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“What do we know?” Coop asked as he dragged a chair out for me and caught my backpack.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said, flashing me a smile.
“Just—Bubba and Jake got into it when they hit the field this morning.”
“Jake’s on the bench still,” Coop said, and I frowned.
“Yeah, I literally only know what the rest of the team and that dick Mitch was bitching about when he got in here.” He nodded past us to where Mitch sat with Cheryl. Rachel wasn’t at their table, but that didn’t mean anything. “Bubba and Jake came out of the locker room. They looked pretty intense, then Jake sucker punched him and it was on.”
I groaned. Of course Jake threw the first punch.
“It’s not your fault,” Coop reminded me as he bumped my knee. “They’re big boys. They can handle it.”
“Coop’s right,” Archie said, meeting my gaze. “This isn’t you.”
“It’s easy to say that, but it’s not like you guys fought like this before.”
At that, both Coop and Archie both laughed.
“Um, babe,” Archie said, dropping his voice. “We fought all the time.”
“We fought before Arch and after him,” Coop said. “Hell, we argue all the time now.”
Since when? I glanced from one to the other. With a wry look, Archie motioned to his face. The black eye was mostly gone, but there was still some faint yellowing from when Ian slugged him.
“It’s healthy,” Coop said, and thankfully, I wasn’t the only one staring at him skeptically. “It is,” he continued. “There’s such a thing as positive fight culture.”
“What?”
“Think about it,” Coop said before he swigged down a deep drink of his coffee, and then he leaned in. “A lot of stress comes from biting our tongues. From not saying what’s bothering us. Illustration, you didn’t talk to us for months because you were pissed about the untouchable thing. Right?”
“Right.”
“But if you’d just come at us, and we’d fought about it right then? The internalized resentment, the confusion, and all thestressof not fighting about it would have been out in the open. We could resolve the issue, addressing it specifically.”
Okay, that made a certain amount of sense. “But how are fights positive?”
“Because we’re taught to not say things that are uncomfortable for other people. Um…if I ask you if you’re hungry and you’re starving, but you don’t want to impose, what would you say?”
“I’m hungry,” I told him. I didn’t play with food, and Archie snickered.
“I think I get it,” Archie said. “It’s more like when you need help to get your tire changed. Yes, you can do it. It would be easier if someone helped, but you don’t want to ask or make someone else feel obligated.”
This was true.
“But asking is positive communication,” Coop pointed out. “If you’re angry, and you sit on that anger, you’re hurting yourself. You’re also not letting the subject of your anger have a chance to have their say.”
“You really have been hitting the books,” I said, studying him.
“Yeah well, I’ve had some good reasons to study psych, and the more I learn, the more I want to know. Besides—didn’t it feel good to say that to Sharon earlier?”
“What’d you say?” Archie asked. While Coop described it, I turned the question over in my head. When I glanced at my phone, there were no new messages.
Laughter erupted across the cafeteria. Then it rolled like a wave. Chances were, Sharon’s latest, vicious missive was making its way around the student body.
“A little,” I admitted when Archie and Coop looked at me. “It felt a little good to not just suck up her crap. In my defense,” I continued before they could say anything more, “I used to feel bad for her.”
