CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | JUKING

the act of feinting and dodging to try and send a blocker in one direction while you go the other.

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          We went right back to training as soon as Thanksgiving break ended.

          Corinne's excuse for pushing us to brand new limits was that we needed to spend all pent-up energy from the break, refusing to listen to any of our complaints, and even Marley, out of all people, was on board with her decision. Though it was a pleasant change to see them getting along for once, even if some remnants of tension were still present, I hated that it had to be at our expense.

          "I don't understand . . . the point of all of this," I breathed out, bending forward, hands on my knees. Corinne, who had barely broken a sweat, threw me a skeptical look. "We're not . . . runners."

          "I can tell," she retorted. "Did no one tell you you needed stamina to play roller derby? How do you plan to complete jams if you run out of breath after running one lap?"

          "It's easy for you to say; all you have to do is skate side to side—"

          Mistake number one: assume blockers and the pivot have an easier time than the jammer because they don't have to skate around the track like jammers do.

          Mistake number two: say that to Corinne's face.

          She simply sighed, tossing away the towel that used to be swung loosely around her neck, and turned to me, hands on her hips. "If it really is that easy like you say, why don't you play blocker instead? Personally, I'd love to see you try and stop anyone from getting through the wall. Last time I checked, you were the one bitching and whining about having to go against girls twice your size because it was so unfair. There was one condition to join the team, and that's pulling your own weight. If you can't do that, you're off the team. I can't afford to keep any flight risks around."

          I straightened, finally able to breathe properly. "Now you're just taking things personally. I criticized your position, so now you want to make me look unfit for the team. How mature."

          "Appropriate retribution. In case you haven't noticed, I take this team and roller derby very seriously, probably a lot more than everyone else on the team combined, and, one day, you'll all thank me for being a hardass. If you want softer treatment and coddling, go cry to Marley." She fixed her helmet. "When you care about something, you learn to take every insult and dismissive comment about it to heart."

          I didn't expect her to treat me any differently after Thanksgiving and, to be honest, I was glad she was being the regular Corinne, returning the favor by still being kind of nice, kind of an asshole at the same time. However, part of me wouldn't mind too much if she ever decided to drop the asshole part just a little bit as, sometimes, it got out of hand and what was supposed to be just banter ended up being mean.

          That hardly meant I wanted her to walk around eggshells around me or treat me like I was about to break in case this whole roller derby thing ended up not working out, much like figure skating after what I'd told her. I did expect her to be a bit more understanding and remember I was perfectly capable of pulling my own weight—something I'd done during the match against Quinnipiac and admirably so—and it wasn't fair to shrug it all off based on one comment that had offended her at a personal level.

          "I'm not dead weight," I insisted, marching behind her as she walked towards the bench to exchange her sneakers for her skates, "and I'm not a flight risk, whatever that means. Threatening to boot me off the team because of that is just petty."

          "You're good, but you're not irreplaceable. No one is." She briefly paused, musing over her own words. "Well, except maybe me and, tentatively, Kat, but she's a blocker and you don't have any respect for blockers in general, so I'm not expecting you to care."

          "Do you have to be so mean all the time?"

          "I'm not nice. That was established a long time ago. Can you help me tie my skates?" I kneeled in front of her, and it wasn't like I had a choice to do anything but that. She could tie her own skates perfectly fine by herself, but I wanted to believe this was her cutting me some slack and allowing me to rest for a bit, even if it was at the expense of my pride. "I need you all to be at the top of your game in time for the match against Hartford. I hate those girls. We've never lost to them, and I refuse to lose to them in my final year."

          I sat on the bench next to her to put on my skates, as Marley played good cop in the distance and told the rest of the team to take a break. "It sounds like you and Hartford have some history."

          "No, not really. It's not personal, or anything like that; it's just . . . an old rivalry between two universities, you know? Like Caltech and MIT. Don't even get me started on Harvard; Drew always gets really prissy before The Game. I'm personally a big fan of completely wiping the floor with their sorry asses." She set both feet back on the floor and leaned forward, supporting her elbows on her knees to get a better look at me. "All you need to do is not suck, train hard, and not go soft with the competition. We're not here to make friends."

          I scoffed. "When have I ever been nice to the competition?"

          Corinne smirked. "You were nice to me."

          Of course I'd been nice to her. That had been the decent thing to do and I'd begun to understand her a lot better exactly because of that, so I never looked back in regret or in anger, nor did I ever see her as my competition. I'd always found her frustrating, almost like a nemesis when I first met her and she nearly ran me over that first day, and I hated the fact that I couldn't escape her anywhere I went. Even when I shouldn't be thinking about her, she had some sort of magnetic pull to her that I kept trying to fight against, and, for a while, I'd succeeded. It was easier to hate her than to like her, and I didn't like to be pulled out of my comfort zone. It all sounded so cliché, too, how we'd gone from strangers to enemies to tolerating each other to friends to . . . whatever we were now, but she'd never been my competition. What even was there for us to compete with each other over?

          I wasn't the bigger person. I'd been unnecessarily mean to her, even if it was justified in my eyes, but it had also been an overreaction. Realistically, we'd never actually been enemies; even though I firmly did not like her when I first met her, I couldn't confidently declare the feeling had been mutual. For all I knew, all she'd ever done was rile me up, push my buttons simply because she could, and not due to some deep hidden meaning behind it.

          You wouldn't share your bed with your enemy. Your enemy wouldn't ask you to set a hand on her shoulder until she fell asleep because she needed something that resembled a weighted blanket. You wouldn't be thinking about her steady breathing in the middle of the night, or how she'd curled up into the empty space next to you without hesitation. I didn't know where that left me—left us, really—but it wasn't something one would be able to describe with such simple concepts as friend or rival or enemy.

          "You're not the competition," I eventually told her, handing her a bottle of Gatorade. "The girls we're taking down next week are."

          Corinne grinned at me. "Damn straight."

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          We survived the game against Hartford, but they didn't. Corinne and Marley had pushed the entire team to great lengths to ensure we wouldn't lose to people Corinne absolutely despised, and I'd known just how much pressure there was on my shoulders.

          Coach Fontaine still wanted me to play jammer, not convinced I had what it took to make it as a blocker, and I would never admit it out loud, but I somewhat agreed with her. Maybe that made me a coward, maybe that proved everyone's point that I wasn't cut out for the brutal parts of roller derby and all I cared about was completing my jams and looking pretty, like I used to do on the ice, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Thus, I'd accepted the responsibility, and I trusted the team to trust me.

          After we won and settled inside the team bus—the fact that we had a bus to take us to and from nearby matches was still baffling to me—I was exhausted. I hadn't gotten hurt, like what had happened when we played against Quinnipiac, but I'd pushed myself harder than I ever had before. I feared it hadn't been enough, and we hadn't won exclusively because of me—roller derby was a team sport for a reason—but I still felt like I could have done more. I could have skated faster, completed those jams quicker, dodged better.

          "You did great out there," Kat told me, as I rested my head against her shoulder. "You did what you had to do."

          "But was it enough?"

          "Um . . . yeah? We won. You're the one who scores."

          "Yeah, but . . . I could have lapped more blockers."

          "You also could have not lapped a single one and cost us the championship, which you didn't, so I think you should be thinking about the positive hypothetical scenarios. Dwelling on what could have been won't do you any good, you know."

          My phone vibrated in my pocket. I would have left the sound on, had not half of the bus fallen asleep, Corinne included, and I wasn't willing to deal with cranky, worn out roller derby players.

          THEO, 7:49 PM: Just read about your game!!! Congrats babe

          I smiled down at the screen, though I still felt a bit queasy over being called babe when that was exclusively Corinne's nickname for me, and it was weird having it come out of someone else's mouth—especially someone I'd once been romantically involved with.

ME, 7:50 PM: Thank you!! Hopefully I'll regain all feeling in my legs soon

          THEO, 7:50 PM: Girl you'll live

          THEO, 7:50 PM: Also, in case you're interested: I checked those roller derby stan accounts online and they're RAVING about you, calling you Yale's secret weapon and yadda yadda, not that you're THAT big of a secret with everyone talking about you lmao

          THEO, 7:51 PM: Give it a read whenever you can

          I would, eventually, but if I had to think, hear, or read about roller derby one minute longer, I feared I'd ignite and combust on the spot. It hadn't been the hardest game of the season, not even worse, and, if Corinne and Marley had busted our asses in preparation to face Hartford, there was no telling how far they were willing to go before we faced Harvard.

          The team was apprehensive, a palpable tension weighing down around us, and Coach's speeches were nothing short of discouraging, even though she thought tough love worked on us. Kat felt like Coach was pretty much setting us up to fail and, though it pained me to admit it, knowing how hard everyone was working and pushing themselves, she had a point.

          I was giving my best. I wasn't sure whether that was enough.

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          It was snowing the evening of the game against Harvard. Though some people tried to play it off as not being that big of a deal, that the rivalry was strictly between the football teams of both universities, the entire roller derby team would beg to differ. With both games taking place the same day, one right after the other, the Harvard Crimson had the home advantage and more people cheering for them than we had. Though we had cheerleaders and both teams looking out for one another, as well as other people who had followed us to watch us, it still wasn't the same and it was hard not to feel lonely in a sea of red.

          I wasn't used to the cold. I'd lived my entire life in California and had never seen snow, but I'd packed what little cold weather clothing I owned. However, I was still considerably underdressed in comparison to most people around, shivering under my coat, and not even Katrina's scarf was doing much to keep me warm. Standing close to other people was one of the other few ways of retaining body heat I could think of, but seeing Corinne huddle up to Drew left me sick to my stomach and I couldn't deal with Kat's 'I told you so' look if she caught me staring. So, for the sake of my mental health, I stayed close to her and Marley instead.

          I'd talked to Marley about her and Corinne, explained how I didn't want to come in between them and be used as a throwing weapon, and it was like an anchor had been lifted off my shoulders. In typical Marley fashion, she'd understood, and we'd been able to go out for coffee like regular friends, no strings attached. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss her and, if she and Corinne wouldn't use it as an excuse to fight with each other, then I was down for it.

          It was dark and freezing outside, a typical December setup, but that didn't stop us from not going inside. In Corinne's eyes, the cold would prepare us for the strenuous efforts we'd be making on the track, but she also conveniently ignored everyone who tried to explain the difference between the temperatures could almost knock someone out cold. This proved to be a bad idea for many reasons, one of which being how a group of football players tried to start up a conversation with me when I walked towards the vending machines, and I was far too outnumbered to simply turn my back on them and leave. They were joined by plenty of girls, whom I assumed were their girlfriends, maybe cheerleaders, or even part of the roller derby team.

          "Hey! Heeeeeey!"

          I knew they were calling me, as there was no one else around, but forced myself to ignore them. Nothing good could come out of giving Harvard athletes the time of day, especially right before two important games, and I knew they knew I played for Yale thanks to the varsity jacket swung over my shoulder. All the times I'd insisted I had no time for drama had brought me here, illuminated by the neon glow coming from the vending machine in front of me, and, when I looked up at my reflection, I found my brow furrowed like I'd never seen it before.

          "Hey! Bulldog! We're talking to you!"

          Jaw gritted, I turned around, finding a big group of Crimsons, forming a crescent moon standing there and blocking one of my exit paths. I tightened my fingers around my bottle of Gatorade.

          "Yes?"

          One of the guys, the bigger one, took a step forward. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

          "No." I clenched the fingers of my free hand around the strap of my gym bag, looking back at the group in panic, trying to get their attention without causing a scene. "No, I don't think you do."

          "I think I do, yeah. Aren't you Jordan Wu's little sister?"

          I froze in place, backed into a corner. If they knew about Jordan, then they knew why he didn't play anymore. Athletes talked, that was a given, and, even if this were a football player, it wouldn't be too otherworldly of him to have heard about ice hockey drama. Either way, this wasn't a conversation I wasn't willing to have, especially right before a game, but part of me suspected that was exactly why they had approached me.

          "Not sure how that's any of your business," I retorted.

          "No, actually, it is. My older brother lost the NCAA finals to UCLA in his senior year. His final year as the team captain. You know, no matter what he did, he just couldn't beat Jordan Wu."

          I flashed him a tight smile. "No one could beat Jordan. That's just the way it is."

          "Until he got injured, right?"

          "Okay, pretty boy, time to back off," Kat chimed in, appearing out of thin air, and laced her arm through mine. She wasn't alone, though, which meant neither was I, and I certainly felt safe in numbers, but there were more of them than there were of us. Plus, this was their home field. "She doesn't want to talk to you."

          "Come on, we're just chatting, right? Reminiscing about old times."

          "Dude, you need to back off," Marley said.

          Corinne and Drew were also there, but I knew Corinne could go from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye, and I couldn't let her get in trouble. She would never forgive me if I didn't stop her from doing something reckless, even if it wasn't my responsibility to keep her in check, but I had to admit it was strangely pleasant to know she had my back, after all that had happened.

          "You need to back off," the girl next to him argued. "This was a conversation between two people and you guys just popped up out of nowhere. If your friend can't handle a normal conversation, then that's her problem, isn't it?"

          "Leave it," I murmured. "It's not worth it."

          "So, as I was saying," the football player continued, stepping to the side to block my path once more, "that was quite the nasty injury, wasn't it? I heard that it completely made him quit skating. Must have been quite the reality check. If you ask me"—I hadn't asked him anything, but I didn't feel like that would stop him from rambling—"I think he couldn't take the pressure. Not many people can."

          "The fact that you're telling me all of this just lets me know you're so insecure you have to use this against him. If you'll let me through—"

          "You think I'm insecure? Like I'm the one who has to drink a bar's entire stock just to make myself forget?"

          "Shut it," Corinne interrupted, breaking free from Drew. She stepped in front of me, which didn't do much to shield me from view. "That has nothing to do with you. If you live such a pathetic existence that this is what gets you going, it says a lot more about you than anything you want to say about other people. Move. Leave her alone."

          "She can defend herself, honey," the girl pointed out, voice all saccharine, which was the worst thing she could have done. Corinne didn't handle being patronized or being talked down to well, especially when she was already stressed out over the upcoming bout, and I could hear the ticking time bomb in her brain threatening to go off. "Why don't you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of?"

          Corinne walked forward, hands on her hips. Even though she was significantly shorter than both of them, she wasn't someone I'd want to face off against if I were in their situation. "We're here to play, honey, but, if us being here is threatening to you to the point of you wanting us to leave, you're not ready for what we're about to do to you on the track. You reek of fear. It's humiliating." The girl raised her chin in defiance and Corinne turned to the guy, with a hand on his chest to push him away and make him back off. "And you. If you have anything to say about her brother, keep it to yourself. Don't talk shit about what you don't know. If you want to pick a fight, pick a fight with me. Why not?"

          He chuckled, while Corinne ignored how Drew tried to pull her out of the situation I'd dragged her into. "Come on. You know I can't hit a girl."

          "Well, I can."

          The girl shoved Corinne back by the shoulders, sending her flying against me, but she hadn't done so hard enough to actually make her fall. However, she'd pissed Corinne off just enough to make her fight back, already riled up and pumped full of adrenaline, but all of us were ready to brace her. Kat managed to pull her back at the very last second, preventing her from launching herself at the girl.

          "Let me go, Katrina!" she protested, struggling to break free from Kat's grip. Even I was struggling to keep her restrained. "I'm about to go all Tonya Harding on that bitch!"

          "Do you want to get yourself suspended from the team?" Kat asked, in incredulity. "It's not worth it. They're not worth it."

          "Yeah, listen to your friend. Take your group of sad, pathetic losers that can't handle the slightest bit of pressure without crumbling down. Gives bartenders some extra cash—"

          My brain barely registered how I'd let go of Corinne. Kat couldn't hold her back on her own, with how hard she was fighting back, and it was no surprise to anyone when she lunged forward and smacked the girl right across the face. I instantly regretted it, knowing damn well this was my fight, not hers, and it was my responsibility to handle it and defend my brother's honor. This was someone who held a petty grudge against my brother simply because he had beaten theirs, and no one else should have gotten involved.

          The slap echoed in the air around us, so hard I felt it in my bones, and, just like I had instinctively let Corinne go, the football player stepped in to defend the girl, shoving her aside. He was far stronger than the women there, bigger, taller, and Corinne fell to the concrete floor, landing right on her right arm, with all the oxygen escaping from my lungs.

          It all happened too fast.

          Before anyone could do anything, Drew walked past Kat, past me, past everyone like a tornado, and nothing else mattered to him. Corinne was on the floor, with a busted lip, and Drew's fist slammed against the guy's cheek, right below his eye.