She meant it as a wake-up call. Get adrenaline pumping your half-assed kicks at the New Jersey state championships, or else Nationals will predictably spell humiliation.

Except, no excuses justify her ramming into your leg. Unintentionally hard. Knee bone spiking the surfaced flesh.

A sorry, too, is useless in conveying jackshit.

So, Tai merely pens, "Hope you're doing well :) P.S. the team misses you." (She misses you.) Slipping the pinched sheet into your locker's slit, she sidles to her own storage neighboring yours—just survive the day, preferably, with guilt in the backseat.

That was the plan 'til you showed up. Now, dear God, guilt festers into a goddamn blister as she heeds your new look, limping past a clique and forward to your locker. And by new, she meant the you-look-like-you-feel-like-shit sort.

Penguin waddling with one leg smothered by a cast-brace first, strong foot in tandem. Your knuckles pale from crutches, your backpack askew, struggling.

Damages she shamefully shoulders the blame for. A burden awfully mortifying it's ingrained flinching as her natural instinct when your gazes are at crossroads. Yours accurately counts as a scowl, though.

Before you'd laser her into a puddle, your jaw tautens when you mind your amateurish hand fumbling the fucking code. Seems like a prolonged hospital stay scrapped your locker's cipher from memory, huh?

But it's none of her own business, of course! Stuff the bulky textbooks in her bag, scram before those eye-daggers pierce her anew and the ear assault—

Rinnngg! Too late.

Students file to classes, while you stay, trying (and failing) to hunch to garner the fallen manuals—her "letter" too—contemplating her strides.

To help or not? Help? Or not?

Fuck it. Teach won't bat an eye on a straight-A student. Plus, it's to make amends! Abruptly, "Here, let me help," Tai kneels, stocking those books below her pit.

A little jolting you haven't punched her face when her posture straightens. "Where's your next class again?"