I turned my attention back to the desk and opened the drawer. The thin file at the back was still there. Only the two from Anna remained. Maybe he planned to give them to us, in time. Or maybe he had no intention of letting them go—maybe they were important to him, all he had left. I began to take out the whole folder and then I stopped, remembering him crying on his couch, how he’d underlined in his note. I released the folder back into the drawer and instead took only one paper, the one with the long note.
Then I heard voices outside the door and the rattle of the doorknob turning. I dove under the desk even as I tried to tell myself I wasn’t really doing anything wrong, that I had a perfect right to what I was taking.
“She left her notes for biology at home,” a man said. “I found them when I went home for lunch. She’s been studying for weeks—you should see the crib sheet she made.”
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate you bringing them to her,” Mr. Matthews replied.
“You know how Sarah gets when she’s nervous about a meet—she’s been even worse about this test.” I sneaked a quick look from beneath the desk and saw that the man talking was Mr. Hinter, Sarah’s dad.
There was the gentle sound of the door swinging closed, the soft snap of the latch.
Then there was silence for a long time. Long enough that I wondered if they’d left the room again, gone back into the hall, leaving me crouched under the desk for no good reason. I shifted forward and peered out again. They were both still in the room, simply standing there, looking at each other.
“Why are you here?” Mr. Matthews asked quietly.
“I told you,” Mr. Hinter replied. “To bring Sarah her notes.”
“That’s why you came to school,” Mr. Matthews said. “I want to know why you’re here.”
“You’re my daughter’s coach. I’m allowed to talk to you.”
“Your daughter’s coach? Really? That’s what I am now?”
Mr. Hinter took a step forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t mean…Christ. I don’t know what you want me to say, Ben. You called me, remember? Tell me what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want to have to tell you. That’s the point.” Mr. Matthews took a deep breath. “I thought we had plans. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“We did. It was. I’m sorry,” Mr. Hinter said.
“I thought we were going to leave this place together. Have a life—” His hands stretched out toward Mr. Hinter and stayed there for a moment before he let them fall back to his side.
“I know. But I can’t. I just can’t.” Mr. Hinter’s voice cracked. “I was living in a fantasy land—I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want to be one of those fathers who leave their families—who only see their daughter a few times a year.”
“It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Yes, it would. You know it would. And I couldn’t handle that. It took that poor girl’s death to wake me up, to make me see it.” He looked down. “You see someone else lose their kid and suddenly you get it. What it would mean to not have them in your life anymore. How fragile it all is.”
“It’s nothing like that. It’s not the same.”
Mr. Hinters shook his head. “Look, when you’re a parent—”
“Don’t. Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Not again.”
“I’m sorry.” He raised his hand as if to touch Mr. Matthews’s arm. Mr. Matthews took a step back and shook his head.
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
Then they stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at each other. The man who I thought had been in love with my sister and the father of my friend, husband of the most beautiful woman in town, the silence between them so loud it threatened to shatter everything in the room.
After that, I started to skip practice. I was so tired of pretending. Of lying.
And with him? It was not good. Let’s leave it at that.
I was in the well. The walls were slick. The water was dark.
I hope you never know what that feels like. I hope you never start having the kind of thoughts I had. About how much easier it would be…Never mind. I shouldn’t tell you that.
MY KNEE MADE A MIRACULOUS recovery. I told my parents that evening that all the sharp pains had disappeared. So I would be going on a long run.
They weren’t huge fans of the idea.
“You don’t want to stress it, sweetheart,” Mom said. “I’m glad it feels better, but you don’t want to push it too hard and end up injuring it again.”
Dad nodded. “It’s easy to get excited when you’re finally feeling better, but you should be careful.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
They looked skeptical.
I promised that I would mostly walk, and only gently, experimentally jog.
As soon as I was out of view of the house, I began running. It felt like rust was falling off my limbs, like they’d been waiting for me to use them properly again.
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Sarah about what I’d heard. On the one hand, he was her father—maybe that meant she had a right to know. On the other hand, whatever Mr. Matthews and her father had been to each other, whatever they still meant to each other, the relationship had obviously ended. There was no action to be taken, no change for
