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“You what?” Shay said loudly.
“I caught it from my mom right about when she started getting better. We were so careful, Shay… We hardly spent time in the same room; always wore masks. And I wore gloves, too. I cleaned everything all the time. I–”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“You didn’t think I was already worried about you, with your mom being sick?”
“Okay. Well, I didn’t want you to worry more. I had no time to talk to you. Then, I had no energy to do anything at all. I lost the internship I’ve been dreaming about all year. I had no money coming in. Neither did my mom. I wasn’t sleeping at all. I wanted to talk to you, Shay; I did. I just couldn’t. Then, I caught it, and I really couldn’t.”
“First, are you okay now?”
“Yeah, I’m good now. Well, I’m negative now.”
“What does that mean?”
“I still have a hard time catching my breath, and I get tired more easily than I used to.”
“Layne…”
“I know. I’m getting better. It’s just a slow process. It’s a little better every day, though.”
“We start off-season workouts soon.”
“Yeah… Don’t remind me. I’m pretty nervous about that and worried that if I can’t practice or play, I’m going to lose my scholarship, which would mean I’d have to leave here again. And I don’t know where I’d go, honestly. I mean, I know I could go home, but I’d just be waiting around for my internship. It all seems so bleak right now, doesn’t it?”
“Babe, no. We’re here. God, Layne, we’re here. I hate the circumstances that brought you back, but I can’t help it: I’m happy you’re sitting across from me right now. I… I didn’t know when we’d be able to see each other again. I thought if you moved to Chicago, it might be easier for you to get here to watch a game or something, but then the internship thing went remote. It’s a much longer drive from your mom’s place, so I was… well, freaking out a little.”
“You were freaking out?” Layne asked, smiling beneath her mask.
“Yeah, I missed you. You know that.”
“No one’s ever missed me before. Well, my mom, maybe.”
“You’ve said that to me before, but it doesn’t apply anymore because I’ve told you that I missed you. Layne, I liked what we were doing. We were getting to know each other, and I thought maybe we were heading toward something here.”
“We were.”
“Are we still?”
“I’d like us to be,” Layne revealed. “I know I didn’t handle things well this summer, but–”
“Maybe we just both agree that neither of us handled things well this summer and move on. It’s not like either of us was planning on living through a pandemic and knew how to handle it.”
Layne laughed a little and said, “No, that was not something I thought we’d have to deal with.”
“Look, I know things are about to get busy for us in a different way… We’ll both have classes, and you’re in a whole new program. Then, there’s basketball, with weird practices and testing, and I don’t even know how they’re going to handle us traveling for games, but I imagine it’s going to be hard and awkward.”
“O-k-a-y.”
“We won’t get to spend any time together outside of games and practices,” Shay added. “I actually thought about asking Coach if you and I could room together for away games this year until I realized that we’ll all have our own rooms this season.” She chuckled.
“You wanted to room with me?” Layne asked with a smile.
“Yes. In my mind, I pictured us using that as a way to hang out without anyone around and in the same damn room. That was until my brain put two and two together, and I remembered there was a problem with that plan.”
“We can try to do this sometimes, maybe.” Layne looked around. “Sit outside.”
