POWER BACK

Chapter 28: Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)

Hollow Moon

January

When I saw her go down in practice last Friday, I was ready to combust. Break that motherfucker's other collarbone.

She hasn't answered any texts or calls since that day. So that's why I'm here, waiting in the doorway to her bedroom. From the looks of it, she's okay. She's hanging from her pull-up bar with her back to me counting out her reps through a series of grunts. I stand there watching, smiling to myself. She's relentless.

She finally drops down, takes a deep breath, and turns around.

"Jesus!" She jumps and puts her hand to her chest like she's seen a ghost. "Jack, what are you doing?"

"Emma let me in."

"No. I mean, why are you here?"

"Well, you weren't answering my texts. I was worried about you."

"Oh. Sorry. My mom confiscated my phone. I wasn't following concussion protocol."

"I figured."

"So she impounded it."

"You aren't exactly a rule follower."

"Yeah. I know. No texting. No running. No sports. No Netflix. No social media. No reading. No sunlight. I'm a prisoner in my own home. Solitary confinement. Can't even drive."

"But pull-ups are okay?"

"Like you said, I suck at protocols."

I keep standing in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

"It's okay. You can come in. Shut the door so Miss Inquisition can't spy."

I've never been in her room before. It feels intimate, invasive for some reason. I softly close the door and continue standing there.

"Chaplin, come sit," she orders, patting the edge of her bed. "You're the first person besides my family I've seen in days. You'd better make yourself comfortable."

So I sit there on her black comforter, scanning the room. There's a picture of her and her brother on her nightstand. It looks like it was taken after a game. They're both still in pads, eye black on their cheeks, and arms around each other. Her with long pale hair and translucent eyes. Him with blonde curls and the same gray irises she has. It looks like the front of a travel brochure for Sweden. "So that's what you look like with hair," I say, studying the picture for traces of the girl I know now. She looks the same, but different. Her face has the same square jawline, but her mouth is fuller, her eyes deeper now. She startles, like she had forgotten it was there. Then she picks it up and gazes down at it sadly.

"You're pretty," I say. "Your hair, I mean."

She looks up at me. "Thanks, I think," she says.

"I mean you're pretty too. Obviously..." I stammer. "How old were you in that pic?" I ask trying to get off the landmine I just stumbled on.

"Twelve," she says. "That was the last year we played together."

She opens the night table drawer and tucks the picture inside.

"He looks just like you." Pretty dumb thing to say, since they're twins and everything.

She stares at me for a few beats and then she smiles. "Yes, I'm aware."

"So, what you been up to?" I ask, changing the subject.