Chapter 26
Sloane
Being back at Holcroft is surreal because now I’m an adult and the teachers are looking and talking to me as their peer and not a student. I’m having a harder time adjusting than they are. It’s freaky.
The easiest part of my first day as a bona fide employee has been meeting the kids. Most of them are taller than me and a lot fitter. Mr. Porter was right, they are an impressive bunch.
I’ve been assigned a little corner of the old nurse’s room—now officially the Athletics Training Suite, which means the only thing new is a folding screen and the scent of industrial disinfectant.
It might be small, but it’s mine. My first office as a professional woman out in the world.
Ten months ago I wouldn’t have thought this was possible, so I couldn’t be happier to inhabit the space.
Mr. Porter greeted me with a handshake and an apologetic grimace, then spent ten minutes running down the list of “frequently acquired injuries.”
The school is operating on summer hours, and the only students expected to turn up are athletes and students taking summer classes. The athletes should be working on drills and strength training, so I’m not sure why there are a bunch of injuries already.
At 7:06 a.m.—which is a disgusting time to be awake by the way—the first cross-country runner limped in, stifling a yawn and brandishing a half-unwrapped energy bar. She was a freshman, sharp-boned and perpetually on the verge of an eye roll, but she let me tape her knee and even said thank you.
By 8:15 a.m., my room was full of the raw, jangling energy of high school athletes, which is to say…gossip, sweat, and a constant stream of requests for more tape.
All I can say is, thank god the supplies are coming out of Holcroft’s budget and not mine. I’d be out of business before I get started. I plan to reserve my tape for private clients.
The thing that stood out to me the most was how weird it felt to have power.
I don’t mean the kind of “power” that comes with the ability to issue a parking pass, but the power to say: I think this is tendinitis and here’s what you do about it.
To be the expert. Every time a kid calls me “Ms. Bishop” I get a shiver up my spine, like: how did I get here?
It’s the afternoon now, and I’m in a rhythm of doling out ice packs, taping up limbs and check-ins with Coach Porter about the soccer star who maybe-but-not-quite dislocated her shoulder.
The thing that surprises me most is how easily the students confide in me.
I remember teachers and adults making a big deal about the boundaries between staff and students, all those horror stories about overstepping.
But what I’m seeing now is teenagers desperate for someone to take them seriously, but not too seriously.
At 3:20 p.m., after the last bell, I sit behind my desk, staring at an untouched cup of coffee.
My hands are still sticky from kinesiology tape.
My head feels full of new information—names and ailments and personalities—and I have to actively remind myself that this is my job.
It’s not an audition for a life, it’s the real thing.
I’m making something of myself.
The door creaks. I look up, expecting another kid with a twisted ankle, but it’s not. It’s Eden. She’s got her bag slung carelessly over one shoulder and is wearing paint-splattered jeans. She leans in the doorframe, arms crossed, one eyebrow up. Her eyes scan me, and I suddenly feel hot.
I sit up straight, startled out of my first-day haze. “You’re early.”
She grins. “Your mum texted me. Said she’d make me dinner if I checked up on you.” She comes in closer. “She didn’t have to offer to cook me anything, I’m more than happy to check you out…I mean, check on you.” She grins wolfishly.
I try to tidy my desk as my cheeks flame. When Eden looks at me like that I feel my self-control slip, and I cannot get nasty with her in my new office.
She spots the untouched coffee, takes a sip and grimaces. “This is terrible.”
She sits on the edge of my desk after sliding the offending coffee away from her.
“It wasn’t a disaster,” I say with a smile. “I only almost cried twice.”
I’m not even lying. As great as today has been, it has been a lot, and my emotions were on the surface every minute of the day.
“Only twice?” she says, impressed. “I would’ve had a full meltdown by lunchtime if it were me back at my old high school!
” She playfully shudders at the thought, but deep down I know she enjoyed her time at Holcroft, especially senior year.
Okay, maybe not those few months I spent corralling her into exercise.
I pull up a chair for her, and she slides off the desk edge and into the seat, propping her chin on her palm and giving me that look that makes my knees weak. I wonder, sometimes, if I’ll ever get used to her being mine again.
My therapist warned me I’d keep reliving old patterns, always expecting the other shoe to drop. But the only shoe in the room is Eden’s old Doc Marten, tapping the linoleum while she listens to me talk about taping up fifteen different knees.
She looks around the room, eyeing my mini kingdom. “Doesn’t smell like it used to. That’s a win!”
I laugh. “Right!”
For a while, we just sit. The silence between us is easy, like it used to be—before everything got hard and sad.
I tell her about the soccer star and the cross-country kid, about Coach Porter’s attempts at motivational speeches and about the way high school gossip has only grown more creative since we left.
She listens, genuinely. When she talks, she tells me about the painting she’s just finished and how she’s ahead with the artwork she plans to send to England for the gallery show.
It’s after five when she finally stands, stretching, and says, “C’mon. Your mum’s making pasta and I’m not letting you be late for your own celebratory dinner.”
I hesitate, hands hovering over the mess of paperwork I should probably finish. She sees and tugs me out of the chair by the sleeve.
“They’ll still be there in the morning, babe,” she says, calm and matter-of-fact. “Let’s go home.”
A week later, life already feels more routine.
I’m starting to recognize the regulars, such as the linebacker who came in last Thursday with a finger bent a smooth ninety degrees in the wrong direction.
The shy girl from JV soccer who feigns a limp just to get out of math class, which is a part of her summer school program.
The pack of juniors who treat the waiting area as their own personal therapy session, dissecting TikTok drama and college choices while I ice their bruises.
Eden drops by daily, sometimes with coffee, sometimes with a sketchpad full of new ideas, and once with an entire tray of her mother’s lemon squares that ended up getting stolen by all the hungry teens loitering around.
On Thursdays I run the after-school injury prevention workshop for the star athletes I’m paid to keep in top shape.
The class is a fancy way of saying “stretching group.” My first week, only two kids showed up.
Now it’s a solid seven, most of them from the soccer team.
There’s an easy camaraderie among them, a willingness to expose their weirdest quirks and pain points, and I love that most of all.
This week, Kiera walks in near the end of the session, cradling a clipboard and looking more grown-up than anyone has a right to at twenty-two. She gives me a quick, professional smile. “Can I steal you for a sec?”
I glance at my group. I’ve just demonstrated the world’s least graceful hamstring stretch, and one of the kids is giggling at my expense.
“No mutinies while I’m gone,” I threaten, and follow Kiera into the corridor.
She closes the door behind us—habit, I think, not secrecy—and leans against the wall. “You’re killing it.”
“That’s actually…really nice to hear.”
“Word gets around. Kids like you.”
I want to deflect, like I always do, but even I know I’m doing better than expected. There’s a pause long enough to make me anxious, so I ask, “How’s coaching?”
She shrugs. “Good. Team’s scrappy this year, in a good way. I wanted to say—” She looks at her shoes, finds something on the toe to focus on. “I’m glad we’re friends again, and maybe we can all go out to dinner together? Like a double date.”
“We’d love to join you.”
Kiera smiles and heads back towards the locker room.
I head back inside and finish the stretch circuit.
At the end the kids thank me, and a few even say they’ll see me next week.
I pack up, collect the stray resistance bands, and stand by the dizzying orange-and-blue mural Eden and her classmates painted on the suite’s wall in their sophomore year as part of Holcroft’s attempt to get kids mingling.
After a few minutes I shut off the lights and leave.
I’m permanently tired these days, but in a satisfying way.
That night Eden and I eat leftovers on the balcony. We watch the city pass by with the click of skateboards, the heavy pause of garbage trucks and the distant thump of music from somewhere in the next block. We don’t talk much, there’s no need.
It’s not just me who is loving working. Eden’s painting again, feverishly, which means waking up to the scent of turpentine and the constant pattern of paint footprints on the linoleum. She’s tearing through her commissions and I’m so proud.
Just after midnight, I wake to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, sketching silently by moonlight.
“You okay?” I mumble.
She nods, turning the page of her notebook. “Can’t sleep. My brain is refusing to shut up.”
I sit up, slide my arm around her, and rest my chin on her shoulder. She smells like oil paint and shampoo, and I want this version of my life sealed forever.
“Tell me something you’re thinking about.”
She glances at me, like, are you sure? But then she speaks in a slow, sleep-thick voice. “I used to think I’d never get back to where I was. With you. I never thought I’d be able to do what I’m doing with my art either. But—” She breaks off, then smiles at her own awkwardness.
“But?” I press.
Her hand closes softly on mine. “I am. I have you back, and I’m making art…for money. But now all I can think about is my gran. I…Sloane, I think I want to go to England while she’s getting treatment.”
Her eyes are like saucers, and I can feel the anxiety radiating off her.
My heart pumps faster and harder at the thought of her leaving, but I can’t stop her.
I don’t want to, not really. She’d be devastated if anything happened to her gran and she wasn’t there.
She’d never forgive herself, and I can’t be the reason she makes a decision she’d certainly regret.
I close my eyes. I remember the first time I met her, the way I’d felt safe and terrified at once. I remember losing her. I remember finding her again, at exactly the right time.
“If that’s what you need to do, baby, then do it. I’m not going anywhere, Eden. I’ll be right here when you get back.”
“You’d be okay with me skipping town?”
I laugh. “You’re not exactly skipping town, Eden. You’re being a wonderful granddaughter and supporting your family. If I could come with you I would, but school starts next week, and—”
“Sloane, I know you have to stay here. I want you to, because you’ve earned this.”
“I can still come over for your gallery opening. Will you be back before then?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how Gran’s doing.”
“Have you told your gran you want to go home with her?”
Eden’s grandparents are due to fly home in two days.
“No, and I know she’s going to tell me not to be so daft, which is why I don’t plan on telling her. I’ve too much to organize before leaving, so I couldn’t catch a flight in two days anyway. As long as I arrive before her first chemo treatment I’ll be happy.”
She lets out a shaky breath, and something in her posture softens, like a knot unraveling. “I’ll call every day,” she promises. “I don’t want you to think I’m running away.”
I pull her closer. “I don’t. I understand, really, I do.”
“Pia’s going to lose her shit.” She laughs.
I roll my eyes playfully. “Pia will be fine, and I’m sure she’s going to be far too preoccupied with Meena and Todd.”
“Are you really okay with this?” she asks in a whisper.
Swallowing back my anxiety, I take a calming breath. “Does it scare me you’re leaving after we’ve just gotten back together? Yes. But that’s my issue, Eden, and I will talk to Dr. Chen about it. We’re not kids anymore, and life happens.”
She watches me closely, and I know she needs to hear this. She needs me to reassure her we will be okay.
“I want us to feel comfortable doing the things we need to do for our own well-being. If I’ve learned one thing from therapy, it’s that we have to look after ourselves before we can pay it forward.
You need to do this, Eden, for your own peace of mind.
I’ll be there in spirit, and on the end of the phone. ”
“I’ll call you all the time. You’ll get sick of me.”
I smile and kiss her. “Not possible. I am okay with this, babe, and I’ll look out for the girls.”
“Thank you,” she sighs. “I’ve been driving myself crackers deciding what to do for the best.”
“Well, now it’s decided and it’s time you got some sleep.”
Later, when she falls asleep curled beside me, I lie awake and count backward from a thousand, watching the shadows crawl across the ceiling.
It’s a great way to stamp down anxiety. By counting down, I’m not allowing my mind to focus on negative thoughts.
I get to seven hundred and sixty before I realize this is happening. Eden is leaving. Maybe for a while.
And for the first time since she came back to me, I’m not catastrophizing it. I’m just…ready to feel whatever happens next.