It was a letter. More specifically, the letter Babe's dad had left, the night he'd left her family.
"Dad and I were close." Babe said, once again poking at her rice. "He and Hawk taught me to play, and the letter…he left mom one, but the letter was more for me."
Henry looked up from the scrawled words, letting the silence stretch out to leave room for her words. Questions blinked through his mind, none of them quite right. He folded the letter again, having read enough. He handed it back quietly, careful not to crumple it or damage it further.
Babe took the letter back, unfolding it to read over the words she'd read so many times before. She could recite the letter perfectly at this point, without even looking at it. "I miss him." She said quietly, setting her food aside to curl up a bit. "And mom is scared-that I'm going to turn into him. That I'll leave. And…she blames him, for my injury."
Henry nodded slowly, watching her carefully. He kept eating, but slower now. "She can't keep you from something you're so good at. You're meant for hockey, Babe. You can't do anything else with the same kind of talent and skill you do hockey with."
Babe shrugged a shoulder, lips twisting up to one side. "I'm lucky I've managed to keep playing at all. It's only a matter of time before she finds out, and I can't-I can't do that to her."
Henry shook his head slowly, looking down at the plate of rice, sauce, and chicken he was stirring around. "I'll remember not to tell her how I met you."
"She knows I still go watch games." Babe said, looking off at one of her bookshelves. Various trophies were scattered haphazardly around her room, but this shelf seemed to have more than the other. "That way you don' have to lie. God, I'm-I'm sorry for the emo-dump."
Henry laughed quietly, finishing his bite of rice. "No, you're good. I asked, anyway. And I'm glad you told me." He silently face palmed himself for his awkwardness, hiding his lack of words in another large bite of rice and chicken.
"Alright, we keep ending up talking about my issues." Babe said, shoveling more rice in her mouth. "You got any? Deep dark secrets, family issues, anything you're willing to share."
Henry gave a short smile, thinking back. "Not… really. There's a family rumor that my grandparents were big in some gangs down in Chicago, but nothing confirmed. They're just eerily wealthy. We have some family issues, but that's just us working stuff out."
"Oooohh, gangs." Babe grinned, shifting to lay on her stomach. She was half hanging off the bed, he bag of vegetables shoved to the side as she ate her rice. "Y'know, I know a couple o' people tight in those circles."
Henry raised an eyebrow, glancing around her room. "Really. That concerns me. Also your level of enthusiasm, being in a gang isn't supposed to be a good thing." He grinned, scraping the last of his rice onto his fork.
"Technically, I'm not." Babe said, waving a shrimp around with her chopsticks. "It was just a really weird day." That was an incredibly vague answer, but she seemed fine to leave it at that, chewing on her shrimp.
Henry nodded, deciding not to pry. "I'm still concerned, but I need more rice. Get that frozen bag back on your ankle." He stood, leaving the room and walking down to the kitchen to scoop more rice onto his plate.
Babe grumbled mockingly to herself, ignoring his order to instead stand. She limped over to her closet, rifling around for more comfortable clothes, and changed as quick as she could into sweats and a tank top. She hummed to herself, eyes flickering to her guitar as her fingers itched to play.
Henry slid back into her room, sitting down on the floor again. He blinked, looking at her in confusion. "Did you… Yeah, you definitely did." Satisfied, he resumed eating his rice.
"Did I what?" Babe raised an eyebrow at him, before turning to dig around her closet once more.
"Switch clothes." He said, through a mouthful of rice. He started coughing, grabbing a napkin and trying not to choke on the tiny grains of rice.
"There's a waterbottle on the desk." She said, not looking at him as she pointed back in the vague direction of her desk. "And yeah, I kinda obviously changed."
He nodded, grabbing the water as the coughs died away. "Right. Obviously. That actually makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it. I forgot you were running the drills too, sometimes." He tipped the water bottle back, drinking and swallowing quickly without taking a breath.
"'Always maximize time on the ice. Any time wasted can affect your playing, often in a negative way.'" Babe quoted, pulling out a shirt and studying it.
Henry nodded slowly, finishing his rice while he watched Babe. "So, homework? If we're done with family secrets."
Babe snapped her fingers, tossing the shirt back into the closet. "Right! Pull out your stuff you need to do, and I'll see what I can do."
Henry nodded, reaching out to grab his backpack. "I got math and English done before, so science first?"
"Ah, science." Babe said, pronouncing it as 'sky-ence'. "Math, but with animals." She limped over to where he was sitting, plopping down next to him. "Second thought, let's do this on the floor."
He gave her a blank look. "There were animals? Did I miss something?" He flipped to the chapter and reached into his bag for a pencil.
"Animals, humans, biological stuff." Babe said, basically spouting nonsense at this point for fun. "So what's up in the world of science today?"
Henry blinked at her, racking his brain for something they'd talked about in his class earlier that day. He snuck a glance down at the book and looked back up. "Inertia." (Or whatever else a highschooler would be learning in a science class)
"Oh, you're doing the unit on gravity." Babe said, scooting close enough that their shoulders were touching as she looked down at his book. "That's actually a simple enough unit, don' worry."
He bumped her shoulder gently. "Easy for you to say. I mean, I know the basic concepts there, but not in depth like the teacher wants me to." He bent over to look at the words better, slowly skimming the pages for keywords and answers to the study problems.
