Chapter 4
Mac’s bruises are starting to look like art. Yellowish-green blots across her shins, a flash of purple beneath her collarbone from where KJ “accidentally” slammed into her during a drill.
She stares at them in the locker room like they’re constellations. Connect the dots: regret, rage, something sharp and stupid like longing.
“You should ice that,” KJ says, passing behind her. She doesn’t look. Just says it like a fact. Like the sky’s blue or Mac Coyle is a walking liability.
Mac shrugs. “Nothing you can’t tape up.”
KJ’s already halfway into her hoodie. “You always say that. It’s not a personality trait, you know. Being in pain.”
Mac pulls on her coat roughly, scowling. “You always talk like you’re better than everyone. That your pain’s more—what? Intellectual?”
The locker room smells like sweat and citrus shampoo. Most of the other girls are gone. It’s just them, and a silence that hums like a faulty lightbulb.
KJ leans against the bench. “You think I’ve never been angry?”
“I know you’ve never been poor.”
That lands. It’s not a kill shot—KJ doesn’t break—but she flinches, just barely.
Mac hates how satisfying that is.
⸻
The next morning is frostbitten. Their breath curls in the air during warmups. Coach makes them run suicides until Mac’s lungs feel like they’re being scraped out with a spoon.
KJ doesn’t talk. Doesn’t make eye contact. She’s fast, focused, a shadow with precision.
Mac pretends not to care. Then spends the whole walk to history class thinking about it.
⸻
Mr. Halvorsen makes them pair up for a presentation on 20th-century protests. Mac tries to slink toward the back, but she’s too slow.
“KJ and Mackenzie. Civil rights. Together.”
KJ doesn’t even blink. “That’s fine.”
Mac groans. “I don’t work well with, like… spreadsheets.”
KJ tilts her head. “It’s a civil rights presentation, not a merger.”
Mac glares. “Still sounds like your idea of foreplay.”
KJ freezes. Just for a moment. Then says, cool as ever: “I think you’re confused about who’s flirting with who.”
Mac says nothing. Her ears burn. She hates her ears.
⸻
They work in the library after practice. It’s sterile and cold, the lights buzzing overhead, and Mac pretends to care about Malcolm X quotes while KJ types everything up like a machine.
“So why do you even play?” Mac asks, spinning a pencil between her fingers. “You’re a straight-A, dual-language, legacy freak. You don’t need this.”
KJ doesn’t look up. “I like hitting things.”
That makes Mac snort. “Wow. Did we just bond?”
KJ glances up. Her eyes are darker in this light. Like bruises. “No,” she says. But her mouth twitches. Again.
⸻
That night, Mac finds a folded note in her locker.
It just says:
“You were right. But being poor isn’t the same as being angry all the time.”
She stares at it for a long time. Thinks about ripping it.
Instead, she folds it back up and keeps it in the back of her wallet.
She tells herself it’s for blackmail.
But she doesn’t throw it out.