###
Bryce
has a soccer game when I get home from practice on Tuesday. I always dread
stuff like this. Do I sit with Mom or Dad today? Will Charlotte be there? Which
really means, will Hunter be there? What will the other parents think about
which parent I sit with? What do they think about Mom being there with her
girlfriend? Should I watch one half with my dad and one with my mom or should I
stay loyal to one parent? If Mom has Charlotte to sit with and Dad has no one,
then I should sit with him. But what if they are both alone? What if Aunt
Janice comes to watch with Dad? What will she think if I sit with Mom? It’s
just a freaking soccer game, not even my soccer game, and it’s, like, the most
stressful thing ever.
I
ride with my dad to the game. Since I ride with Dad and live with Dad, I can’t
really ditch him to go sit with Mom. Or does that mean that I should go sit
with Mom?
“Honey,
I’ve been meaning to ask you, but we’ve both been so busy, but do you, are you
going to need a homecoming dress soon?” Dad asks me in the car.
Homecoming?
Shit. That’s right. “Uh, the dance is in, like, two weeks I think.” Why hasn’t
Lydia been talking non-stop about it like she usually does? Oh, right. Colin.
Colin and me experiencing life are her only two focuses now. I can’t believe
she talked him into taking her on a tour of Forrester yesterday. She’s been
there a million times and she could go to a better school for track.
“It’s
just that, I assume we need to go dress shopping and I thought maybe you could
ask your mom to help out with paying for it this time,” Dad says. He looks over
at me from the driver’s seat. He is frowning through his beard and his eyebrows
are scrunched together.
“Don’t
worry about it, Dad,” I say with a fake smile. I hate asking for money. I know
we don’t have money to throw around for silly dresses, though. Damn it. I’ll
find a way to buy a dress on my own. Or maybe I just won’t go. I don’t have a
date. I’m sure Garrett would go with me. I’ve kind of been avoiding him since
the party. He called to see if I was OK that Sunday night after the party but,
I don’t know, maybe I feel like the whole stupid night was partially his fault.
With practice and the meet this past weekend, I haven’t seen him. That’s just
fine. Lydia said I could just let it fizzle out if I didn’t want to see him
anymore.
“You
don’t owe him anything,” she’d said when I asked her if I had to break up with
him. “You weren’t official or anything, so you just kind of let it go by the
wayside, fade him out.”
I
felt bad doing that, but I couldn’t lead him on. I don’t have feelings for him.
I know that for sure since I didn’t want to dance with him or really hang with
him at the party. I also feel a little guilty, or maybe a lot guilty, that I
liked the attention, but I really can’t lead him on. I just gave short answers
to texts and avoided his invites, but it seems to have worked. I haven’t heard
from him for two days.
Mom
is sitting in the stands when we get to Bryce’s game. Dad, being the greatest
ever, glances at me, sighs, rolls his shoulders back and marches right up to my
mom and plopped his stadium seat down in the row in front of her. Gosh, I know
that had to be hard for him. But how sweet that he didn’t make me do the
awkward who-to-sit-by dance.
“How
was the meet this weekend, Jase?” Mom asks.
“I
won.”
“She
did awesome! Almost a course record,” Dad says, clapping me on the back.
“Check
out the photos we took that morning in class,” mom says, pulling a package out
of her purse.
Really?
Not only do you miss my meet, my senior year, mind you, but you’re going to
make me look at the photos you took with your new family?
Mom
rambles about still lifes and how cute Hunter had been with a non-digital
camera. I nod periodically and watch Bryce. I can feel Dad watching me. At half
time Bryce’s team is up 3-0.
My
phone buzzes in my hand, vibrating me back out of my
zombie-I’m-pretending-to-listen-to-you mode. It’s from Lydia: OMG. Colin gave me his number. This is it. I’m so
asking him to homecoming.
I
sigh. He’s
gay and in college. He doesn’t want to go to a high school dance with a girl. I
type.
“What’s
wrong, babe?” Dad asks.
“Oh,
you know. Lydia thinks she can talk some dude into going to the dance with her.
A dude who is in college and doesn’t like girls.”
“Well,
maybe they’d have fun. You never know unless you ask. And if he says no, what
does she lose?” Dad responds.
“He’s
gay, Dad.”
“Well,
then maybe she needs to hear him say no herself. Either way, it doesn’t hurt
her to put it out there.” He puts his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands
together in front of him. “Better to be upfront and get it out in the open.”
Right.
Not like Mom.
My phone buzzes
again. Lydia: He
gave me his number. He wants me to contact him. Oh! You should go with Cooper!
It will be so fun!
He still isn’t
talking to me, I type back.
God. What a douche.
Call him out. Give it to him.
“You have a date
yet?” Dad nudges me.
I shake my head
looking over at Bryce’s team on the sidelines. “I don’t know that I’ll go.”
“You have to go to
homecoming! It’s your senior year!” Mom butts in.
“I don’t have a
date,” I mutter. “Or a dress.”
“The most fun I
had at dances were ones when I went without at date!” Mom continues. “The ones
where we just went in a big group of friends. That way you had no obligation to
hanging with only one person.”
“Go figure,” Dad
mutters. He looks across the field, squinting his eyes in the setting sun.
“I’ve got to take Bryce some Gatorade.” He gets up and strides across the
field.
I tap my foot up
and down on the bench and Mom touches my knee to make me stop so I start biting
my nails. She doesn’t say anything about the nail biting. Wouldn’t foot tapping
be a better nervous habit? Who does Cooper think he is calling out my nervous
tick?
Dad doesn’t come
back to the bleachers when half time is over. He stands with another dad by one
of the field’s corners.
Mom is quiet. Then
all of a sudden Bryce slams a punch into the face of a kid on the other team.
Holy shit. I’ve never seen Bryce act out. The boys are rolling around on the
field. The coaches and refs rush to pull them apart.
“Bryce!” I yell.
Mom sits in shock
and I run to my brother.
The refs beat me
there and they are holding the two boys apart.
“Bryce!” I yell.
“What are you doing?”
He shrugs the
ref’s hands off of him. “I’m done,” he shouts at the ref. He spits on the
ground and walks to the sideline where his team waits, their mouths hanging
open.
“Bryce, talk to
me,” I jog to keep up with him.
“Just go sit down.
It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.
What got into you? What was that?”
He keeps eyes
fixed on the sideline and marches forward. When he gets to his team, he rips
off his shoes and shin guards and shoves them into his bag.
“Jamison, what are
you doing?” his coach asks.
“I assume I’m
kicked out?” he says, gathering his ball and throwing that in the bag too. “Red
card?”
“Well, yeah, I
guess. He did show the card.” Bryce’s coach looks just as confused as I feel.
What happened?
I’ve never seen Bryce so much as glare at someone. Even all the douchebags who
deserve it. I pick up his water
bottle and follow after him as he stomps to the fence where Dad is waiting for
us. Dad doesn’t say a word. The three of us head to the parking lot in silence.
“Bryce?” Mom’s
voice breezes up from behind us.
Shit. Mom. I’d forgotten about her. Bryce is still
zeroed in on the car, unfazed.
“Bryce,” she calls
again.
“Hey, buddy,” I
say, touching Bryce’s hand, but wham! Bryce slaps my hand away. “I can’t,
Jaisa. I just can’t,” he says. He finally looks at me and his eyes are full of
tears. My heart breaks and I know what happened. I nod and let him continue
with Dad to the car. I turn back and tell Mom that it’s not a good time and
we’ll see her soon. I hug her and leave her confused and alone.
We drive back to
the apartment in silence. Bryce goes straight to his room when we get inside.
“Well, Jase, our
little buddy finally lost it,” Dad says plopping down on the couch and rubbing
his hand through his beard and around to the back of his neck.
“I think that kid
said something about Mom,” I explain.
“Well, you know
he’s not going to say anything to me.” Dad sighs and leans back, sinking into
the couch. There’s grey flecks peppered into his hair. When did that happen?
How did I miss it? When did my dad start looking so old?
Dad and I work on
homework, him in at his desk, me in my room. When I’m done, I know Bryce has
had enough time to simmer down. I knock on his door and ask to come in. I take
his silence as an OK.
Bryce is lying in
bed on his stomach, face toward the wall.
I close the door
and slump into a beanbag on his floor. I think this is probably the last beanbag
in existence. We’ve had it since I was a baby. There’s barely anything left to
it, but for some reason, we brought it to the apartment with us when we moved.
And here it lays.
“He called her a
rug muncher,” Bryce says after a few minutes. If you wait long enough, Bryce
will always come out with what is bothering him.
I shift on the
beanbag, flipping onto my stomach and bunching it up underneath my chest and
chin as sitting cross-legged had caused my butt to hurt.
“I know everyone
makes fun of her,” he continues. “I can take it. I know what I did was stupid.
I know you say in a few years it won’t matter. I know you’ll say that to real
friends it doesn’t matter and that Mom is happy and we are doing just fine.”
Gosh, is that how
often we’ve had this conversation?
“I could take it
when he called me a ‘pussy.’ It’s a sport. Whatever.”
Dudes are so
stupid.
“But when he saw
he couldn’t mess with me by insulting Mom or me, Jaisa, he talked about you. He
called you gay. He asked if he could come over a watch you with Mom. What the
hell?” His back is still to me. God. I’m so glad he can’t see my face. My
stomach drops and my right pointer finger finds it’s way to my mouth. More nail
biting.
Speak, Jaisa!
There has to be something you can say to that. Your sweet wouldn’t-hurt-a-bug
little brother just beat the crap out of some kid because he was defending you.
“I know it was
wrong,” he says, saving me from having to respond for a little while longer.
“You’ve just had such a sucky time since Mikah br—” he pauses, “since you and
Mikah broke up and I couldn’t take it.”
“Oh, buddy.” I
scramble off the floor and sit at the edge of his twin bed. He looks huge in
that thing. Bryce’s feet are about to drape over the edge. When did he get so
tall? “You didn’t have to do that for me. You know I think there’s nothing
wrong with being gay so that idiot kid couldn’t insult me.”
“But he did,”
Bryce says. He finally turns to face me and his eyes are wet again. “He did and
yeah, I love Mom. She’s gay so what? What? What is that she’s making it hard on
us. We live in this shitty apartment. We have no money. She likes her new
family more than us and yeah, there’s nothing wrong with Mom being gay, but you
kind of checked out for, like, all of summer when Mikah broke up with you.” He
sits up, his eyes locked on mine. “And you’re just coming back around. And that
kid obviously meant to be mean to you so call you gay or whatever, I was going
to shut him up if he was going to bad mouth you.” Bryce is almost sobbing now
and my eyes are filling too. I pull him in for a hug and hold him close so he
won’t see me cry.
With a big sigh,
Bryce crumples into me. “You always stick up for me,” he says into my shoulder.
“Hey, I’ve got
your back. You’ve got mine. I know that. Always.” I place my hands on his arms
and push him away from me so that I can look at him. His eyes dart back and
forth between mine. His stare is intense, begging for me to stay here with him.
“I promise,” I say.
“I’m sorry I beat
that kid up.” He looks down at his lap then back up at me. “No, I’m not. I’m
sorry, I’m not sorry about it though.”
I laugh. “We all
get pushed to the limit. I love you, buddy.” I stand up to leave.
“I love you too,
Jaisa.”
When I get back to
my room, I don’t know what to do or think. I can’t sit down. That kid used me
to get to Bryce. I dig my running shoes out of my practice bag and throw them
on. Bryce thinks I checked out and he’s worried I’ll do it again.
“See ya, love ya,
bye,” I call to Dad as I head out the door. I don’t wait for him to stutter a
‘but it’s dark out.’ What else has Bryce been holding in until that lead to
this snap?
Ahhhh, my brain lets out a sigh of
relief as soon as my feet start moving. Short little quick steps. I’ve been
playing around with changing my run cadence. I have pretty good form naturally,
but I’ve been reading about how a lot of distance runners shoot for a super
high turn over in their run cadence—180 beats per minute. That means that in
one minute, my right foot hits the ground 90 times and my left foot 90. That’s
quick. It’s supposed to help for you to strike with your mid-sole. Before I
started this, I had a pretty good cadence naturally—about 84 beats per
minute—but even that small change has given me something new to think about
while I run. Something to focus on and shut up my mind.
It’s not Mom’s
fault she’s gay. I know that. Bryce knows that. But are we bitter and mad at
her about it? God. I don’t even know how to deal with all of these thoughts,
how can anyone expect Bryce to? He’s only twelve.
The worst hill in
Landview falls behind me like nothing. My feet carry me through Henderson Park
and I just let them carry me. Not thinking where I’m going.
Should I tell Dad
what happened? He’s worried. But he might not ask about it. Who am I kidding?
He won’t ask about it unless he knows he has to. He likes us to find our own
way. All he did when Mikah broke up with me was make me eat and let me talk if
I needed to.
El Dorado’s hills
slope up and down until I find myself outside of Cooper’s house.
What am I doing
here?
I turn and run
back down the hill away from his house.
No. No I want to
talk to him. Damn it. He’s being an idiot he should talk to me. And who else is
going to kind of understand?
I run back up the
hill and march up his driveway, onto the porch and jab the doorbell with my
pointer finger before I can chicken out.
The door opens a
crack after a few moments and Cooper’s mom pokes her head out. Her makeup is
washed off and she looks worried.
