Page 33 of Fractured Ice

A long pause. "In my defense⁠—"

"You were running and you weren't looking and you ran directly into me and my papier-mâché model of the solar system went into the water."

"It was a really good solar system."

"It took me three weeks to make."

"I know." He sounds genuinely pained. "I know it did."

"I hated you for a while after that."

"That's fair. I hated myself after that." He pauses. "I went back to look for it."

I look at him. "What?"

"After. I went back to the lake and tried to find it." He keeps his eyes forward. "It was destroyed. But I looked."

I don't know what to do with that either. I push it to the back of my mind.

"Can I ask you something?" I say.

"Yeah."

"You're nice to everyone." I watch the path. "Knox, the guys on the team, people you barely know. You're easy with people. You're kind." I try to find the right way to put it. "But with me, for as long as I can remember, something's always going wrong. You're always saying the wrong thing or you're running into me or you're just—" I stop. "Why is it different with me?"

He doesn't answer right away.

I glance at him. He's looking somewhere ahead, and there's something working in his expression, like he's reached for the answer and keeps finding the shelf empty. He opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Tries again, and something comes out that starts like a sentence and dissolves before it gets anywhere.

I wait.

His jaw moves. He exhales. He looks at me with an expression I can't decode, then looks back at the path, and seems to arrive at some impasse that I don't have a map for.

"I don't—" he starts.

Stops.

"Forget it," I say. Not unkindly. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No, I want to—it's just—" He rubs the back of his neck. "I'm working on explaining it."

"Take your time. We can discuss it tomorrow. We've got an away game, so."

He looks at me. Whatever was stuck somewhere behind his eyes shifts into something clearer. "You're coming?"

"It's on Bennett's timeline. Yeah."

"The whole trip?"

"That's how away games work."

The smile that appears on his face is the full one, the unguarded version I've been seeing more of lately, and it stays there as we reach the point where our paths split.

"I'll see you tomorrow," I say.