Page 22

No Signal

May

‘ Y ou know, I can’t get a read on you.’

‘Huh?’

I regard Colt’s look of confusion with a raised eyebrow as I kick my sneakered feet up on the bleachers in front of us. The entire field’s empty now, the crowd all gone home, and the only indication that they’d ever been here is all the ravaged shooters and beer cans lying in the stands, where we’re sitting now. ‘I mean, come on. First, you leave me in the dust in high school. Then, you throw all these things about “regretting it” every which way. And then you put me in what you know is the most uncomfortable possible position in practice. And then, finally , you kiss me in front of the entire university.’

Colt grabs his backpack, fiddles with the whistle still around his neck. ‘I won’t lie to you, May, this game plan thing hasn’t been the easiest for me. It’s … yeah, we have a history, and that hasn’t helped it.’

‘I’m afraid it’s been more confusing than anything else.’ I clear my throat, running a hand through my now-loose hair. I have to pause before carefully choosing my next words. ‘I just want to know, Colt. You’ll make it through the rest of the semester, right? Because—’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I will, I swear.’ I watch a light go out in those deep eyes of his the second the curt words are out of my mouth.

Colt shoots me a tight smile. ‘See you tomorrow, May. Good shit today.’

My heart plummets a little at the sight of him leaving the field. It reminds me too much of that memory in the hallway, the last time I saw him. But now, I’m not asking myself why he’s leaving any more. I’m asking myself why he’s back – and why, this time, I’m driving him away.

‘Good shit,’ echoes Rod’s voice. My head snaps right to the source of his rich baritone, and there’s Colt’s right-hand man, a couple stair-steps below me on the field, leaning against the bleachers. ‘You guys gave it a pretty solid shot. I might have bought it if the both of you weren’t so emotional in love.’

‘Weren’t so … um, bought what ?’ I manage to stutter out. I barely know this guy. He’s also the last person I expected to start saying shit like ‘emotional in love’.

‘You don’t have to keep playing dumb.’ He smiles wryly with a shrug. ‘It’s so obvious you two aren’t actually in a relationship.’

My jaw nearly falls straight to the floor of the bleachers. He’s been here for less than a week. There’s no way.

Concern enters Rod’s eyes, and he bounds up the stairs of the bleachers, gesturing to the empty spot beside me. I nod, and he awkwardly takes a seat. ‘Okay, so you’re clearly falling to pieces right now. May, let me clarify, I’m not going to tell anyone . I’ve been close to Colt for years, and even though I definitely – obviously – haven’t known the guy as long as you, I’m not out to ruin your lives, that I promise.’

I met the man days ago. I’m not sure what reason I have to take anything he says as gospel, but there’s something about his presence, something genuinely warm and compassionate, that makes me think he’ll absolutely stick to his word.

‘I think I know enough to put the parts of the story together. I’m not here to do that, though,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m here ’cause clearly, part of the reason I saw right through you guys was because I know when Colt’s bullshitting. And he’s definitely bullshitting with you.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Alright. I’m doing a terrible job at this.’ He turns to face me. ‘May, do you know why he’s here? Like, why he’s really here?’

I snort, finding a spot of dirt on my kilt to focus on. ‘That thing all the pros do. Probably to keep himself relevant while he’s injured, right? So he can get the clout he needs from “back home”?’

Rod’s next smile is a little sadder than his typical. ‘May … I’ve been debating telling you, but honestly, I want to keep this real. Because I think Colt hasn’t, and I think I know why. Has he ever, I don’t know, come up with stupid ways to avoid the stick? To try not to—’

‘Oh, to try not to lacrosse ? Yeah, making me bin that dumb shot,’ I cut in with a little huff. ‘I get the knee injury. But come on. Not being able to touch a ball and stick is a little much. What about it?’

‘After Colt dislocated his knee last season,’ starts Rod, ‘he met a couple of complications that honestly weren’t expected to happen at all. We were all ready for a smooth recovery, to have our captain back, but instead Colt got a shitshow, in the form of inflammation so bad it was still fuckin’ braced up at Christmas time.’

I wince with an involuntary twinge of sympathy. The understanding that only another lacrosse player can have about how much injury sucks .

‘But since then, at least physically, he’s turned over back to ninety per cent. Well on the way to a hundred. He really should be out there playing next season, captaining the Chucks to our title. Didn’t get it last year, unfortunately. Losing sucked, but we were hopeful we’d get it next time, Colt at the helm, except now …’ Rod shakes his head. ‘I can still hear the way the guy was screaming on the ground, calling for his mom. May … when he gets so much as near the stick, it’s so weird. It’s like he doesn’t know how to play any more. Something snapped when he got hurt back in October, and no one knows how to fix it. Not even team-mandated therapy. So when he realized it was really bad, he decided he was going back to Oklahoma. Not for clout, not to keep his reputation up. He came back here to hide.’

I’ve never known Colt to be a hider. I know I’m one. I tuck myself away in a corner of campus – i.e. the Meteorology building study pods – after a terrible exam and sob. Colt took every hit when we were kids, and he took them standing. I never saw him falter. But this Colt is, at least according to Rod, scared. That revelation dumps rocks into the pit of my stomach by the wheelbarrow. The guilt is so heavy, I don’t know what to say.

‘Right now, this is between me, Colt, and the PT and therapy teams. And now you. He doesn’t know if he’s gonna come back for the next season. Hell, he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if the team finds out he’s completely recovered. Especially the bosses. I mean, he doesn’t know if he’s going to play ever again.’ Rod lets out a nervous laugh, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. ‘It has me scared as shit. We’re all pretty young. To have your career end like that is one thing, but to have your mental health – your state of mind – so fucked up that you don’t know how to play a sport you’ve been training in since you could walk …’

God.

That was part of why I fell so hard for Colt. He was indefatigable. He was a wall that ploughed through whoever he needed to knock down to make goals. And yet, he always had so much heart. The dumbass had jokes and shit-eating grins alongside the kinds of plays that made college scouts dizzy. He made for a fantastic rival. He made for a fantastic friend.

‘Thanks.’ My voice shakes when I try to force a grateful smile with Rod. ‘For telling me. I … I had no idea that’s why he was here.’

Rod snorts. ‘He’s good at hiding things. He gives you the infuriating cowboy pearly-whites—’

‘Oh, he does ,’ I agree with a chuckle. ‘Like he’s trying to flush all the doubt out of your mind, right?’

‘It’s like being brainwashed!’

Rod and I share a moment of laughter. Colt. What a sweet, clueless, ignorant idiot.

‘Guess I have to make amends,’ I say once the laughter has subsided.

‘Don’t let yourself think that.’ Rod stops me. ‘He did you dirty, May. No one deserves to be left alone with their feelings like that. He’s the one who up and left, at the end of the day. I may not know exactly what upset you, but I’ll tell you that you have every right to be. People who leave …’ There’s a glassiness in his eyes that tells me he knows a little too well what it’s like. ‘They shape the rest of our lives, whether we like it or not, and we absolutely have the right to put that on them. But we can lessen that impact by looking at what we have now. And what you have now might just be a second chance.’

‘After …’

After everything he did to me? I’m about to say. But it doesn’t have the same punch now that I realize he’s paying in a different way. His homecoming isn’t one of celebration. It’s a self-imposed exile. He’s helpless here. Powerless.

‘Is there anything else I don’t know?’ I ask instead.

Rod looks up in thought. ‘Well – he totally doesn’t want you to know this, but there’s one thing.’ He pulls his phone from his jeans pocket and does a little bit of frantic tapping, scrolling, some zooming, as he talks. ‘I guess he’s dated a few women up in New England, that I know of, but nothing really seemed to last. I’d ask him how it went, and honestly, it wasn’t even like he was being a dick, or anything. He just sounded pretty guilty. Ashamed. And I think …’ He turns the phone my way. ‘This might have something to do with it.’

Oh. My.

It’s a photo of Colt by his Woodchucks locker, painted this ridiculous blue and full of what’s no doubt smelly lacrosse gear. Beside him and his cowboy pearly-whites, though, is a picture taped to the inside of the open door.

My University of Oklahoma City media day photo from freshman year, complete with my name in neon cursive, in case anyone was in doubt of who the woman in his locker was.

MAY VELASCO. #13.