“Eden.” I look at him again, realizing his arm is still around me and I carefully shrug it off. He must not be aware he’s touching me. He takes it in stride, returning it to his side. “Don’t overcomplicate it. You said you wanted to practice, so let’s go practice. Do you have plans or something?”
“No,” I rush to say. “Thank you for offering. It’s above and beyond. I never expected you to-”
He cuts me off, pulling a wrinkled paper out of his backpack. “Look at this.”
I take it from him, a circled number ninety-four in green pen in the top left corner. “This was your quiz from Tuesday?”
He nods. “And Sociology wasn’t even our original agreement. So taking you out to eat? It’s not above and beyond.”
“Okay,” I murmur, a little thrown off by the way he’s looking at me. I hand it back to him, the gravity of his words weighing on me. Helping him study for a test isn’t that big of a deal, but maybe he views it the same way I see his suggestions for how to talk to Michael.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks, zipping up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t care. Anything’s fine with me.”
“How about sushi? There’s a good place by my apartment.”
“I love sushi.”
He motions for me to exit ahead of him and I automatically tilt my head down as I walk, letting my hair fall forward to curtain my face.
When we get outside, he stops me before we step into the parking lot. “How about I drive?”
“I can just follow-”
“No, you’re supposed to be practicing for an actual date, right? The guy would pick you up.”
“Um, okay.” I grab a lock of my hair, twisting it around my finger as I walk beside him down the rows until we reach a silver Mercedes, every inch of it gleaming. How can he afford this car?
He opens the passenger door and I quickly slide inside, the leather butter soft against my skin.
“I’ll drop you back off at this lot later to get your car. That sound cool?”
I nod, contemplating if anyone saw me getting into his car. What would they think seeing that? Would they imagine we’re actually on a date?
“What’s going on in that head?” he asks, smiling, and I realize he’s already in his seat, buckled in.
I hurriedly buckle myself and blurt out, “I was just wondering what kind of job you have to afford a car like this.”
“Oh, my dad bought it,” he says easily. “It was a high school graduation present.”
Wow. “That’s...”
“Ridiculous? Yeah, I’m aware. Dad’s a financial investor and makes his clients a lot of money. And he gets a cut of it all. Enough that he can cover my expenses while I’m in school. I’ll just have to get a job once I graduate.”
It’s silent for a moment after his statement, and I instinctively panic at the awkward silence until I remember his lessons about conversation starters. This is my chance to practice. “What do you plan on doing after you graduate?” I mentally release a breath, relieved that it came out normal sounding.
“I don’t know yet.”
I turn to him, his gaze steady on the road ahead, one hand gripping the top of the wheel. “Aren’t you a senior?”
His lips twist. “Yeah.”
Okay, not getting much else information on that front then. “Um, I never asked what your major is.”
“Liberal Arts.”
No serious plans for next year and a non-specific degree? What does he imagine will happen?
“I know what you’re thinking,” he states, interrupting my train of thought. “I’m failing Biology, not doing great in my other classes either, and have a sucky degree with no experience. My chances of getting any kind of job are shit.”
I keep my mouth shut and turn my head toward the window, wishing I’d insisted on driving instead.
He sighs and taps my leg. “Hey, sorry. It’s a bit of a sore spot right now. I had other plans for after graduation, but they fell through. And I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
“What were your other plans?” I ask quietly as he turns off campus and onto the main road.
“Baseball.”
“What happened with that?”
“I hurt myself last season. I’m not on the team anymore.”
“Oh.” I awkwardly pat his shoulder, the muscle tense under my hand. I wish I had a better way to comfort him. “I’m really sorry. If you were good enough to play at the college level, it must have been a hard blow to have to give that up.”
He’s silent, continuing to drive the car further away from campus, into a part of town that’s more upscale than my neighborhood.
I sink into the leather seat, berating myself for turning Jake, one of the most easy-going people I’ve ever met, into a hot ball of anger over there, clearly mad about whatever it is that put a stop to his baseball-playing days. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “How did you hurt yourself?”
He sighs, stretching out his left leg. “I tore my meniscus.”
“The inner part of your knee?”
A faint smile flirts along his lips. “Only you would know what that is right off the bat.”
“I took Anatomy last semester,” I mumble.
“I had to have surgery on it in May, and they advised three to six months of recovery. I actually just finished up physical therapy for it last month.”
“But it’s recovering okay? From what I remember, a bit of cartilage gone isn’t crucial to normal use of the leg. And I’ve never seen you limping.”
“Yeah, I recovered fine. Just went crazy from having to use crutches right afterward more than anything else.” He scratches at his jaw, that stubble of his rasping again. “But it’s the second time I’ve torn it. I did it once in high school too. And with two injuries in the same spot now, the chances are even greater of doing it again. Next time, there won’t be any cartilage left to remove. It’ll be bone on bone.”
“And that’ll lead to arthritis.”
He looks over at me, rolling his lips between his teeth. “Yeah. Even with what’s already happened, they said I’m likely to develop it prematurely. I could get this, um, transplant. I don’t remember the exact name of it, but they use tissue from a dead person and put it inside you to replace what you lost.” He shudders, the apparent disgust on his face amusing.
“Jake, people receive transplants every day. It’s normal. And think of them as cadavers.”
He shakes his head. “The thought of some random dead dude inside me like that... uh uh, I can’t do it. It’d be one thing if it was medically necessary, like a heart or something, but not for this. So I decided to quit baseball rather than risk tearing it again.”
“That’s a smart decision.”
He brings his thumb up to his mouth, chewing on it for a moment. “A lot of the guys on the team don’t see it that way, though. They say I should play till I bust it completely. No pain, no gain, or some shit. But I’m twenty-one. I don’t want a bum knee for the rest of my life.”
“Jake, I understand-”