The clock on the gym wall said 9:47.
Thirty-one days.
She wasn't backing off.
* * *
On Tuesday evening, Delia came back to the room with her laptop and a look on her face that Reagan had not seen before. It was the look of someone who has just discovered they've been living next to something significant without knowing it.
She sat down on her bed, opened the laptop, and turned it toward Reagan.
"I looked you up," she said.
Reagan looked at the screen.
It was a regional sports website. An article from 11 months ago. A small outlet covering Appalachian athletic programs. The kind of coverage that big cities don't bother with, but that matters enormously in the communities it's about.
The headline read: Coal Country's Quiet Champion. Harlan County's Reagan Holloway Takes Bronze at Junior Nationals.
Below it was a photo.
Reagan, 17 years old, standing on a podium with a bronze medal. Not smiling in the big theatrical way. Just a small, real smile. The kind that comes from somewhere deep.
Next to her in the photo, tall and broad-shouldered, with a face like a weather-beaten cliff, was Coach Ray Dunbar.
Delia pointed at the screen.
"Three regional titles," she said. "Back-to-back-to-back. Bronze at Junior Nationals. And it says here ESPN picked up 23 seconds of footage."
Reagan looked at the photo for a moment.
"Yeah," she said.
"Reagan."
"Yeah?"
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
Reagan looked up at her roommate and considered the question honestly.
"Because it's not relevant to most conversations," she said. "And because..."
She paused.
"Because in my experience, when people know something like that about you, they stop seeing you. They see the thing instead."
Delia stared at her.
"That is," Delia said slowly, "the most quietly heartbreaking thing I've heard all week."
"Don't make it dramatic."
"I'm not making it dramatic. It is dramatic."
Delia closed the laptop.
"Does Shane know?"
"He knows I have an athletic scholarship," Reagan said. "He probably knows the sport. Whether he's looked further than that..."
Reagan shook her head slightly.
"I don't think so. I think he looked at me and decided what I was, and stopped looking."
Delia was quiet for a moment.
"That's a mistake," she said.
"Yes," Reagan agreed. "It is."
* * *
Two days later, Reagan found out what Shane knew and didn't know.
It came through an unlikely source. Ford Beckett.
Shane's closest friend was in Reagan's American history section on Wednesday mornings. She'd noticed him there from the first week. Mostly because he was difficult to miss physically, and because he had the specific energy of someone who has always been the largest person in most rooms and hasn't yet figured out whether that's an asset or a liability.
He was, Reagan had concluded, not unintelligent. He was performing a role. Shane's large, vaguely intimidating right-hand man. A role that didn't quite fit him, like a coat that was the wrong size.