Heroine(26)

“Yep,” I say. Carolina would only let me put sixty pounds on it. It should be like pressing a feather. Maybe two feathers and one piece of paper.

I take a deep breath and extend, keeping my hips straight so that I’m not pushing more with one leg than the other. Everything stretches. Time. Muscles. The thin covering of Oxy that my whole consciousness is bathed in these days. But as the weights lift, nothing breaks through. I feel no pain, no puncture of this bubble I’ve created, within which I can do anything.

“One,” counts Carolina as the weight comes back down. I push again.

We agreed on a set of ten, and I do it, easily. I want to tell her to add more weight, or let me go to fifteen on my next set, but when I swing off the bench my leg spasms. It’s not painful, just a reminder that the muscle there has been taken by surprise and pushing it to exhaustion isn’t to my benefit.

“You good?” Carolina asks as I come to my feet.

“Yeah,” I say, experimentally standing.

“Cool. Wanna see if my arm falls off when I try to curl?”

I glance at Aaron, who is over on the butterfly machine, his face red in concentration as he pushes his elbows together.

“It won’t,” I tell her.

And it doesn’t. The weights might be lower, our reps not as quick as they used to be, but we’re together, and we’re working on it. I can’t forget what Aaron said to me in the parking lot, but I’m not going to tell Carolina to ease up on her workout, and I’m sure as hell not backing off mine. I spot her as she does a bench press, maybe helping more than I usually do. She shakes her head at me in warning, her hair swishing against my knees.

“Do I look like a bebé to you?” she asks.

“No,” I tell her.

“Then don’t treat me like one.”

I step back, only eyeing her as she benches, hoping that Aaron overheard, that he knows his girlfriend doesn’t need him—or anyone else—taking care of her. Carolina racks the bar, then gets up from the bench, tripping over a twenty-pound plate I had set out for myself.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Not your fault.” She waves me off.

I hold on to those words as I set up my bar.

Not my fault.

The others had stopped watching us as we go through our workout, no longer keeping an eye out to gauge how the season is going to go, or whether they might need to dive in to help if one of us struggles. We’re two girls getting ready for the upcoming season.

I can almost forget that I was broken.

When I get home there’s a note from Mom saying she’s been called to the hospital, so I take over her tub with the jets. The water feels good, rolling over me, the outside world matching the inside waves that the Oxy seems to bring to my mind. I settle in, resting happily. The feeling of normality hasn’t left, almost as if I could look down in the driveway and see my old car there, glass still intact, wheels on the ground like they’re supposed to be, not up in the air and spinning like they were last time I saw them.

I get out of the water, suddenly too warm.

The weekend stretches out before me and I don’t have a lot to fill it with. I’ve exhausted my Netflix options while recovering, and I swear I’ve looked at most of the internet, too. I shoot Carolina a text, asking if she wants to see a movie, get a pizza, or just come over. I’m getting dressed when she answers.

Can’t tonight. At Aaron’s. ?

I know the frowny face means she’s bummed that she can’t hang out with me, not that she doesn’t want to be with Aaron.

Don’t get pregnant, I shoot back.

She sends me a thumbs-up, which doesn’t exactly make me feel better.

I toss my phone on the bed, my body following shortly thereafter. It’s not like I don’t have other numbers in my phone. The Bellas. Lydia. Even Nikki. But the Bellas require a level of energy I don’t have right now, and I don’t want Lydia to misinterpret anything. I’m considering texting Nikki and seeing if she wants to do something other than read required novels to me when my phone goes off.

Wanna hang?

It’s a text from Josie Addison.

I look at my ceiling, then check the time. It’s only six. An entire night of hanging out alone in my room isn’t something that used to bother me, but now it feels too much like convalescing, something I’m very done with.

I text back, yes.

It turns out that hanging with Josie also includes hanging with Edith. She instructs me to head over to “Ede’s place,” where I find the two of them watching QVC while eating dinner.

“Hey, darlin’,” Edith calls after I let myself in, following the sounds of the TV to Edith’s living room. “There’s dinner in the oven, if you’re hungry.”

I feel kind of weird about it, but I get myself a plate and load up with mashed potatoes, ham loaf, and green beans. I grab a Coke from the fridge and settle in with Josie on the couch.

“Hey,” Josie says, scraping the last of her dinner off her plate. “You’re here just in time. They’re almost out of the double-encrusted emerald pendant.”

“Oh good,” I say.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” she says.

And dammit if she isn’t right. I end up watching the pendant go out of stock and get weirdly excited about the next item, a set of kitchen knives that the guy throws pineapples at, the three of us making an ooooh noise when they split in midair.