Wrecked(8)

3





Haley


Haley’s seen these women before. Just not in her room.

The black woman with the super--short--pretty--much--shaved hair and the blonde. The pretty white--blonde she passes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings on her way to the gym. It’s a scheduling thing. You get into patterns, pass the same people who are retracing their patterns. Dining hall, class, library, dining hall. They tread invisible paths into the sidewalks, only to shake it all out and start afresh each semester when the schedules change.

Haley and the blonde have become smiling strangers. That’s how she refers, in her mind, to people she doesn’t know but sees every day. It would be unfriendly not to smile, but weird to actually speak. Haley assumes the blonde lives in one of the interest houses near the athletic center and she’s heading to a class on the days she passes Haley on her way to the gym.

Now she sits on Haley’s bed. The woman with the short hair sits on the other bed. With Jenny. With her arm around Jenny’s shoulders. As Jenny cries.

“Oh. Hey,” is Haley’s startled response. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be on her way to history, but got hung up at the dining hall. Then forgot her notebook. And her phone. Haley keeps forgetting things. It’s her first day back at classes, almost a week after the concussion, and while the pain has been mostly replaced by pressure, the fuzzy--headedness persists.

The blonde, who recognizes her instantly, is equally surprised. “Hey,” she says back.

Awkward silence follows.

“Is everything okay?” Haley asks, which is ridiculous because it’s clearly not.

The two visitors look at Jenny, who blows her nose into a tissue.

“It’s my roommate,” Jenny tells them. They look Haley up and down.

“Do you need to get in here?” the short--haired woman asks.

“Just have to grab my notebook,” Haley says. She walks between them to her desk and picks up the notebook and phone. The only sound is Jenny sniffling. As she turns to leave, Haley exchanges glances with the blonde. Her wide, copper--colored eyes communicate nothing. Her mouth forms a thin half smile. She nods good--bye, dismissing Haley from her own room.

What the hell? Haley thinks as she power walks to the class she’s already late for. They haven’t been speaking, her and Jenny. Not beyond the automatic “Hey how’s it going.” Frankly, Haley’s pissed. She’d apologized for supposedly yelling the other night; wasn’t that enough? And you’d think, given how awful she’s felt this week, lying in their room with her head throbbing, Jenny would’ve been maybe a little thoughtful? Offered to bring her a sandwich, or at least ask how she was doing, especially after Haley’s parents showed up? You know things are not going well when the ’rents show up and it’s not Parents Weekend.

Instead, Jenny--Mouse was more furtive than ever, bordering on unfriendly. Avoiding eye contact. Huddling on her bed with her back to Haley, whispering into her phone. And that’s if she thought Haley was asleep. If Haley was awake and Jenny’s phone went off, she’d tell whomever on the other end, “I can’t talk now. I’ll call you later.”

As if I give a damn about her little dramas. Haley pushes open the doors to the lecture hall. It’s a big survey class, Ameri-can history from the colonial period to the Civil War, and she slips unnoticed into an empty seat in the back.

She’s had her fill of drama lately. This morning at breakfast, for example. When she broke the news to Madison that she was off the team.

Madison stared at her across the dining hall table. “That so. Utterly. Sucks.”

The crowded room was a riot of light and noise. Haley felt far from great, but the docs told her she could give the big dining scene a try.

Madison was the first one she’d told.

“There’s still two weeks left of the regular season,” Madison persisted. “Can’t you get back for postseason?”

“It’s not about the postseason, or any season,” Haley said. “It’s about ever. Coach won’t play me. She’s afraid if I bang my head again and permanently damage my brain, we’ll sue the college. I’m a liability.”

Madison waved one hand dismissively. “Sign a waiver or something.”

“Not an option.”

“Why?”

“Because Coach said no! Trust me: it came up. If she doesn’t want to put me out on the field, she doesn’t have to. Play time isn’t a right. It’s a privilege.”

Not Haley’s words. Repeated words. From yesterday’s meeting. With her mom and dad. Coach. The college medi-cal director, who reviewed the results of Haley’s impact test (they finally did one) and pronounced her soccer career officially over.

The look on her mother’s face was priceless. Her mouth popped open in this little O as the doctor explained the risks she faced if she concussed again. Haley’s first thought was: That’s what they mean, in novels, when they describe someone’s jaw dropping in surprise. And she was surprised by her own detached observation. As if this weren’t happening to her. As if the defining activity of her life hadn’t just come to an abrupt end.

She was surprised that she felt nothing beyond mild curiosity, while her mother appeared tearful and her father grim.