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Last night he asked how it felt.

"Fine," I said. "Barely feel it."

"Truth."

That's the rule. In here. So I told him.

"It catches when I sneeze. And when I roll onto that side. Otherwise, fine."

He nodded like I'd given him a scouting report. Then he got up and said, "Night," and left, and I lay there staring at the door with my heart going a hundred miles an hour, the way it's been going every night for three weeks.

Saturday night, the whole team goes to a party at the Delta house.

I'm not invited. Obviously. I hear about it the way you hear about everything when you're furniture—in pieces, through doors. Gunnar talking about a keg. Jace on the phone with a girl. Kasper, for once, out of his room, wearing a shirt with buttons.

By ten-thirty, the house is empty.

I'm on the couch in the living room with a bag of pretzels and the TV on with no sound when he comes down the stairs.

He isn't dressed for a party. Gray sweats, black T-shirt, bare feet. He stops at the bottom step and looks at me.

"You didn't go," I say.

"No."

"Everybody went."

"I know."

He keeps standing there. I put the pretzels down.

"Deb cleared you," he says.

"For Monday. She said Monday."

"For contact."

My mouth goes dry. "Yeah. For contact."

He looks at me. Then he says, quietly, "Upstairs," and turns around and goes back up.

I sit on the couch for five full seconds with the TV going and my pulse slamming in my ears.

Then I turn it off and follow him.

I've never been in his room.

It's the same size as mine, but it doesn't look anything like it. Mine has a garbage bag in the corner with half my clothes still in it. His is bare. Bed made tight with the corners tucked. A desk with nothing on it but a laptop and a framed photo face down. A goalie stick leaning in the corner, taped exactly the way I tape them. The window cracked, of course. It's freezing.

He's standing by the bed.

"Close the door."

I close the door.

"Lock it."

I lock it. The click is very loud.