CHAPTER TWO | T-STOP

a technique for slowing down or stopping. the player drags one skate behind the other to form a t shape.

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          My final days in Sacramento were, generally speaking, uneventful.

          I spent most of my free time being ridiculously pissed off at Theo, dodging her text messages and phone calls like any mature person would do, and running away from Jordan. The latter was a considerably harder feat, since we still lived in the same house and all, but I was afraid I'd crack if I failed to avoid him.

          I knew both of those decisions would come back to bite me in the ass when I least expected them to. Avoiding Jordan wouldn't work in the long run, as we'd all be moving to Connecticut (puke) together and our parents were adamant on making everyone be involved in his recovery. If I wanted him to get better, I needed to be less selfish and pull my head out of my ass—I knew that.

          That didn't change the fact that I was hurt.

          Technically, the bottle he had thrown at me could have seriously injured me. I'd escaped pretty much unscathed, and the most visible wounds were a few small cuts here and there on my arms and hands, so I was relatively fine on that aspect. The main problem was, well, literally everything else.

          I knew this was something we'd both have to work on, most likely during family therapy, but I wasn't ready to do so just yet. I needed time and space to process the changes affecting my own life first.

          Packing my bags wasn't easy.

          We weren't simply going away on vacation; it was definitely a permanent thing. My mother's prized china collection had finally left the cabinets in the living room, and it wasn't because it needed to get cleaned. The entire house was full of boxes of all sizes, and we'd all been procrastinating packing up the biggest pieces of furniture.

          I didn't have nearly enough upper body strength to be of much help with the heavier stuff, so it wasn't uncommon to see me retreat into my bedroom and pretend I was eager to leave.

          What hurt the most to pack were my ice skates.

          Even though I hadn't used them in a while (a long while), they had once been a symbol of my relationship with Jordan and one of the things that had brought us closer to each other. Ice hockey had once been one of his favorite things in the world, before he'd turned to alcohol after a failed shot at getting into the NHL, and I supposed I enjoyed ice skating quite a lot.

          I stopped skating when he stopped playing. It simply wasn't the same without him and I had no desire to ever skate again—in any shape of form—if he wasn't there.

          On our final day in Sacramento, right before we headed off to the airport to brace ourselves for an eleven-hour flight to New Haven, Theo stopped by the house. In case my radio silence hadn't been obvious enough, I begged my mom to tell her I wasn't home in a futile attempt to convince her I did not want to talk to her—or see her, even.

          "Wren, honey, I'm not fighting your battles for you," my mother said, watching me run up the stairs, like I'd done so many times before. "You'll regret not saying goodbye to her. Trust me on that one."

          "She's the reason why we're leaving," I pointed out. My blood boiled in my veins, bubbling up and threatening to burst out of my vessels, but even I knew I could never stay mad at Theo for too long. It was the reason why we kept running in circles. "I don't have to tell her a single thing."

          My mother sighed. "I'll tell her you're hiding in your bedroom."

          "Mom," I whined.

          "Mom," she echoed, in a mocking tone, and placed her hands on her hips. It was serious now, yet my vision was still tinted crimson. "Seriously, Wren, we've gone through this a million times. We're not moving because of Theo; we're moving because we want Jordan to get better and he won't get better if he doesn't get support from the entire family. We would have moved regardless of what she said."

          "You couldn't even wait until I graduated—"

          "Wren, this is not about you!" I winced. "Not everything we do has been designed to harm you; we're sorry you can't finish your degree in UCLA, but, if we had waited, Jordan could have died. There are things that matter more than just a degree."

          I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something I'd regret later. Deep down, she was right, and I wasn't going to gamble my own brother's health and life over a stupid degree I could finish somewhere else or at some other point when things settled down.

          But oh, dear God, was it upsetting. My own life was being tossed aside as if I didn't get to have a say in the matter.

          "Whatever," I muttered, through gritted teeth, then spun around on my heels to finally go to my room. "Tell Theo to piss off in my place, while you're at it."

          "Language," she warned.

          "I don't care!"

          "Wren, you're being particularly childish right now."

          "Wren, you're being particularly childish right now," I repeated, stealing the same tone she had used with me mere moments ago. I never gave her a chance to say anything else, as I slammed my door to let her know I didn't care about whatever she had to say.

          There was no way out of this situation, regardless of how hurt and/or pissed off I was, so I supposed I had to deal with it. There was nowhere I could hide, nowhere I could use as a refuge, as my room was now devoid of any of my personal belongings and furniture.

          It took every fiber of my being to not dissolve into tears right then and there.

          Theo was quick to find me, because of course she was. It was what the two of us always did—we always found our way back to each other, no matter what, which wasn't necessarily the healthiest dynamic in the world, but we made it work somehow. I knew there was nothing I could ever possibly hide from her and, even though that mere thought was downright terrifying, it was still relatively comforting somehow.

          Relatively.

          Somehow.

          "Your mom said you didn't want to see me," Theo began, closing the door behind her. Seeing as I had nowhere to hide, all I could do was stand in front of her, arms firmly crossed in front of my chest. "Unfortunately for you, I'm not letting you leave for Connecticut without me having a chance to say goodbye."

          "It's kind of your fault that I'm leaving," I pointed out.

          She scowled. "That's kind of unfair, isn't it?"

          "I begged you to not say anything, Theo. You purposefully went behind my back and told my parents what happened, which is why they want us all to go away." I clenched my jaw. "If anything, this is all on you."

          "I was worried about you, Wren. You can't just tell me something like that and expect me to look the other way and do nothing to try to help you."

          "It wasn't your place to say or do anything!"

          Her gaze darkened, full of astonishment and incredulity. "You're impossible, Wren. You're so goddamn frustrating."

          "Yet, you're here."

          "Yeah." Her shoulders dropped. "I suppose I am. That has to count for something." Theo took a step back and began pacing around my empty room. The floorboards creaked with some of her steps, now that there wasn't anything else to block the noise, and everything else was perfectly silent. My bedroom felt like a graveyard. "Do you mind if I ever . . . you know . . . try to go see you in Connecticut? I don't really want us to stop talking to each other."

          I stiffened. "I don't know, Theo. I'm gonna be busy with college and then there's the whole Jordan situation, with therapy and all."

          "I'm going to miss you, you know."

          If I dared tell her I hoped I'd only be gone for a year, I'd be betraying my brother. If I told her I didn't know when I'd come back, seeing as I was leaving to help and protect Jordan, I could potentially lose her.

          I wasn't willing to gamble.

          "I know," I said. It was the safest option. "I'm gonna miss you, too."

          Her hands timidly trailed up the sides of my neck, instantly making my heart rate shoot up, but she didn't kiss me. She simply brushed her lips against my forehead, lingering there for the briefest of moments, and then she was gone.

          Just like that. Just like smoke.

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          Connecticut was impossibly boring.

          It was nothing, nothing, when compared to my beautiful California. As summer came to a close and the leaves faded into a light amber tone, the temperatures progressively dropped. I hadn't yet moved into my dorm—ugh—in spite of my roommate's—double ugh—incessant emails about how badly she wanted us to meet in person, and I kept delaying my departure from our new apartment.

          The apartment wasn't half bad. My father had dedicated every waking minute of his life to sorting out the furniture and the decorations to make it look like home, but I still felt oddly detached from everything. I wasn't going to spend that much time there, anyway, so I focused my energy elsewhere.

          Namely, on how to survive the next nine months of my life.

          The campus was absurdly big, probably bigger than UCLA, and I was out of shape. Navigating my way out of the parking lot was being difficult enough as it was and I couldn't find any directions or anyone minimally willing to give them to me, so I was definitely in for a hard time.

          It had rained last night, a clear indicator I was definitely out of my comfort zone, and I hadn't dressed appropriately. My poor Converse sneakers let the water soak my socks thanks to the thin material they were made of, and it's not like I could avoid stepping on puddles—they were everywhere.

          Everyone around me seemed excited to be back and I noticed no one paid much attention to me, which pleased me greatly. I didn't need extra eyes on me when I was just trying to get through the school year, and I already felt like a fish out of water. Perhaps I was going to be fine, after all.

          As always, I spoke too soon.

          Courtesy of my big, fat mouth, as me and my weak limbs tried to navigate the parking lot while carrying my multiple bags, I went for the wrong move. The characteristic screeching sound of a tire behind me made me come to a halt and I immediately held my breath, eyes shut, knowing I couldn't escape from the impact in time.

          I never got hit. However, I got splashed by a tidal wave of dirty water, drenching me to the bone.

          When I opened my eyes, feeling like an eternity had passed, an obnoxious amount of people was staring at me—at me and at the person who had nearly run me over with their bike. The driver had stopped the motorcycle just in time after turning away from me, but I was soaked wet and dirty.

          "Dude, what the hell?" I complained. "Can't you watch where you're going?"

          With all the patience in the world, the driver took off their helmet, revealing a girl who was barely taller than I was. Her golden hair reflected the weak sun rays above our heads, which would be somewhat alluring if she wasn't attempting to murder me with her eyes.

          "You're in the middle of a parking lot and the road is slippery," she pointed out. The bike was nearly as big as she was, and I couldn't help but wonder how in the world she could drive that thing. "Be glad I know how to drive."

           "Could have fooled me! Look at what you did!"

           The blonde girl huffed. The way she pouted in anger reminded me of Theo a little bit too much and my heart was quick to sink to the concrete pavement beneath my feet. "It was an accident."

          Realistically, I knew it had been an accident. Obviously. No one in their right mind would run someone over just because they could, and the water had been the worst possible case scenario. I could have gotten seriously hurt, yet I hadn't.

          However, that didn't stop me from being pissed off.

          "Next time, I'll slash your goddamn tires," I groaned, through gritted teeth.

          She didn't bother replying. Instead, she put her helmet back on and drove away, oblivious to all the whispering and gossiping surrounding us, whereas I couldn't bring myself to do the same. I had only been there for less than ten minutes, yet I had already screwed up.

          Mumbling insults in Mandarin under my breath, I kept walking until I found the dorms. I was supposed to look for someone named Katrina, my roommate, but every girl I walked past looked like a Katrina to me, so I wasn't having much luck.

          Fortunately for me, there was a map right by the entrance, complete with each dorm room's location and its occupants, so I knew I had to walk up to the second floor to find my room. I was growing weaker by the minute and my stomach grumbled, as I had left the apartment in a rush and had neglected to have breakfast in the meantime, so I knew I had to hurry before making a fool out of myself once again.

          Then I stopped walking.

          The door right in front of me had been decorated with numerous post-it notes. All of them were bright in color, neon, even, and I instantly knew my roommate was the literal opposite of me in so many ways.

          Huffing, I pushed the door open with my shoulder, bracing myself for the worst.

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there's no excuse as to why this took so long. i'm so sorry.