Page 120 of Blindside Me
My eyebrows raise accusatorily.
“Don’t judge. I hear more locker-room talk than the guys know.” His face turns grim. “He got into a lot of fights that night. One scout called him out on it. You can imagine his old man’s response. He ended up wrapping his car around a tree after fighting with his dad.”
“That’s awful.” I swallow past the lump of sadness lodged in my throat. I knew he had died, but didn’t know the details. The revelation sends a chill down my spine. Drew’s fear makes more sense. His words outside Barton’s replay in my head:I wanted to hurt him, Jade. Really hurt him … and it felt good.
“He thinks he’s protecting me by staying away,” I say quietly.
“Probably. He’s got it in his head that he’s toxic.” Uncle Howell sighs. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s right.”
I look up, surprised. “You don’t?”
“No. And I won’t stand in your way anymore.” He gestures to the skates. “Doubt those can be fixed.”
“He wouldn’t want new ones,” I say automatically.
Uncle Howell nods, a small smile forming. “Exactly. Some things are worth saving, even when they’re a little broken.”
I look down at the skates in my hands, running my thumb over the deepest crack in the leather. “He’s not invisible either,” I whisper, more to myself than my uncle.
“No,” he agrees. “He’s not.”
We stand there in silence, and I don’t feel alone for the first time in years. My uncle’s presence beside me feels solid and real in a way it hasn’t since I was twelve.
“What are you going to do with those?” he asks, nodding to the skates.
I take a deep breath, a sense of determination settling in my chest. “I don’t know yet. But I’m not throwing them away.”
Uncle Howell nods, understanding what I’m really saying. Then he checks his watch. “I’ve got a meeting with the athletic director in fifteen. Will you be okay?”
The question is loaded with years of unasked versions of itself. This time, I don’t automatically say I’m fine.
“No,” I answer honestly. “But I might be eventually.”
He reaches out, hesitates, then gently squeezes my shoulder. “That’s my girl.”
He walks away, and I turn back to the trophy case, to Drew’s name, holding pieces of what he thought he needed to destroy.
Ten days of silence. Of thinking it was over before it really began.
But the note in my pocket says otherwise: “The only one to see me.”
He thinks I saw him, but maybe I’m the one who finally needed someone to see me back.
I don’t know if the skates can be fixed. I don’t know if we can.
But for the first time in ten days, I want to try.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Drew
I’ve thrown punches that hurt less than what I’m about to do. My knuckles still ache, not from the fight, but from the skates I tore apart after. Twelve days of silence between me and everyone who matters. Twelve days of hiding from what I had become. I’m tired of running.
I don’t knock. Just turn the handle and step inside before I lose my nerve.
Coach Howell looks up from his stack of papers, eyes widening, before nodding once and motioning to the chair across from him.
“I was going to call you in,” he says, voice calm but unreadable. “Glad you beat me to it.”
