Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,57

and the burly silhouette at the water’s edge. “Gonna do a little night fishing?”

“You bet,” Pop’s old friend answers. “Figured you were, too.”

“Just cooling off. Had a couple of long hot days on the fishing boat.”

“Man, that sun will get you every time.”

“Sure will. Sorry to be trespassing on your land—just wanted to get away from all the tourists. See enough of ’em during the day,” I lie. Can’t seem to ever see enough of one, is all I can think.

“You don’t have to apologize, Clint. You’re welcome out here anytime, you know that …”

As George rattles on, I turn my head and hiss, “You decent?”

“Yeah,” Chelsea whispers back.

“Think I’ll head for home. I’m really bushed—you enjoy yourself, George,” I say, dragging myself—and Chelsea—out of the water.

Chelsea crosses her arms over her chest as we hurry toward the truck, the two of us drenched and dripping.

“See you, George,” I call, waving over my shoulder.

“Well, now, you—ah, well, you and your, ah, friend, well, there, you two don’t have to run off on my account …” He’s shocked. Foot-on-a-downed-power-line shocked. He’s got to recognize that the silhouette of my friend is decidedly female. Clint Morgan … he’s not as dead as we’d all started to think he was.

“You catch one for me, all right?” I call as we hurry back along the creek.

“All—all right. Well. Okay,” he says.

We jump in the cab. Chelsea’s muttering, “Shit, shit, shit” as the engine coughs to life.

But laughter’s rolling out of me, and there’s no way to turn it off.

“Clint! ” she shouts. “What if he says something—to my folks or something?”

“He’d never recognize you,” I tell her. “Trust me. It’s getting too dark out. You know what his face looks like?”

I can tell, by the way she stops to consider this, that she agrees. “But it’s not funny,” she insists. “Stop,” she yells, making me realize that I’m still laughing.

But my laughter just rolls on. “It doesn’t have to be all serious,” I remind her, picking up her hand and kissing her knuckles.

As the truck ambles back toward the resort, I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite so light in all my life.

Not even with a girl with two black braids.

Chelsea

turnover

Minnesota is a poem. Minnesota has black hair. Minnesota is a summer kiss under the stars, scald of a sunburn, ache of a heavy sweet lodged in the crevice of a tooth. Minnesota is a morning on a lake, an afternoon under trees, stolen kisses, the smell of a man’s neck, the rough callus of his hand under my lips. Minnesota is a sky full of stars and the edge of a lake and wading farther and farther away from shore.

At least, that’s what it feels like over the next few days. Weird, but around Clint, I don’t think about metal plates and screws. I don’t think about falling. I don’t wish for a pause button that could keep me from ever moving forward, past basketball. I think about tomorrows. I’m excited—God—about cycling. About hiking. For the first time since my accident, I’m starting to wonder how much farther I can ride today than I did the day before. I’m telling Clint to let me row. My pillowy gut is firming, reminding me just how quickly I’d always been able to build muscle. I’m no longer the same squishy pile of dough Scratches kneaded, sitting on my lap just before we left home.

And ever since bowling, Clint seems—freer. He’s not pushing me away. He’s not telling me he can’t. He’s not leaning away from me, against the door of his truck. He doesn’t apologize for brushing my knee when he shifts gears.

But Minnesota is also Brandon, glaring at me as he stands in the doorjamb of the cabin bathroom. Shaking his head while I hum, tying my hair into a ponytail.

“Don’t think I’m stupid, Chelse,” he says. “I know what’s going on.”

“What’s going on?” Dad asks as he trudges down the sunlit hallway and glances into the bathroom, eyes hidden beneath a Lake of the Woods cap.

“Hiking,” I sing.

“Hiking,” Brandon mutters. “Yeah, right.”

Dad’s mouth curls into a frown. “Aren’t you and Clint working out?” he asks.

“Aren’t they,” Brandon moans. “That’s not the problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad asks, giving his words an angry growl. Suddenly, every cruel and unfair thing he said to me after the Willie Walleye festival—the night I first kissed Clint—comes roaring back.

“Forget it,” I snap at him. I’m about to scream something at him like, Why do you act