Beyond the Point(23)
“Send in whoever’s next.”
AVERY EXPLODED OUT of the Holleder Center into the wintry air, breathless and angry. We assumed one of you would quit. Was that what she was to them? A backup plan? Not worth coaching? You just don’t have the edge. What did that even mean?
Avery had ignored Hannah on the way out of the Holleder Center and ran back to cadet area, letting the wind freeze the tears on her cheeks. It’s just not enough. That’s what Coach J had said. And she was right. As fast as Avery was, there would always be someone faster. As pretty as she was, there would always be someone like Hannah, who was downright angelic. What was the point of trying to be good? She’d tried. And she was tired of trying.
When she found her way back to the barracks, Avery knew exactly what she was doing. It didn’t matter that she was covered in sweat and tears and that she hadn’t showered. His room was two floors above hers, she knew because she’d delivered his laundry just last week. If she was lucky, he would be there when she arrived, rules be damned.
She stood in the hallway outside of his door, her heart racing in her chest, looking to her left and to her right before she raised a fist to knock. If his roommate answered, she would be ruined. She had no way to explain why she, a plebe, needed to see Collins, a Cow, at ten thirty on a Tuesday night. But thankfully, when the door opened, the green eyes and half smile of her table leader were there, accompanied by a half-hearted laugh.
“About-Face?” he said, shocked. “What are you . . .”
Avery peered behind him, saw that his roommate was not there, and then stepped into his room, closed the door, and turned the lock. Breathless, she pulled her shirt off over her head, and savored the look on his face as his eyes dropped in awe.
“Get undressed, Collins,” she ordered.
And he obeyed.
6
Spring 2001 // West Point, New York
I assume you’re all ready for today’s discussion?”
There was a quiet murmur of assent from all of the cadets in the room.
Hannah sat front and center, wearing BDUs and lining up her pens in a perfect row like soldiers. Red for the most important notes. A highlighter for text in the book. Black gel for transcribing portions of Colonel Bennett’s lecture. There was little about West Point that Hannah could control, but at least in the classroom, she knew how to excel. The spiral notebook in front of her was full of notes from the semester, with dates written in perfect cursive handwriting at the top right of each page.
“Good, good.” The professor dropped a copy of Plato’s The Republic on his podium and smiled. “Before we cut into this juicy piece of philosophical goodness, let me check with our section marcher. Mr. Arant?”
While the cadet in charge looked around the room to take roll, Hannah looked at Colonel Bennett. He wore a green uniform with an eagle emblem on the lapel, showing his rank. He was in his midfifties, with peppery brown hair and the clean-shaven face of a man who’d been in the military for most of his life. At the beginning of the semester, when Hannah had walked into his classroom, she’d immediately recognized him. Colonel Bennett and his wife, Wendy, the couple that had hosted her family the night before R-Day, also had season tickets to all of West Point’s home basketball games. During the varsity games, the JV players sat in the bleachers in the row just in front of the Bennetts.
“You doing okay?” Wendy would always ask Hannah at some point during each varsity game.
“Yes, ma’am,” Hannah would assure her, even if it was a lie. “I’m doing good.”
The piece of paper with Wendy’s phone number on it was stuffed in the back of her desk somewhere. Hannah had never used it. More than once, Hannah had promised to try to attend the Bible study Wendy hosted at her house, but every Wednesday night, she’d find herself buried under a pile of homework, simply trying to keep up.
“You coming?” Sarah Goodrich had asked the previous Wednesday, popping her head into Hannah’s barracks.
“I can’t,” Hannah had said, gripping the silver cross necklace in her hand and surveying the pile of textbooks and assignments in front of her. “Sorry . . . I just . . .”
“Books don’t love you back, you know.”
Guilt had washed over Hannah in that moment, and she’d groaned, putting her head on her desk. Against her better judgment, she let Sarah drag her out of the barracks and up a steep, snow-covered staircase to Lusk Area, where she’d defrosted in front of the Bennetts’ fireplace, eating homemade chili followed by brownies and ice cream. It had been a moment of calm in a world of constant discomfort.
Now, waiting on Cadet Arant to finish taking attendance, Hannah flipped through the first few pages of the book, frantically trying to remember anything she’d read the night before. Passages were underlined and highlighted, but the words meant nothing to her. She wondered if overexercising could cause temporary amnesia.
After losing three games in a row, Coach Jankovich had transformed her practices from predictably horrible to outright sadistic. At the previous night’s practice, it had been easier to name the girls who didn’t throw up than those who did, and sadly, Hannah was among the latter.
“Do you want to lose?” Coach Jankovich had shouted after the varsity team lost on the road at Rutgers. She’d lined them all up on the baseline of the opponent’s gymnasium, long after the stands had cleared of fans. Hannah saw the Rutgers janitor standing at the door, waiting to wax the floor. But Coach Jankovich didn’t seem to notice him, or if she did, she didn’t mind making him wait. She blew her whistle ferociously, sending them sprinting across the court, watching the Rutgers logo pass beneath their feet. Hannah and Avery hadn’t even been a part of the varsity squad that had lost the game, and yet, they sprinted. Jankovich’s shrill whistle pierced Hannah’s ears. It echoed through her dreams.