Chapter 2
TWO
SUTTON
“Was that Cooper?” Meave, my older, adoptive sister, asks around my labored, burning breaths.
Each inhale is as if a shard of ice is puncturing my lungs. That’s what I get for running in the cold. Today, if you’d believe me, is a warm Wisconsin winter day with a high of thirty degrees.
“Unfortunately,” I groan, elongating my stride to skip a patch of ice.
“Tell him I said hi!”
Lakeland University might be frozen over, but hell has most certainly not. Thus, me going out of my way to speak to Cooper Carmichael will not be happening.
“No,” I respond impassively because she knows better.
“Are you ever going to forgive him?” Meave must have me on speakerphone. Through my headphones, I can hear the clattering of her paintbrushes and splashing water as she rinses them.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you two were best friends once.”
“You and Elliot are my best friends. I don’t need him.”
I stop at a red light, bounce on the balls of my feet, waiting for the signal to turn green. Each time my left heel taps the sidewalk, there’s a lingering strain of pain in my knee. Which wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for him.
“Plus, why should I forgive him when he’s never apologized—”
“That’s not how forgiveness works, Sutton,” Meave cuts me off, but I keep going.
“—and enjoys reminding me how much better he thinks he is than me. Cooper Carmichael is nepotism’s finest, conceited, arrogant, and—” The first boy to break my heart.
Ridiculously attractive. Has a dimple in his right cheek that deepens when he really smiles, not the fake one he’s been wearing since we started college, which makes me question why I hate him.
I hate that he’s monopolizing this call with my sister.
“Why are we talking about him? This is not why you called.”
“Have you heard from your advisor yet?”
Today has been marked on my calendar—the one hanging on my apartment fridge, digitally on my phone, and shared with Meave and my roommate, Elliot—since November.
Today is the second anniversary of deciding to hang up my skates after I never recovered from the terrible triad.
Better known as tearing your ACL, meniscus, and medial collateral ligament.
The blade of the player that collided with me, cutting open my thigh, was the cherry on top.
I had to have two reconstructive surgeries and twenty stitches in my left leg during my junior season in high school.
Doctors were convinced I’d be able to play again. And I tried. Throwing myself into every PT session and workout. Spending endless time on the ice my senior year with my dad. But I was never able to get it back.
That was the second-worst part of all this. Watching my childhood dream go up in flames. Becoming a professional female athlete was already a long shot. Opportunities limited, especially for women’s hockey, but I was determined to do it.
The worst part was that it was his fault. If he hadn’t shattered our friendship, I wouldn’t have been left weak and vulnerable right before a game that needed my entire focus. I’m not letting seeing him—I can’t let it—this morning ruin today too.
Today should be the final stitch in reconstructing a new dream for myself.
Today I’m supposed to find out if my independent study request is approved.
Lakeland has a stellar psychology department, one of the country’s best student health centers, and resources. Top rated in every category. But it wasn’t till I had officially changed my major that I learned they don’t have a sports psychology major or minor.
I thought about transferring, paperwork filled out and one click away from submission to three schools, when my new advisor, Dr. Manning said, Let’s build one.
We pieced together courses I would need to take, collaborating with some of her colleagues and friends from other Universities.
Adding classes such as kinesiology and exercise physiology to my required courses.
“Not yet,” I confess, optimism wavering.
I’m not confident I’ll hear back. The day is already halfway through, and with how close we are to the semester starting, I can’t imagine the department would approve it now. We submitted the request before Thanksgiving break.
It was always a long shot.
Maybe I should have transferred.
“The day is still young,” Meave reminds me, always visualizing the cup half full.
Her optimism bleeds into me. It always has.
My childhood is dotted with Meave’s positivity and belief in me.
The day our parents met me—the day she convinced them we were a package deal and she wouldn’t be their daughter if it meant leaving me.
Skating for the first time. Running for class president.
Selecting a college to play for after I didn’t get recruited to the one I wanted.
“I’ve gotta run, Sutt, but I’ll have my phone on me,” she says on a deep exhale, a clattering sounds in the background. “Call when you find out?”
“I will. I love you, Meave.”
“I love you the most.”
Our call disconnects, and my phone automatically picks back up on the podcast I was listening to. I tap an earbud, turning down the volume so I can pay attention to my surroundings. There’s only half a mile left to my apartment.
I turn the corner and notice a black SUV slowing down, gradually getting closer to the curb. My pace picks up, but the car matches.
When a tinted window starts to roll down, I move my hand to my running belt. Trying to be stealthy, I unzip it, tapping in my passcode and pulling up my contacts. Campus safety is one touch away.
I almost fall over from relief when I spot sandy blonde hair.
“Jesus Christ, Elliot.”
Elliot Jones, my now soon-to-be ex-best friend and roommate, whistles, then starts singing “Track Star”.
We’ve lived together since our freshman year. There were an odd number of freshman hockey and soccer players, and we volunteered to live together. Ironically, neither of us play anymore.
“I was about to call security on you,” I sing back, terribly matching the tune of the song.
“Oh, come on, Sutton. Chill out. There are zero serial killers at Lakeland.”
“But there are men.”
She snorts. “That’s true.” Her ride keeps pace with me as I check both directions and cross the street to the next block. “Where are you running?”
“Home.”
“Want a ride?”
“We live right there.” I point to the entrance of our campus-owned apartment complex. The brick sign is covered with snow.
“But what about all of the serial killers?”
Elliot doesn’t let up. Doesn’t drive faster either. The car rides the curb, and she talks the entire time, recounting her winter break back home.
That’s how the rest of the afternoon goes once I take a hot shower to defrost my limbs.
We lie on the couch, sit on the counter sharing a bag of grapes, then reorganize her closet when that idea shoots across her mind.
Any silence between us is like an intermission, before one of us dives right back into our winter breaks and the latest gossip.
It’s not like we didn’t already know everything, but there’s something special about a friend you can recount the same story to again and again and they never get bored.
Break was boring enough without Elliot. Our apartment has been quiet this past week without her and her bubbly, no filter, convincing personality.
A quick bribe of promising to clean my bathroom for a month was all it took to get me to go out with her tonight. I think she knew if I didn’t occupy myself, I would have sat on our couch, going between refreshing the emails on my phone to staring at my computer until I heard from my advisor.
However, Elliot failed to tell me that our girls’ night also included our motley crew of hockey boys.
We beat them to the bar, finding a table close to the live music.
I’ve always loved that The Tipsy Bear hires performers from school.
Lakeland is just big enough that it’s easy to get lost in the student population, but it’s places like this that make it small.
One by one, they all walk in.
Chase Jones.
Jaxon Greene.
Dawson Karlsson.
Surprising us both, Beckett St. James. He’s a rarity to see out.
Luckily, Cooper is nowhere to be found. Which might be the second surprise of the night, because these are his roommates and best friends. Wherever they go, he’s usually somewhere close by.
I’d like to say they were my friends first, maybe Dawson and Chase, but Beckett and Jaxon are his. Elliot is mine, and that is something I will take to my grave, even if he likes to bicker with me about that.
I know I shouldn’t be keeping score, it’s not healthy, but I am. When it comes to him, I’m always keeping score.
“No Cooper?” Elliot asks for me.
The guys shrug as if it were a rehearsed dance.
“Wasn’t home when we all left,” Chase responds, taking a seat to Elliot’s left. He plants a kiss on her temple. “You smell nice.”
“Wonders what hair washing day does for a girl.”
Elliot flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
Chase smiles at her before taking a strand of her hair and twirling it around his finger.
They’re close—probably the closest either of us are with the boys.
They met during orientation because they have the same last name, and the rest of us were a game of dominoes.
One at a time, they adopted us into what is now our sometimes dysfunctional friend group.
“I’ll text him,” Elliot adds. “Chase, go take that empty seat next to Sutton”—she points at the empty chair to my right—“and Jaxon lean in. Kiss her cheeks, I’ll send him a picture.”
They comply, shuffling around the high top. Elliot takes a photo with a shit-eating grin on her face.
“That’s enough,” I tell them, cautiously pushing at their shoulders. “I’m not trying to make him mad.”
Unlike Cooper, who does everything intentionally to get under my skin—such as choosing to go to the same University as me—I don’t go out of my way to annoy him. There’s nothing I can have that he can’t also have or do.