Page 3

“FARMER!”
The girl jumps, and something about the fear in her eyes draws me closer. She has perfect bow-tie lips, stick-straight black hair past her shoulders, and a wicked glint in her eyes when she sneers. “Pretty sure you’re supposed to tackle people who are actually playing.”
A hand falls on my shoulder, spinning me around. “Making friends, I see. By the way, the game’s that way.”
I try to turn back toward her, but Breezy shoves me out onto the field. I toss the ball to the ref, where he’s waiting at the sidelines to mark the placement, and then spin. The girl is marching away, a grass stain covering the rear of her sweatshirt while blades of green stick out from her hair. She hooks a right around the rear of the bench, unnoticed by everyone else, but not by me. Jaw tight, she looks like she could cut glass with her teeth.
“Who is that girl?”
“Never seen her before,” Aidan responds. “Listen, you good?”
His answer surprises me, and I realize I’m already back in the huddle. He moves into my line of sight, and I nod, still tracking the girl across the sidelines. “I hit her.”
West Brooks turns to peer in the same direction. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know. She just told me to look where I’m going.”
He smirks. “If she can yell at you, she’s probably fine.”
I shrug noncommittally. Though that’s probably true, it doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s not like I could’ve helped running into her. She should’ve been paying attention and jumped out of the way when she saw me coming. Why wasn’t she watching the game? Everyone else is. We’re the Bulldogs. We’ve only lost one game all year.
Booker runs onto the field, securing his helmet. Our recent transfer stops next to me and smirks. “Bet even you couldn’t get that girl to sleep with you,” he states with a chuckle before biting down on his mouth guard.
I give him a too-wide smile, but a pit of shame pinches my stomach.
“Focus is on the ball game,” Aidan states like an exasperated professor, returning all of our attention to him. “Casablanca three. Wide right.”
We all clap our hands and run to our play positions. Our center snaps the ball on Aidan’s call, and the last few minutes erase from my brain when the game starts up again. Autopilot clicks on, and I go through the motions, playing hard, celebrating our touchdowns, but football doesn’t fill me like it used to. The thrill of the game is slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass.
But running into that girl? That was different. New. She yelled at me.
And I kind of liked it.
2
Charley
Ishake my head, still muttering to myself. “Sure, come to a football game. Get tackled on the sidelines. Who does that?”
Clearly, I’m not another player. I’m not six-foot gigantic with pads on. And doesn’t the tackling and grunting stop after you cross the last, thick white line? Ugh.
The stadium was too big, too loud, too many people. Tooeverything.
How much trouble am I going to get in for leaving early though…?
I pass quickly through the dank tunnels and out into the parking lot. If Coach asks, I’ll tell him I didn’t feel good after getting plowed over by one of his guys. That sounds like a legitimate excuse to me.
Stretching my neck and shoulder, I try to work out the discomfort. Truthfully, it isn’t as bad as it could have been because the guy did try to change direction at the last second. But who would willingly sign up to wrestle people to the groundplay after play? Sounds awful. And the people who watch them, cheering their lungs out? Even worse.
I linger in the parking lot, people watching and pretending to wait for a ride so I don’t get home too early. The last thing I need is Dad knowing I flaked out, considering he’s the one who pulled some strings to get me the position with Coach T. When I’m so bored I can’t stand it, I walk home slowly, counting the cracks in the sidewalk.
I hit eighty-seven when our front gate looms. The once white, hip-height fence looks like it should be outside of a haunted house. Pickets are missing or broken. What’s there is decaying day-after-day, overwrought by mold and moss. The top hinge hangs loose, so I have to lift it to secure the sliding lock. Not that this thing is keeping anyone out. People could step over it if they wanted to, or kick it right down.
I hesitate with my hand on the rusty metal. The yard needs to be mowed. The porch should be painted. Hell, the porch should be torn off and rebuilt. Repairing the broken wood would only be putting a Band-Aid on something that needs stitches.
Staring straight ahead, I try not to see what everyone else must. The worst house on the block by far. The mousy daughter of a recluse. At least the neighbors have stopped asking how my dad’s doing every time they see me, but that could be because the ones who knew me from when I was a kid don’t live here anymore. And the others? Who wants to talk to the grubby people on the block?
Sliding the lock into place, I walk down the jungle-like path and up the creaky steps, avoiding the broken plank with the chipped paint.