Knee Pads

24 | engage

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | ENGAGE

any sort of interaction with another skater on the track during a jam.

▂ ▂ ▂ ▂ ▂

          "I don't know what you did to my mom, but she's pissed at you," Corinne told me, sprawled out on my bed, head resting on my stomach. "Ever since I went home for Christmas, she's been all like 'wow, I can't believe Wren had the nerve to talk to me like that' and 'you need to keep her in check'. You as in me, like I care or like there's any way of talking you into doing anything whatsoever."

          I groaned, fixing the pillow behind me that kept me from having to lean my head against my cold wall just so we could stay in our current positions. "I'm not surprised. She looked like she was about to bite my head off when I finished talking to her."

          "She said something about furniture."

          "I asked her to be careful with my mother's furniture. She refused to use a coaster."

          Corinne laughed and I felt the vibrations in the pit of my stomach. "The horror."

          "What did you do, anyway?" Kat asked, sitting at her desk. "Certainly it can't have been that bad, right? We can't really afford to lose any more skaters."

          "Let's hope not," I replied, unable to ignore Corinne's shudder. She didn't need to be reminded of her loss any longer, yet it hovered around her at all times. "I pulled her aside on Christmas Eve and tried to talk some sense into her, maybe try to convince her into letting Corinne come back to the team, and genuinely didn't think I'd be doing any harm. She spent the whole meal making all these passive-aggressive comments and it pissed me off, so I thought that if she could dish it out, she should be able to take it, too."

          "She can't," Corinne stated. "It's mostly because no one has the guts to dish it out to her, so she hasn't felt the need to learn how to take it. The only person she ever lowers her head to when they're speaking to her is my grandmother, and you know how that worked out. She decided to nearly empty a bottle of wine by herself before leaving the house," she added, speaking directly to Kat now.

          "With Jordan there?"

          "Yeah," I confirmed. "She knew about it, which left me feeling even angrier, and I just . . . I snapped. I told her that behavior was unacceptable and I . . . might have called her a hypocrite. I remember the birthday party you threw for me"—I nodded towards Kat, whose forehead puckered in remembrance—"and how she was throwing a hissy fit because Corinne got drunk, and then she kept telling everyone Corinne needed to know better, that she couldn't take things so personally, that she needed to emotionally distance herself for the sake of the team." Corinne and I both said those last six words simultaneously. "She gets into one argument and ignores the one request I had, but Corinne is the one blowing things out of proportion and embarrassing herself. I wasn't having it, so I walked up to her and told her that. That's it."

          This time, Corinne and Kat exchanged a look I couldn't quite decipher.

          It was well into January now and classes had already started, but not roller derby practice, and I'd had plenty of time to think about what I'd done and said to Coach Fontaine. Though I didn't regret standing up for Corinne and Jordan, part of me was still fearful of the consequences of my outburst.

          Even though I hardly agreed with Coach's approach, and I missed Corinne as much as the rest of the team, I still didn't want to get myself kicked out of the team. Even if Coach Fontaine held her to higher standards than she did with anyone else, I'd attacked her at a personal level and, though it was nothing like Corinne's supposed failures and would never hit her as deeply, I'd screwed up. I liked being part of the team and, against all odds, I'd learned to like roller derby. Would I be willing to throw it all away?