Chapter 5
five
SOPHIE
“Maddie better save you a good spot by the diving board,” I tell Hazel, adjusting her backpack while she practically vibrates with anticipation at the pool gate.
“Sophie.” She deploys the look—part exasperation, part pity—that only an eight-year-old can perfect. “Maddie always saves me a spot. She’s my best friend .”
The words carry the gravity of elementary school allegiances, and I bite back my automatic reminder about sunscreen reapplication and the importance of eating lunch before swimming.
My chest constricts as I watch her bounce on her toes, all gangly limbs and wild energy, so much like Mom it steals my breath.
“Fine. But your inhaler?—”
“It’s in the front pocket where it always is.” She executes a theatrical eye-roll.
“And—”
“Can I go now?” She cuts me off. “Everyone’s already inside!”
I hesitate. Looking through the chain-link fence, I can see children shrieking and splashing in the chlorinated chaos. “Three o’clock,” I say.
But she’s already gone, blonde curls bouncing as she sprints through the gate without looking back. The counselor checks her name off a list, and just like that, my eight-year-old sister disappears into a crowd of kids who don’t know she watched our mother collapse at her soccer game two years ago.
I stand there another moment, fingers wrapped around the fence links until my knuckles ache.
I tell myself she’s fine—better than fine—and I almost believe it.
But, even if she’s not, she’s better than me, given I’m one moment away from demanding CPR certification verification and a full background check of all staff.
As I turn to leave, the parking lot shimmers with heat mirages that match my cortisol levels.
I fumble for my phone, already dreading what I’ll find, and there it is, my advisor’s email with the fall semester’s schedule attached.
The subject line might as well read “Your Worst Nightmare, Now with Credit Hours!”
Advanced Physiology: Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 a.m.
Seven. A.M.
Clinical Methods: Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
Not to mention other classes and twenty hours of practicum scattered throughout the schedule like landmines designed to detonate my carefully orchestrated family management system, and which will leave me too drained to do all the million-and-one other things I need to do in a given week.
I slump against my car, the metal searing through my thin shirt.
The phone screen blurs as I squint at it, willing the pixels to rearrange into something that doesn’t require me to exist in three places simultaneously.
My stomach churns with the familiar spiral of trying to solve an unsolvable equation:
Sophie’s presence is needed at point A (class), point B (Mom’s treatment), and point C (Hazel’s life), when Sophie can only occupy one point.
We moved across the country for Mom’s experimental treatment. I transferred schools, rearranged my entire life, and now I’m cramming a graduate degree in nursing into the spaces between being a caregiver and substitute parent, while most of my peers are just cramming study in between parties.
Not that I necessarily want parties. Hell, some days I fantasize about running away to live in a simple log cabin in the woods. But it’d have to have excellent WiFi, proximity to a teaching hospital, and be within driving distance of Hazel’s school.
So basically, my current apartment with more trees.
The car starts with a wheeze that mirrors my emotional state. As I navigate toward campus, my brain does what it’s been doing for two weeks—circling back to my one spectacular lapse in judgment, the one night I let myself be twenty-three instead of forty-three.
Circling back to Mike.
Even thinking his name sends molten heat pooling between my legs, muscle memory from how he’d mapped every inch of me. My thighs press together involuntarily, remembering how he’d asked what I wanted, then delivered like he was getting graded on thoroughness.
And God , the morning after.
The way sunlight had streamed through my kitchen windows, catching the sheen of sweat on his shoulders as he’d pressed me against the counter, all suggestion and naked want.
How he’d swept aside coffee mugs and my scattered thesis notes with one arm, his other hand tangled in my hair while he murmured filthy promises against my neck.
And he’d delivered on those promises.
I remember the cool granite beneath my palms, the heat of him behind me, the delicious contrast making me gasp.
The low growl he’d made when I’d pushed back against him, demanding more.
His pace—thorough and devastating—had made my legs shake and left his name as the only coherent thought in my head, the pancakes going cold as he fuc?—
A horn blares. I’ve been sitting at a green light, lost in a fever dream of athletic hands and that crooked smile he’d worn while making me breakfast in nothing but boxer briefs. Not my finest moment—or maybe my best, depending on the judge.
After, we’d exchanged phone numbers, telling each other we’d text, but reaffirming the ‘one-night-only’ pledge. I saved him as “Mike (amazing)” in a moment of post-orgasmic honesty I immediately regretted but couldn’t bring myself to change.
But now, two weeks, and no texts.
Which is actually totally fine, because I don’t have time for distractions.
Pine Barren’s hockey arena rises ahead like a chrome and glass monument to everything I’ve been avoiding.
The building screams money and priorities, both things this university apparently reserves for men with sticks.
But it’s also Dad’s new kingdom, his Division I coaching dream materialized in steel beams.
I park, and inside, the familiar scent of what I’ve scientifically identified as ‘concentrated testosterone’ hits like a sensory assault. I’ve been breathing this particular brand since childhood, following Dad from rink to rink, so you’d think I’d be immune by now.
You’d be wrong, so I try to breathe as shallowly as possible as I head for his office.
His office door stands ajar, “COACH PEARSON” gleaming on a placard so new it still has protective film on the corners. Pride tangles with resentment in my chest—pride that he’s achieved this, resentment that finishing his previous contract took priority over being here when Mom started treatment.
But that’s a conversation for therapy, not a Tuesday morning.
I knock, and he looks up, delight flashing across his face. “Sophie!”
“Nice digs,” I offer, surveying the half-unpacked chaos.
I see championship photos from Michigan and framed jerseys gifted by his players who’ve made the NHL, competing for wall space with tactical boards. And, front and center on his desk, I see the family photo from Christmas two years ago, when we still thought Mom’s symptoms were just stress.
“The team’s incredible.” His enthusiasm radiates like a kid showing off trading cards. “Real potential. You should see?—”
“I dropped Hazel at swim camp.” I cut him off before he can launch into hockey poetry. I don’t care, and he knows it. “Pick-up’s at three.”
His face shifts to logistics mode. We’re good at this dance, compartmentalizing into scheduling spreadsheets. “Your mom’s MRI is at one. I’ll grab her after that.”
I pull up our shared calendar and start to rattle off where I need to be and what I can handle with Hazel and Mom, and he does the same.
I do it, knowing he’ll transfer everything to his paper diary the moment I leave, because some people trust the cloud and some people trust pen and ink, and never the twain shall meet.
“Physical therapy tomorrow at eleven a.m.,” I recite. “I can drop her on my way to campus, but I have class at one.”
“Got it. Team workout’s not until three.” He nods. “I can pick her up and take her home.”
We trade responsibilities like batting practice, each obligation a ball to field, making concessions where we have to and moving stuff where we can’t find a solution. The weight of it presses between my shoulder blades, a familiar ache that’s taken up permanent residence next to my spine.
“You look exhausted, Soph,” he says, suddenly, in between scheduling Hazel’s third and fourth activity for Thursday afternoon.
I glance up from my phone to find him studying me with that concerned-parent expression he’s perfected.
Ironic, considering I’m basically co-piloting the family with him while Mom is out of action and while Hazel is…
well… eight years old. And that’s after solo driving it for six months while he was still in Michigan.
“Define ‘exhausted.’” I deflect. “Because if you mean ‘functioning on caffeine and spite,’ then yes.”
His frown deepens, concern clear on his face. “You know I’m here now, right? You don’t have to?—”
“Someone has to.” The words snap out before I can catch them, and I regret them. “Sorry. I just… there are a lot of details.”
Details like Mom sobbing in the hospital bathroom. Details like Hazel asking if people die from what Mommy has. Details like managing it all for six months while you fulfilled your precious contract five states away. Details, details, details, always the fucking details.
But I swallow those words because anger and fear are exhausting, and I’m already operating on fumes. Thankfully, a knock saves us from exploring further emotional territory, and a middle-aged man with a beer gut and salt-and-pepper hair peers in.
“Sorry, Coach,” the new arrival says, clearly sensing he’s interrupted a sensitive moment. “The team’s ready.”
“Thanks, Pete.” Dad brightens, grateful for the escape route from the parenting minefield, then waits while Pete departs. “He’s my assistant coach.”
“I should go.” I’m already gathering my bag. “Lots to do.”
“Actually…” He gets that hopeful expression that usually precedes requests I’ll regret. “Come meet the team? I’ve been telling them about my brilliant daughter.”
Every muscle in my body locks, and the word “no” forms in my mouth.