Chapter 6 Bohdan
Bohdan
Then - College
“One, two, three, four, five, six,” Sloan whispers softly with each step of her feet on the library staircase, before she starts again. “One, two, three, four, five, six.”
“Are you counting?” I cut her a sideways look, laughing, and she stops, startled almost, left foot poised above the final step—six, according to her.
She does these funny things sometimes without realizing it—counting, tracing certain patterns, and tapping with her fingers.
I usually think it’s cute, but I get a good look at her in the low light of the library stairwell, and today, it seems like it might be bothering her.
Sloan blinks, column of her throat moving with a slow swallow, full lips parting at the Cupid’s bow. She shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders. “No.”
“Sloan.” I start to laugh again and tip my chin towards her mouth. “I heard you.”
“It’s just a pattern,” she says quietly, hand fidgeting with the strap of her backpack before she turns away and starts up the rest of the stairs.
“There’s more than six steps,” I call after her, louder than I should because it’s early and we’re on a quiet floor.
I take two steps at a time, my quads still twinging from morning skate. I should have stayed and rolled out my muscles, but Sloan on a Saturday morning, the sunlight streaming in on her through the old paned windows of the library, isn’t something I like to miss.
We’ve spent almost every Saturday morning here after practice, unless I have an away game, for the last three months.
I’m supposed to study the way she does, nose wrinkled in concentration, eyes tracking the pages of her notes, different colours of pens and highlighters all strewn about beside her—different colours for different things—but I usually just watch her.
She always catches me with a roll of her eyes, cheeks turning pink, and she walks around the table, flips open my textbooks before pulling up my notes on my computer, because she has my passwords for everything—they’re all something to do with her—and reminds me how much I allegedly love the rocks I’m studying about.
We make deals some days.
A certain number of uninterrupted minutes of studying and she’ll let me kiss her in public.
If I’m really lucky, it’s a day her roommate’s gone, we go back to her dorm, and she lets me do all sorts of things that I can’t in a library.
“There’s more than six steps,” I repeat when I catch up to her. She’s sitting in her favourite chair, making a big show of straightening her pens. “Sloan, what were you counting?”
“I know.”
It’s all she says.
“Sloan—” I start, pulling out my chair and dropping my backpack on the floor beside the table.
She doesn’t look back up at me, and her voice wavers. “Study, Bohdan.”
“Will you let me come back to your room if I do?” I try grinning at her, dropping my voice the way she likes and leaning forward on the table.
“Tia’s home.” She starts to blink rapidly, staring determinedly down at her textbook, but her eyes cloud over in a way that tells me she’s not really reading anything.
I swallow, tossing out a desperate attempt to get her to even look at me. “You can come to my place. Talon and Jay are—”
“I’m trying to study, Bohdan.” Her words are soft, and I can see a tear start to track down her cheek.
“Sloan.” I push my chair back, the legs scraping against the floor.
She closes her eyes at the sound, like it’s hurting her.
The idea of that hurts me.
I go to stand, but she beats me to it.
“I don’t feel well.” Sloan slams her textbook shut; her chair screeches against the tile, somehow so much more jarring than mine sounded.
I reach for her when she storms by, and for an NCAA athlete, one of the quickest wrist shots ever seen, a top-five skater in the entire country, I’m somehow too slow.
I sit there, stunned and stupid, unsure what the hell just happened.
She had a decent head start, and I have to wait outside her building until someone lets me into the main entrance because she’s not answering her phone, so I don’t catch up to her at all until I’m pounding on the door of her dorm room.
“Sloan!” I slam my palm against the peeling wood laminate.
Nothing.
There’s no way Tia’s actually home like she said—Tia wouldn’t be able to mind her business if she tried. She’s like her brother that way.
“Sloan!” I try again, dropping my ear to the door, beside my palm, trying to hear anything at all. “Sloan! At least tell me if you’re okay.”
I’m about to shout again when the door across the hall creaks open.
“Dude, can you—” He cuts himself off when I whirl around, muscles in my jaw ticking.
“Oh. Shit.” He blinks, stupid, looking a bit like he smoked too much weed. “Aren’t you Bohdan Novotnak?”
I don’t answer, turning back to Sloan’s door, pressing my palm against it like maybe she’ll feel my arm straining against the wood, as if I could break the thing down and get to her.
“Can I have your autograph?”
“No.” I don’t bother looking back at him, about to actually try my hand at breaking down her door when it swings open.
My reflexes finally decide to show up and I catch myself before I fall forward.
But it’s not Sloan standing in the doorway.
It’s Tia Valdez, and she looks decidedly unhappy to see me.
“Quite a scene you’re causing out here, Novotnak.” She purses her lips, arms crossed firmly over her chest before she peers over my shoulder. “Krish, mind your business.”
He does, and fortunately, he does so quietly, his door clicking shut behind me.
Tia’s eyes snap back to me, flashing with displeasure.“What do you want?”
I give her a flat look. “What do you think I want?”
“She came back here from the library crying, but she wouldn’t say what happened. What did you do?”
Splaying my arms wide, my voice rises again. “I don’t know. I fucking sprinted across campus after her to find out.”
“Hmm.” One eyebrow flicks up.
“Tia, please just let me in.” I rub a hand across my jaw, not against begging. My voice sounds a bit like I feel—split wide open, cracked and bleeding out at the thought that I’ve somehow done something to hurt the person who’s quickly becoming the most important thing in my life.
Tia angles her head, eyes narrowed and assessing. One finger taps against her sweater, right above her bicep, like she’s considering.
Her mouth parts, but before she can utter whatever line she’s come up with, I hear Sloan’s voice, and my knees might actually buckle with relief.
“Tia. He can come in.”
Tia glances over her shoulder before holding up a single finger. “One moment please.”
She takes a step back and I think she’s about to let me in before the door starts to shut.
“Oh, come on!” I groan, entirely to Tia’s delight. Her eyebrows lift, this look I could only describe as devious scrawls across her features, and she looks so much like her brother, I debate pushing past her into the room.
But the door pulls open, and I get eyes on Sloan for the first time since she somehow evaded me in the library.
She doesn’t look any worse for the wear. I catalogue every inch of her, and I think I bleed a bit more when I see the dried tears streaking down her face.
But she looks the same otherwise, hair down, falling over the shoulders of her grey sweater, leggings tucked into big, slouchy white socks that used to belong to me before she stole them.
“Are you okay? Are you sick?” I ask, words all strangled and desperate.
She cuts Tia a look. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Do I?” Tia glances back and forth between us, chin resolutely pointed in the air.
“Yes,” Sloan and I both answer at the same time.
Tia rolls her eyes, raising her hands before turning and stalking back into their shared room, making a big show of packing her bag and grabbing the textbooks strewn across her rumpled bedding.
Sloan waits, arms wrapped around her middle, blinking while Hurricane Tia spins around the room.
She doesn’t make any moves to come closer to me, or to do anything at all really, until Tia pulls open the door again with a dramatic flourish, pointing a bony finger at me in a gesture that’s probably supposed to be menacing.
I’m not sure the desired effect is achieved, but I can’t really say because the only thing I care about is the girl who just dropped to the edge of her bed to sit, feet dangling off because both she and Tia added these risers under them to create more storage.
The white bedding pools around her, and she looks beautiful despite the whole thing, with the lights strewn along the wall behind her twinkling, interspersed with different Polaroids and photos.
“Can I sit?” I grip my jaw again before pointing towards the empty space beside her on the bed.
A small shrug, and I take that as a yes.
My quad twinges uncomfortably when I drop beside her, and I dig a fist into it before glancing sideways at her, helpless.
“What did I do?” I ask, words rough.
Sloan stares determinedly ahead, and a new, fresh tear rolls down her cheek, and before I can reach forward, she bats it away with her hand.
“You laughed,” she whispers, voice impossibly small.
I give my head a shake, brow furrowed, and I shift so I can face her. She doesn’t recoil or shy away, so I take that as an invitation to lean closer, reaching out and swiping a thumb across her cheek.
She doesn’t elaborate, but she does angle her head so she can rest against my palm.
I think there’d be a lot of people who might press, say the whole thing was ridiculous and preposterous, tell her she was being dramatic because nothing really happened.
It’s been three months, and maybe it’s a drop in the proverbial bucket of time—but it’s been enough to learn a few things about Sloan.
She knows exactly who she is, and she wants to take up space, but she does it in this quiet, tentative way like she isn’t sure how.
She spends a disproportionate amount of time worrying about whether she’s good or bad, and if whatever she is, is enough for other people.
And I don’t think she’s very nice to herself.