By Saturday, the initial excitement of making the team had fizzled as I’d gradually become more and more apprehensive about the approaching evening events. Now I didn’t just have to worry about my derby skills not being good enough, but presumably from the text, the other new recruits and I would be expected to participate in some kind of ridiculous antics as well. As explained earlier—not my forte.

I’d also need to get creative and come up with some kind of funny or clever or cool derby name. Also not my forte. Sounded like a bunch of unnecessary nonsense that was just going to make me look like a fool. I’d already worked so hard to prove I was tough and capable—now this? And where before I could at least depend on my athleticism and strength, now I wouldn’t be able to depend on any of that. What was left when my muscles and skills were stripped away? I worried the answer was… not enough.

I’d spent most of the day in my room doing a half-assed job on my homework so that over dinner with Priam and Vicki, I could carefully explain all the items I’d checked off my school to-do list before telling them I was going out and would be home late. It worked. They seemed pleased I was sharing anything with them—even if it was just the difference between alpha decay and beta decay—and were especially happy I was heading out for a “night on the town.”

“Look at our Daya Doo Wop! Socializing!” Priam exclaimed, beaming.

As they moved on to gasp in whispers about some Broadway star who’d been caught lip-synching—“Can you imagine? The nerve!”—I let my mind wander to contemplate derby names. Staring at objects on the kitchen table, I tried, Stick a Fork in It Daya. Spicy Daya. Daya and Spice? Daya-licious. Daya… Dip?

Daya Jesus Fucking Christ.

Hoping something would just come to me on the way to the bar, I left Vicki and Priam to slowly pick apart the offending Broadway fraud.

I dressed in my usual protective hoodie and jeans, adding a ball cap in case I needed to shield my eyes from any particularly shiny lights or amused stares. Before pulling on my jeans, I sat on my bed and methodically pressed into each new bruise on my thighs and arms with my fingers, to see if the aftermath of roller derby could help keep my unwanted emotions at bay in the same way that smashing into Kat and the others had during tryouts. I tried to draw all my focus into each layer of damage—the skin, the blood, the muscle. Get out of my head and into the parts of my body I knew I put there myself.