“There, there, now,” she soothes like I’m five. “You don’t need to talk. Remember what we said? You don’t need to talk. I always know what you need.” She wipes up the blood, applies Band-Aids to the five slices I made, and checks the other foot, sighing in relief that it wasn’t injured. “You need to be careful,” she tells me. “The basketball team needs you. You can’t hurt your feet like that.” That was why I did it. It didn’t hurt my game at all. If anything, I played harder and faster, so the pain of running on that court would exhaust me, so I couldn’t think or fight when I came home.
