"What tipped you off?" she snorted.
"The calendar."
"I'm not having my period, Ryan."
"Ew. Gross. That's not what I meant." He moved away-but then scooched back, so their shoulders touched. "You're always cranky today."
"What are you talking about?"
"February twenty-seventh."
"What's February twenty-seventh?"
"The day, you know. The zoo," he said. "Your accident."
It felt like a sandbag dropped on her chest. That couldn't be right, could it?
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"I saw it a few years ago," he said. "On Mom's calendar, with the birthdays."
The. Woman. Was. Obsessed. It might even be funny-if it weren't so infuriating.
"Why are you just now telling me?" she asked. Their heads shared the pillow, leaving only a few inches between their faces. The angle was awkward, and the muscles under her scars pulled.
"I thought you knew."
Uh, no. "That I'm cranky on the anniversary of an accident I hardly remember?"
"I remember it."
"You do?"
"I mean, not well. I was"-Ryan lifted his hands in the air, counting on his fingers-"what, six? But I remember going to that snack bar. It was empty, I think-just us. The guy at the popcorn cart, he looked like a grandfather, kept trying to pat our heads whenever we ran past him."
Fiona tried to picture it, but had no idea if the details coming to mind were memory or imagination.
"I remember the crash . . ." Ryan paused. His voice came out quieter when he spoke again. "Your scream. Mom trying to wipe the oil off with her scarf, and how your skin-" He cleared his throat. "Them tearing us out of there. How loud you yelled in the car. Nana buying me a milk shake in the hospital cafeteria." He turned to Fiona again, looking guilty. "I was really psyched about that milk shake. Sorry."
"You're forgiven." She even smiled.
He didn't smile back. "I feel bad. About all of it."
"It is what it is." Fiona hated talking about stuff like this, so she reached across Ryan and lifted her guitar from its place at the foot of her bed. Sitting cross-legged, she strummed some easy chords-the calming, predictable ones. C. E. G.
Was she really this pathetic every February 27? She hated drama, and here she was wallowing in it. You'd think the scars were suffering enough.
"That doesn't mean it doesn't suck," he said.
"I'm fine. It's just today, apparently. Which is ridiculous."
"Nah. This way, you get all the pissed-offedness out on one day."
She snapped her capo on the guitar's neck, at the fourth fret. "I don't have . . . that's not a word."
"I'd be pissed."
"Waste of energy. I can't change anything." She grabbed a Moleskine notebook off her bedside table. She'd been keeping these notebooks since seventh grade, around the same time her mom finally let her quit piano for guitar lessons. They weren't diaries or songbooks strictly. Most of the back pages were covered in rhymes. She'd pick a word, make syllable count columns, and see what matched with it. Pride. Divide. Bona Fide. Jekyll and Hyde.
She flipped pages until she found a blank spot, jotting down some more words to add to the rhymes and lyrics scrawled everywhere-not to mention her goofy hearts and Trent McKinnon's name.
"I can't change that I'm short," Ryan said. "It still annoys the hell out of me."
Fiona moved between guitar and notebook, playing through chords and writing them down next to the words. "You'll grow. Dad's six two."
"But I'm short now. Most girls want to be taller than their dates." Ryan leaned over, trying to get a look at her writing. "When are you going to let me hear one?"
Fiona's pen stilled against the paper. She stared at all the words she'd written-raw, aching phrases that explained her to herself, unfinished songs about unrequited love with Trent McKinnon. They told about her fears, which were many, and her hopes, which were unlikely. The words laid out her insecurities, her self-disgust, and, inexplicably, her pride.
Simply put, they were True. No way was she sharing them with anyone.
"Nothing to hear yet. Just scribbles, really." She changed the subject back to Ryan. "Dad said he didn't have his growth spurt until college. Freshman year he was five seven. By that summer, he'd grown five inches."
"I didn't come in here for you to solve my problems."
"Your problem has a solution."
"Yours might," he said quietly.
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. "There's nothing we can do," she said, mimicking so many of the other doctors she'd seen over the years.
"Things change. Science changes. That's what Dr. Connelly keeps saying."
"He's been saying that since I was five, Ryan."
"You never know."
She switched chord shape-A minor, C, E minor-wanting the notes off-center, like her. "Well, barring a miracle, this is who I am. Growth spurts and pink dresses won't fix me."
"You're not broken, Ona," he said, using the nickname only he used.
Tell that to Trent McKinnon, who will never love me.
He nudged her with his foot. "You're not broken," he repeated.
"I know. You're right," she said, knowing if she agreed, he'd let the subject drop.
She scratched out some lines and penciled yet another version on top of them:
I want love and skin.
I want to begin again.
FI
Fi was a sweaty mess. In the reflection from her phone, she saw a long, grass-colored streak stretching from her hairline to her chin, from where she'd wiped out. Her elbow would probably kill tomorrow-but she'd gotten the ball.
She was shoving her gear into her bag when she remembered Ryan was taking the car. He'd told her this, hadn't asked.
Cursing her brother, she scanned the field, but only freshmen remained. On the far side, she glimpsed Trent limping through the parking lot. He must have gotten hurt at practice. That or all his equipment weighed him down.
"McKinnon!"
He turned, scanned for the voice, and then waited in place as Fi jogged across the field. "I need a ride."
"Yeah, Ryan already told me," he said. "I was going to wait."
"You'd think he was my father," she muttered. "We're in the same grade, for God's sakes."
"He was just making sure you had a ride."
"I'd have a ride if he didn't keep taking the car."
Trent shook his head. "The trials of Fi-Fi."
Everyone else, even her parents, called her the same thing Ryan always had, "Fi." But in middle school, Trent had decided to give her a nickname all his own.
"You're an only child," she said. "You don't understand."
They shoved their stuff in his trunk-sticks, backpacks, gym bags, all of Trent's pads. Trent had to push everything around a few times, before the lid would close. The car smelled like the sweet decay of fast food-and all the other afternoons of lacrosse-practice sweat.
Trent pulled out of the lot and began the well-traveled route to the Doyles. Fi sank into the familiar passenger seat, and they rode in comfortable silence a few miles.
"You really cracked that middie last week," she eventually said. "Did you break his stick?"
"First one of the season."
"That's so not fair. I'd get a red card if I played like you."
"Nothing like a girl who wants to crack skulls," he said, smiling.
"Which is all your fault." She'd never get over the injustice that girl's lacrosse didn't allow bodychecking. "Teaching me to play the men's game."
"I was eleven. How was I supposed to know y'all have those lame oh-no-don't-check-me-I-might-break-a-nail rules?"
Fi showed him her stubby, bitten cuticles as a rebuttal. "I'd take you out, if they let me."
"No doubt," he said, snorting. "But why am I always the bad guy? Weren't we in your backyard? And didn't you shoot on Ryan just as much as on me?"
"You hit harder."
"That's true." He pulled up to the curb in front of her house and turned sideways in the seat, his arm slung casually over the back of her seat. "Remember that time he pinned me on the ground? When I accidentally hit you in the face?"
"Accident. Sure." She was needling him, but he kept bringing up Ryan. Like she needed the reminder they were friends first.
"It was an accident." He ran a finger down her cheek, right where that long, grassy stain was. "I'd never mess up this perfect face."
She jerked away, smacking the back of her head on the window. Trent's hands remained suspended, touching skin no longer there, until Fi opened the door.