Heart Condition

Chapter Ten: Deal

“Shit.” Sasha covered his face in his hand, shaking his head “Who told you?”

            I looked down, sitting on the front of the sidecar “My brothers. My mom told them about you driving me home, and it all kind of snowballed from there.”

            He reached for my hand, pulling me up “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

            “I’m an idiot.” I laughed, “I don’t pay enough attention to school athletics to understand what it all means, but I know how ranking systems work, and if you’re up that high, I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk away from it.”

            He groaned, and I could still feel his hand against mine, “How is it you make me feel inadequate for actually being good at something?”

            My stomach clenched; I didn’t want to make him feel bad. That was the opposite of what I wanted.

            “I’m sorry.” I said softly, letting go when we reached the fence. I dug my shoulder into the chain-link, and did the thing with my pockets while he stared at me.

            His laugh fell softly over me, “You shouldn’t be. Don’t apologize for my amazing self-deprecation.”

            I punched him, and he laughed again. I prompted, “And you gave up your spot because?”

            “I told you.” He smiled, bumping my shoulder “I didn’t love it anymore. I mean, it never gave me that sort of thrill that it used to, when I first started out.”

            “So you’re a thrill-seeker?” I asked, turning toward the steps of the school. He walked beside me, and looked down.

            He hesitated, “I wouldn’t call it ‘thrill-seeking’ exactly. More, ‘thrill-attempting’; I like the idea of trying new things, even if they might blow up in my face.”

            That seemed like the end of two extremes; try new things and have them turn out amazing, or try it out and hope to God it doesn’t kill you. But I went with it anyway.

            “What kinds of things did you try? Other than lacrosse.” I asked, and he skipped two steps, leaning against the railing.

            “Well, there was the unicycle,” He ticked off his fingers, “I taught myself how to speak in sign language, I rock-climbed in Pine Crest, hiked Half-Dome, learned to juggle, and I gigged a fish once.”

            I shook my head, “Gigged a fish?”

            He laughed, pulling out his phone “I have a picture.”

            “Ah, yes. The old adage: ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’.” I looked, seeing Sasha standing beside an older gentleman with a huge grin on their faces.

            Pointing, I asked, “Who is that?” Sasha scrolled on, showing the pictures of him getting ready to throw the sharp spear, and the long pole leaving his hand.

            “My dad.” He said, flipping through “He and my grandpa used to do stuff like that all the time. They went deep-sea fishing for squid when I was in seventh grade; we ate calamari for two weeks. Do you know what a refrigerator smells like when you’ve had squid in it for fourteen days?” I wrinkled my nose, and tried to imagine eating fried calamari every day for that long; I enjoyed seafood as much as the next girl, but two weeks of the same fish would probably make me sick.