Page 53 of Stuck with my Guarded MVP
I let out a short laugh.
She glanced over, brows raised. “What?”
“Looks like you’re mentally arm-wrestling the page.”
She looked at the journal, then back at me. “This article keeps switching table formats. I’m not the problem.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She grinned, then turned back to her page.
I looked down at my own book, but I wasn’t actually reading. Just watching her. Watching her settle.
“Have you always been this into reading?” she asked, still looking down.
I cleared my throat and closed my book. “Started with hockey travel, honestly. Long bus rides, flights, hotels. At some point, the brain rot from endless video games and highlight reels gets old.”
She looked amused. “So paperbacks and paprika fixed everything?”
“Let’s not go that far. I started with cookbooks and mystery thrillers. Needed something to keep me occupied when we weren’t playing or practicing.”
She nodded slowly. “And now?”
“Now I probably average two books a week.”
She tilted her head.
“How about you?” I asked. “No, let me guess. You’ve been reading a book a week since you were five.”
She laughed. “Not even close.”
I was on a roll. “I bet you had some ultra-organized system. Auburn August. Sapphire September.”
She threw a pillow at me. “You’re a menace.”
“You’re the one with the color-coded brain.”
She rolled her eyes. Then, quieter, “You may find this hard to believe, but I was a terrible reader as a kid.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
“I always thought the kids who got those summer reading awards were weird,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine reading for fun. It felt like punishment.”
“So you chose medicine to get over your fear of reading?”
She laughed. “I know. Not the most logical plan. But once I had to read for school, I just… pushed through. Like everything else. It got easier with practice.”
I nodded. “That was the butterfly slide for me.”
She looked up.
I leaned back. “Probably logged ten thousand reps before it stopped feeling like punishment.”
She shifted slightly on the couch, turning a page. Then, after a pause, she looked up.
"So what kind of medicine did you practice?" I asked.
