Letters to Nowhere(85)

“Blair said you were going to regret breaking that one,” Bentley explained, noticing me looking at the trophy. “So Jordan super–glued it back together. Took him two hours to find all the pieces and another hour to glue them together.”

Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, imagining Jordan and Blair crawling around, looking for pieces to this stupid trophy and him gluing it all together. I glanced at Bentley, plunging forward with another big topic, since we were already on a roll. “He has nightmares, you know. Just like me.”

“Me, too,” he said before picking up the broom again. “But I would take his if I could.”

“Why is it so easy for you to talk to me but not him?”

He was quiet for a really long minute and I thought maybe I had overstepped my boundaries.

“I’m not sure, Karen. But I’m working on it. I promise.”

I smiled at him before picking a second broom. “You have a lot of potential, Coach.”

“You know what they say about potential,” Bentley said. “It only gets you so far.”





CHAPTER TWENTY





I can’t breathe…I really can’t breathe.

Sparkly dots formed in front of my face as my eyes tried to focus on the gym ceiling. Pain shot through my entire body, and I couldn’t even breathe through it.

“Breathe, Karen.” Bentley leaned over me and stuck his hands under my back, lifting my rib cage off the floor. “You’re all right. It was a safe fall.”

I closed my eyes and nodded just as air finally whooshed into my lungs. “Not enough…chalk…my fault,” I croaked out, one syllable at a time.

My hands had just slid right off the vault table while attempting my new vault in our last workout before training camp. Bad timing. Very bad. My palms had been sweaty and I hadn’t gotten enough chalk right before. Somehow I’d managed to turn the vault over and land flat on my back rather than breaking my neck.

I sat up slowly and then eventually got to my feet. Exhaustion weighed my entire body down, all the way to my bones. I couldn’t help thinking, looking at that vault table…Why the hell am I doing this? Who’s going to care if I don’t do it anymore, or if I do something easier?

I rolled out my neck, trying to loosen the stiff muscles, and glanced over at Jordan, who was teaching some classes tonight. He clutched his chest and let out of sigh of relief. I gave him a tiny smile before walking off the landing mat.

The past couple days had been strange between us. I didn’t think Jordan knew what else to say to me after the other night when he had admitted his failure to help me, and I didn’t know how to tell him that it didn’t matter. That he was still the same Jordan to me and I’d never expect him to have all the answers.

I watched him go back to teaching his class of little boys while Bentley had me stand beside the vault runway as he checked my neck, shoulders, back, and head, making sure I hadn’t done any real damage. He turned my head side–to–side, asking over and over, “Does this hurt? How about this?”

And I kept saying no, because it didn’t, but everything else did hurt. Whatever gave me that drive to keep going even though I was exhausted after five turns and ended up doing ten had dissipated after the other night, and I didn’t even have the energy to search for it. Maybe it would just come back on its own before Monday.

“Karen! Coach Bentley!” Mrs. Garrett called from the front desk.

A man in a dark blue suit stood near the old secretary, looking around and seeming very out of place in this chalk dust and sweat filled building that usually only housed barefooted kids and gossiping mothers.

Bentley nudged me forward and I followed behind him. The man stuck his hand out to me. “Nice to finally meet you, Karen. I’m Nick Stone, I worked with your father and Mr. Johnson. He’s the one who went over your parents’ will after the funeral.”

I looked up at Bentley and back to the man before shaking his hand. I didn’t know if I was glad to meet him or not, so I couldn’t say anything.

“Do you have a few minutes to chat? Mr. Bentley is welcome to join us.”

Bentley waved at Stacey to take over for him on vault and he led the way to his office. I had no idea what Nick Stone wanted from me, and I could only hope we weren’t going to have to do the awkward I’m–sorry–for–your–loss chat.

I sat beside Nick Stone and Bentley sat across from us, behind his desk. “As you probably already know, your father left the firm in charge of your parents’ estate and financial management in the event that you were still a minor during the time of their death. Your grandmother took over your tuition payments here and for your online courses, health insurance, as well as your additional monthly expenses. Your father’s life insurance policy is covering mortgage payments at the moment, and utilities as well as car payments and car insurance,” Nick said.

Bentley leaned on his elbows, listening carefully but giving away nothing in his expression. I didn’t actually know most of these details, because Grandma was good at getting things like this done. I nodded anyway so he’d get to the point.

“But the life insurance policy is only going to cover those expenses for a few years,” he continued. “We did a test run with realtors, and there’s already an offer up for your parents’ house. Twenty–four hours and there’s a potential buyer. And you might not be aware of this, Karen, but your parents took out a fifteen–year loan on your house thirteen years ago, so it’s nearly paid off. I would estimate that sale will get you somewhere in the range of four or five hundred thousand. You have a savings account with another hundred thousand that is set to be accessible when you turn eighteen next year, but with Mr. Bentley’s signature, we could turn that over to you as well if you needed the money for something. All we need is both your signatures on a few forms and we can put the house up for sale officially.”