“I have to . . . ,” she whispers to Vidar.
Vidar tries to stop her, but it’s impossible. She’s suddenly set off along the corridor. Benji looks up in surprise and tries to hide the notes.
“I know you hate me, but—” Ana begins, but doesn’t manage to say more before the tears start to fall and her voice breaks.
“Why would I hate you?” Benji wonders, and only then does Ana realize that Maya hasn’t told anyone, not even him.
“It was me . . . it was . . . took the picture of you and . . . it was me! Everything you’re going through is my fault . . . it was me!”
Her face contracts into wrinkles of shame that will never quite smooth out. Her whole body is shaking. Then she runs off, out of the school, away, away, away. Benji stands there for a moment, and his eyes meet Vidar’s. The goalie does something he never does: he hesitates.
“She—” Vidar begins, but Benji cuts him off. “It’s okay. Go after her.”
* * *
So Vidar does. He runs after her, doesn’t catch up with her until they’re half a mile away; she’s so fast and strong that he doesn’t stand a chance of getting her to slow down. So he runs alongside her. Straight out into the forest until neither of them can breathe or think anymore. Then they collapse into the snow and just lie there.
* * *
Vidar doesn’t say a word. It’s the finest thing anyone has ever done for Ana.
* * *
Maya is sitting alone in the cafeteria, as she does every day. But out of the blue someone sits down opposite her, as if he’s been invited. She looks up. Benji points at her plate. “Are you going to finish that, or can I have it?”
Maya smiles. “I shouldn’t sit with you. You’ve got a bad reputation.”
Benji looks impressed. “Ouch.”
She laughs. “Sorry.”
Sometimes you have to laugh at the crap, that’s how you make it bearable. Benji grins. Then he says, “You should forgive Ana.”
“What?”
“She told me she posted the pictures of me and . . . and . . . me and . . .”
He’s invincibly strong and unbelievably fragile at one and the same time. He reminds Maya a lot of Ana sometimes.
“Why should I forgive her? What she did to you was horrible!” she snaps.
“But you’re like sisters. And sisters forgive each other,” Benji manages to say.
Because he’s got sisters. Maya tilts her head and asks, “Have you forgiven Ana?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because people make mistakes, Maya.”
* * *
Maya eats her lunch without saying anything else. But after school she walks through Beartown, knocks on a door, and, when Ana opens it, says at once, “Get your running gear on.”
Ana doesn’t ask why.
* * *
That saves their friendship.
45
Cherry Tree
Whenever we get someone really good at sports in such a small town, this far into the forest, people in Beartown usually say it’s like seeing a flowering cherry tree in the middle of a frozen garden.
Peter Andersson was our first, so when he made it all the way to the NHL it didn’t matter to us that he played only a handful of games before his career was cut short by injury. He was there. One of us had made it to the best in the world. Peter transformed the whole town, he condemned us to a lifetime of never-ending, impossible dreams.
* * *
Zacharias is sixteen years old. People like him are easily forgotten in stories like this one. Most people know him only as “Amat’s friend.” They know who Amat is because he’s good at hockey, and hockey is the only thing that counts here. Zacharias’s life is the sort that just carries on in the background.
He and Amat grew up with Lifa, and there may never have been three such different boys around here who ended up being best friends anyway. Zacharias’s parents never liked Lifa, especially when he started to be seen with the “bandits,” as Zacharias’s parents called anyone in the Hollow who didn’t seem to have a job to go to. But Amat, dear Lord, Zacharias’s parents worshipped him. When he started playing on the A-team, they were as proud as if he’d been their own son. As if they wished he were. And things like that are impossible for a boy like Zacharias not to notice.
Zacharias played hockey right up until this spring, even though he was the worst player on every team and didn’t even enjoy it much. He went to practices for his parents’ sake, put up with it for Amat’s sake. When he heard there wasn’t going to be a junior team this year he felt relieved, because it gave him an excuse to stop. He really only wanted to sit at home in front of his computer anyway. So when his mom and dad came home one day, all excited about an “open tryout” at Beartown Ice Hockey, he was overwhelmed with anxiety.
“You have to go!”
Zacharias has never been able to explain to his parents how badly bullied he has been throughout his childhood. For everything: his weight, his appearance, his address. They’ve never seen him that way. They’re from the same generation as Peter Andersson, the generation of impossible dreams. Zacharias mumbled, “It doesn’t work like that, Mom, you can’t just show up—”
But his dad interrupted, “It’s an open session! Anyone can turn up! And the factory is sponsoring Beartown Ice Hockey now! Just tell the coach that—”
“That what, Dad? That she should let me play because my dad works at the factory?” Zacharias snapped, and regretted it at once.
Beartown Ice Hockey was set up by factory workers, and the older workers still think of it as the factory’s club. Now that the factory’s new owners are promising more jobs for people who don’t have one and more work for those who have, as well as sponsoring the club, Zacharias’s dad has started to hope that everything is going to be like it used to be again. An affluent town, a club in the top division, permanent jobs, maybe even a chance for the family to move out of the apartment in the Hollow and buy a little row house. Nothing big, nothing flashy, just one more room and a slightly bigger kitchen. Heating that’s more reliable in the winter.
“Sorry, Dad . . . I didn’t mean . . . ,” Zacharias said quietly.
His dad’s eyes were still glinting with happiness. It would mean a huge amount for both parents to see Zacharias play with the bear on his chest again. So Zacharias attended the open tryout. Of course he did.
He gave it all he had. It was nowhere near enough. Afterward he didn’t even get a pat on the shoulder from the coach, she just said, “Sorry, we’ve got everyone we need, but thanks for coming,” without so much as a second glance.
When he got home, his parents looked as though they were fighting to hold back tears. Many years from now he’ll look back on that and realize what a sign of devotion that was: they were so incapable of seeing how bad he was at hockey that they were genuinely disappointed.
That evening his mom had another go at him about playing computer games. He tried to explain how good he’d gotten, playing online, that he can hold his own against the best in the world. That he’s even been invited to take part in a competition in another town.
“A competition? In that? That’s a computer game, Zacharias—that’s not a sport!” his mom snorted.
* * *
Zacharias sat up playing all night, but her words tore at his chest.
* * *
Alicia isn’t even five years old yet, and children of that age shouldn’t be as good at escaping from preschool as she is. “We can’t be held responsible for that! This isn’t a prison!” the staff protested when Sune took her back for something like the twentieth time. “It feels like it to her,” Sune replied. Alicia was devoted to him, because he understood.