The Sound of Ice

33

After about a week, things seem to die down a little. Coach suspends Luke from the team. Coach doesn't care less about this "media bullshit", and says at long as I'm playing good hockey, nothing else matters.

Sam comes over and we study. Or really, he reads War and Peace out loud as I flip through old comic books. It's finally starting to get warmer outside, and the snow is mushy and glistening under the sun.

We walk around the neighborhood. We watch old movies. I don't know how to do this. I feel like there's so much pressure on me all the time. I don't know how to do this? 

"We can know only that we know nothing," says Sam, his eyes flickering quickly across the pages. His voice is soft and woven. "And that is the highest degree of human wisdom."

I'm sitting beside him on the floor, our backs against my bed. I turn my baseball over in my hand, feeling the worn leather under my fingertips. "Deep."

"Yeah, deep."

"Tolstoy might know what he's talking about."

"Maybe." Sam shuts the book gently and pulls it in towards his chest, stretching out his legs. "Anyway. What's for dinner?"

"What, you want to make eggs for everyone?"

"Funny."

"I think we're ordering Chinese."

"Alright."

I glance sideways at him. He's looking down at the book. His eyelashes are long, and his hands are tucked in the sleeves of his green sweatshirt. 

"How's your uncle?"

Sam picks at the corner of the pages. "He's okay. He's been going to the doctor twice a week."

"He'll be okay."

"Yeah, he'll be okay." I don't know if he means it.

My phone buzzes on my desk, and I reach over and grab it. It's an email from school.

"Beckett, Cameron exam grades," I read out loud. Shit. I forgot about exams. I unlock my phone and read the rest of the email, random sentences of information jumping quickly into my brain. 

"Pre-calculus..." I squint at the screen, then look up at Sam. "B-?"

Sam's eyes widen with happiness, and a smile curls across his face. "A B-?"

"This can't be right." I push the phone in Sam's hands, and he reads it for himself.

"Cameron!" he says, laughing. "You got a B- in math."

"I got a B- in math?"

"You got a B- in math."

"Shut up." 

He laughs again. I love it when he laughs. "That's amazing," he says.

I smile. "Well, I had a good teacher." 

Maybe I should kiss him. I want to more often than I do. But sometimes, I don't want to at all. I don't know how to do this. I still feel wrong sometimes. Does that make me a bad person?

~

After dinner, he and Hailey take the telescope out for the first time. The sky is clear and scattered with bright stars, and satellites wink down. I do homework in the kitchen, but even from there I can hear their muffled laughter. I glance up, and out the window I can see Sam kneeling beside Hailey, pointing to the sky. I smile, a little.

~

In the hallway the next day at school, someone is standing by my locker as I slam it shut. 

"Hi, Trina."