond the obvious fact that I was the only boy in the class and everybody should probably be giving me a wide berth. The fact that I had hit her with a dodgeball the previous day. That I’d refused to speak to her. That I had a reputation for being rude around school. That everything about me screamedstay far away.
Because she was her and I was me, and there was no reason two people like us should spend any time together.
When Mrs. Dixon blew the whistle for us to start running, I took off like a shot. Screw starting off with a jog, I just started full-on sprinting. I was sure that I was going to immediately leave Poppy in the dust and then she would be upset because she couldn’t keep up when I had asked her if she wanted to run with me. But to my surprise, she was right there the whole time. Every time I looked over, there she was. I would push myself ahead, push myself so hard that I felt like my lungs were burning and my legs were going to fall, and she would stay by my side for every moment. She never slowed down. Not once.
Even though she wasn’t chattering away the way she normally would, she was smiling hard. A huge smile on her face, looking so pleased. And I could not, for the life of me, understand why.
It was ridiculous. Was this girl secretly super-woman or something? I mean, I was killing myself with how hard I was running, how fast I was running, but she looked like she was just going for a nice jog around the neighbourhood.
By the end of the class, I was dripping in sweat, had a stitch in my side, and I was slightly worried that I was gonna throw up. But still, Poppy never stopped smiling. I was starting to wonder if she was physically incapable of stopping.
“Great…” The word was barely audible out of her mouth and she had to catch her breath for nearly a minute before she could manage to add, “Class.”
I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to open my mouth, so I just nodded, still huffing and puffing. She raised her arm just barely in a wave and stumbled off toward the locker room. I watched her go as I rubbed the stitch in my side, grudgingly impressed with how much she’d managed to keep up with me.
