Tradition: Chapters 21–28

There was going to be a lot of fallout from the party at Horn Rock, and I wanted to avoid it all, so I laced up my shoes and went for a run.

...it saps the potassium from your body and the next day your muscles are tighter than they should be because lactic acid has built up and you just need to stretch it out.

But Jules had been so adamant. No boys.

As he passed us, Javi went on a whispering tirade about how much he hated Freddie, how much Freddie was the kind of guy who ruined people’s days because he needed them to be as miserable as he was, but I couldn’t help thinking that as much as I agreed with Javi, I was going to have to figure out a way to still talk to Freddie.

This felt all the more true at sit-down dinner that night, because although I didn’t have to sit with Freddie, I had to sit with a couple of the other guys on the hockey team, and although we were sitting in our chairs, as we spoke to each other it felt a lot more like we were circling each other, not letting our guard down, boxers light on their feet feigning jabs before a fight.

“Maybe,” Aileen said. She got contemplative. “I wonder how much they know about us, about the lives we live outside of class, about who we are on our own.”

I hid from everyone Sunday, which was easy for most of the day, except for sit-down dinner, which I skipped, and when Mrs. Attison, who was the dorm proctor, knocked on my door to check on me that night, I just said I wasn't feeling well.

It would have been one thing if she had been a guard, but she wasn't, she was like a fox or a raccoon, prowling the porch, not afraid of the people in the house, skulking, sniffing around, closer and closer to the door.

I wanted to let the hours pass, and zombie out for the day, in the hope that whatever semi-nauseous feeling I had swirling in my gut would go away before I had to face the world—but I couldn’t continue to hide out, because the longer I remained a hermit, the more questions people would have for me.

I only owned it because I’d used it for a costume the year before. I’d hated it. Until now. Now it felt like a cocoon swaddling me.

Even though I had showered that morning, I felt a tacky film slicking my arms and legs.

It was in my hair too—a matted mess of oily ropes. Maybe I was molting.

She stared at her notes for a few moments, brought the pen to the board, made a mark, then got flustered and made some notations in the white space beyond the graph, and tried again.

I stood right in front of her, and she pulled up, then stumbled back, faltering.

“Weights and cardio starts tomorrow. We hit the ice next week. First scrimmage is against that public school from Buffalo. Let’s kill ’em.”

“Yes. That’s the spirit. Exactly. A Maoist embrace of capitalism was essential for the party to keep control.”

“No. No, Mr. Dyer. Sorry. No disrespect. I was just wondering. All that quota stuff. Certain number of women in each level of office. You think that would fly here?”

“I’m not sure, but it would certainly be more equitable.”

It's impossible to have a conversation with you. You say one crazy thing, one crazy non sequitur after another, and no matter what I say back, you disagree with it.

She was working on her series of superimposed photos, images of tools in the shadows layered over more tools in the shadows.

“This is what I wanted to show you. I'm from a place just like this, or part of me is. I went to school at the edge of Cleveland. Cuyahoga County. But a fifteen-minute drive west and I was here—or something just like it. I miss it. My uncle Earl, he has these twisted gnarled hands, and I help him sometimes, and there's no better place in the whole world.”

And that’s how I felt as she looked up at me, blue eyes glittering with the tiniest flecks of gold.

When we didn’t speak, Aileen hummed so softly and warmly, I thought of the cicadas and the crickets singing at dusk in the dust and hayseed of Uncle Earl’s farm.

He didn't shut the door, but he led me around the corner to the back nook, the alcove with built-in bookshelves and the standing podium with a giant dictionary that Mr. Dyer sent one of us to every time we came across a word that stumped the class.

Ms. Taggart handed me my mug and I took it to the mantel over the little fireplace.

It didn't work anymore, as far as I knew—Ms. Taggart kept a bunch of candles she never burned in the hearth, instead—but it was a reminder, a symbol of how long the school had been here.

Her style didn't come from her clothes—leather boots, cracked all over the toes, a fraying shawl and faded sweater she hid under—but rather from the way she stared ahead with resolve.

“We’d like to discuss the ramifications of this with you.”

He paused, summoning the kind of starry-eyed reverie of his dining hall speeches.

“We are diligent in our Title IX compliance. We take this very seriously. There’s no room for mistreating people here.”

He spoke slowly and methodically, choosing his words carefully.

I just wanted to be brave enough to look him in the eye once and hope that that conveyed everything—or enough.

His voice lilted as if he was in summary mode.

I tried to breathe, stared up at the vaulted ceiling, the fluted grooves in the richly stained molding, hoping nobody would speak to me more—make me speak.

I tried to breathe, stared up at the vaulted ceiling, the fluted grooves in the richly stained molding, hoping nobody would speak to me more—make me speak.