Page 7

Here at Woodbury.

I finally look up.

Her seat is easy to find.

Kylie. Kenzie. Paige. Bianca. Tessa.

She’s staring at the ice like I’m not here. Like I’m nonexistent.

I look away before Kylie catches me doing it again.

The clock crawls.

One forty-two.

One sixteen.

I think about senior year in high school. The east stairwell. Wet grass on her shoes. Her looking up at me when I told her not to.

You’re not going to Woodbury.

She fucking came anyway.

The box door opens when the penalty expires. I’m over the boards before the attendant finishes saying my number.

For the rest of the game, I don’t look at the student section once.

We win three–one.

By the time I get back downstairs, my right hand has started throbbing. The trainer cuts the tape off, cleans the two knuckles I split open, wraps them again, and tells me to ice it. I barely hear him.

My phone is in the top of my bag. I pull it out and open the Woodbury student directory. You need a student login to get into it. I type her name, and the result comes up immediately.

Undergraduate. First Year. Business Administration.

Her Woodbury email is listed underneath.

I stare at it.

Freshmen moved in at the end of August.

That’s two months. I’ve been on this campus for two fucking months. Dining halls. The quad. The library. Team events. Late nights coming back from practice. Early mornings crossing campus half asleep. I haven’t seen her once. You don’t go two months on a campus this size without running into somebody by accident. Not unless somebody’s working at it.

She’s been avoiding me.

Good.

I told her I never wanted to fucking see her again.

For two months, she listened.

So why the fuck was she sitting at my game tonight?

3

I Have No Idea Who He Is

Tessa