peariote

What's next for THE DUNCANATOR? The article sat, mockingly, in front of your eyes. It's not an online snub you can flee from, or a newspaper you're passing by. The glossy sheen of the pages taunts you, right in your face.

Could this cashier go any slower. Really. You had no problem with old people getting work at grocery stores—you'd heard it gave them good purpose, motivation. Just when there's a sloth-like geriatric with shaky hands bagging your groceries, and you have to stare into Tashi's pained expression, raw and unfiltered as the first time you saw it—

Well. Anyone would be a slight bit irritated.

She'd taken up paper folding of all things (origami, she'd repeatedly corrected you) after her injury. Cranes filled her windowsill, some smaller and made of specialty paper, others folded from her notebook in a particularly boring class.

Her fingers were made for it—slim and delicate, precise with every fold and strong enough to hold the form. Yet, it's quite the shift. She was fierce on the court, taking up so much space her opponents suffocated. Now, she's small on her bed, curled in her corner of the dorm room and hunched over the paper.

When you walk in from the grocery store, she startles briefly. She was halfway through another crane, and you'd paid it no mind—only dropping the bags and sinking to empty them.

Looking back on it, you'd caught the slightest peek of her swooping handwriting, half-exposed by the undone fold.

Tashi came to see you practice, just once. She was bundled in her Stanford sweater, protected against the cool autumn air. Her gaze was unusually tense. She never looked at you like that. Even across from you, during the last match of a tournament you'd both fought your ass off to get to, you'd managed to make her smile with every particularly good backhand.

When your last practice match was done, she'd already disappeared. But, sat on your bag, was a folded crane.

You took it, inspecting the medium-sized thing. It was just white paper. Nothing special, except that it was made by her hands. You hold it just long enough that a droplet of sweat drips from your hairline, wetting the paper.

Cursing briefly, your attention focuses in on the spot. But when you look closer you see the faint impression of black, swirling handwriting. Hers.

Unfolding it, you're greeted with unexpectedly honest words.

Tashi wasn't an emotions person, you'd learned. Discussions were shut down, even after something as distressing as her accident. Especially about her accident. Her words only got sharper the further you pushed. This note, however?

I'm so sad angry. Why can you play if I can't? We were supposed to do this together. This was all supposed to be ours.

Your finger runs over the writing, intercut with folds. You tuck it back into a more simple, smaller rectangle using the creases and tuck it delicately into your bag, continuing on like your world wasn't turning on its head.

You found these notes occasionally. Things Tashi had never said before were now spilling into your consciousness and filling your eyes.

Some were nicer. Simpler.

You look pretty today.

Thank you for helping me with physio.

I love you.

You got that one more than you'd ever admit. You kept those tucked neatly in your desk drawer. The small cranes fit nicely, packed tightly.

Other days she was depressed, almost resentful.

Why do you get to continue on without me

Please please get Art to stop looking at me like that I can barely handle you

Your backhand is getting worse

Well, that one was just one of Tashi's normal comments. Still, after her injury and how you'd seen her fold in on herself, it carried a sharpened twitch of resentment. Her t's and l's were slashes rather than their previously girlish curl. At least she wasn't communicating, and you hadn't been thrown out of your dorm room like a cheating husband.

She always left them when you weren't looking. You'd find them tucked in your schoolbag, or shoved in your tennis bag. Gently laid on your pillow or thrown over your desk.

You were getting rather sick of it. You felt juvenile. Passing notes with Tashi and hiding your laughter was sweet in class. But here, dealing with the emotionally shifting writing? It was irritating.

Plopping down on her bed while she was folding was a crime. That was her zen, where she was emotionally sound—feelings sinking into her writing and the paper. But you do it anyway, and press close.

"I love you too, Tashi." You murmur against her shoulder, watching as her hands pause and tense. Her tendons peek from her tawny skin. "And I'm not leaving you."

Even when the magazines moved on. When her classmates had forgotten and your teammates had stopped talking about her in hushed tones.

She turns to bury in your hair, nose pressing greedily. The crane crinkles in her tight hand, before dropping to the floor. She brings those now-gentler fingers to thread to the back of your neck.