Sidelined

by Kara Bietz

  I listen to the waves rolling onto the shore. The hushed, sleepy voices of some of my teammates just outside the tent wash over me as my eyelids start to droop.

  “What even happened at that game twenty years ago?” Elijah asks into the dark. “Why did Crenshaw get into a fight with the Taylor kids, anyway?”

  “Figg told me they caught wind that one of the football players’ girlfriends had gotten pregnant,” I say, my voice thick with the weight of the day. “Taylor showed up with beach balls stuffed under their jerseys, and the Crenshaw kids just went nuts. Bench-clearing brawl, he said.”

  Elijah sits up on his sleeping bag next to me. “Seriously?”

  “That’s what Figg said,” I yawn.

  “And it was twenty years ago. When your dad was a senior,” he says. “Which means my dad was a senior.”

  “Uh-huh,” I yawn again, louder this time.

  Elijah is quiet for a moment. Then, “I think that might have been my mom and dad.” His voice is small.

  Now my eyes are open all the way. “What?”

  “I know my parents were still in high school when Frankie came along,” he says. “I mean, how many other football players would have had pregnant girlfriends at homecoming exactly twenty years ago? Meridien isn’t quite a metropolis with a million people.”

  “I didn’t know that about Frankie.” My brain flips through the math, and I sit up in my sleeping bag. In the dimly lit tent, I can see Elijah’s face is a mask of worry, and I hear his breath start to quicken.

  “What if it was my father that started that fight? What if it was his fault that Crenshaw had to forfeit? No wonder he wasn’t in the football team picture his senior year. He probably got kicked off the team. It’s no wonder the whole town hates his guts. It’s no wonder they hate mine just for being a Vance.” All of a sudden, he’s unzipping his sleeping bag and pulling his legs out of it, crawling to the door.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I say, trying to pull him back. “Calm down! Figg said the whole team was involved in that fight. Even if it was your mom that was pregnant—”

  “It was, I know it was,” Elijah says.

  “Okay. Even if it was, the whole Crenshaw team was sticking up for your mom and dad. They were all angry that Taylor was being so awful. It wasn’t your father’s fault that Crenshaw had to forfeit that year,” I tell him. I can hear his breathing slow in the dark. “Or at least it wasn’t only his fault.”

  Elijah lies back down on top of his sleeping bag this time, and I lower my head onto my pillow, too. I’m curled on my side, watching the fuzzy outline of his profile in the dark tent.

  “Hey, Julian?” Elijah says into the dark. “I gotta tell you something else.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’m going to need you to just… listen without judgment, okay?” he says, his voice unsteady.

  I frown, but I try not to let it show in my voice. “Yeah, of course.”

  “Part of the reason we left Meridien three years ago was because of Frankie,” he says, suddenly quiet again.

  I sit up. “What happened? Was she sick or something? Did she have to go to a different school?”

  “She had a baby.” The words rush out of him like he can’t contain them any longer. “I have a niece, okay? Her name is Coley and she’s almost two and a half, and she’s the most important thing in my world right now, and I just… I don’t care if that makes you think Frankie is irresponsible and she’s ruined her life.” His voice picks up strength. “She’s not! She’s not any of those stereotypical things people think about teen moms! She’s this amazing mother. And I couldn’t even imagine what my life would be like right now without Coley in it.”

  “Wow,” I say, letting his words settle around me. “Frankie’s a mom.”

  He finally breathes, but it comes out all shaky like he’s about to break into a million tiny pieces.

  “Hey,” I say, reaching across the tent for his hand. “I don’t think she’s ruined her life. Why would you say that?”

  “Dani Patrick. Those horrible things you said about her.” His voice catches, and even in the dark I know he’s crying.

  My gut flip-flops. I did say awful things. I called her irresponsible and said she was ending her life before it even began. Ugh.

  Way to stick your foot in it, Julian.

  I sit up and cross my legs on my sleeping bag. “Hey, come here.” I hold my arms open, and Elijah leans forward and lets me hug him. Eventually he lets go and sits across from me, our knees touching. I hold on to both of his hands.

  “Hey,” I say after we sit in complete silence for a few beats.

  “What?” Elijah says, his entire body stiffening across from me.

  I don’t even have anything to say. I know what I said about Dani, and I know what that must have sounded like to Elijah.

  “I’m sorry?” I say.

  “Are you really? It doesn’t sound like it,” Elijah answers.

  “I just… I didn’t know that Frankie had a baby.” I know I sound pathetic, but I really don’t know how to apologize for any of this.

  Elijah shakes his head. “But it’s obvious what you think of people who have kids when they’re young. Sometimes shit happens, Julian. To Dani Patrick. To Frankie. To my own parents! It doesn’t make any sense, and maybe it’s not the choice you would make if you found yourself in the same situation, but… it doesn’t make the people it happens to less than. Don’t do that.”

  I hang my head and squeeze his hands in mine. “I don’t want to hurt you. I really didn’t mean to.”

  “Frankie didn’t want me to tell anyone,” Elijah says. “She said she didn’t want people gossiping about her before she even gets here. But I couldn’t let you think I just left and didn’t say anything because of something you did. It wasn’t you. Frankie told me she was pregnant the day before we… in the locker room.”

  “When I kissed you.”

  “When I kissed you,” Elijah says.

  A smile pulls on my cheeks.

  “I had to take care of her. I was fourteen, I could only focus on one catastrophe at a time. I… I broke the window to steal the car wash money to try to take care of her. Frankie needed to see a doctor and she hadn’t told my mom yet, so everything was just a mess. That day you found me, thinking about crawling through that broken window to steal that money, was probably one of the worst days of my life,” Elijah says. “I felt like I was backed into a corner, and I didn’t have the smarts to do anything else. All I knew was that I needed money to take care of my family, and that was the best way I could think of at the time to get it. So stupid.” He shakes his head and lowers his chin to his chest.

  I put my hand gently under his chin until he raises his eyes to meet mine. “You can’t be mad at your fourteen-year-old self, Elijah. It sounds like you’ve done a pretty good job taking care of everyone since then,” I say.

  We stay quiet for a long time. Eventually, Elijah curls up on his side on top of his sleeping bag with his back to me. His breathing slows, and I’m pretty sure he’s fallen asleep. I lie on my side, watching his ribs rhythmically rise and fall. The coming sunrise paints the inside of the tent with a warm purple light. It illuminates the curve of his neck, his earlobe, his shoulder.

  I’m close enough that he can probably feel my warm breath on his back. My fingers ache with the nearness of him. I scoot closer, curve my body the way his is curved. Knees tucked up, right arm curled under my head. I breathe in his skin, his hair, his body. I lie behind him, aching to reach out and make the connection. My skin touching his. My knees tucked behind his. My lips on his neck.

  Instead, I lie perfectly still, my fingertips a hair’s breadth from his lower back, hoping he’ll inch my way sometime before the sun fully rises.

  · twenty-two ·

  ELIJAH

  I wake up to the dulcet tones of Bucky’s truck rumbling. It feels like the entire beach is shaking. The sun is beating through the thin tent material, and I’m covered in sweat. Jul
ian is already up and out.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Nate jokes when I finally crawl out of the tent. “It’s almost noon!”

  I glance down the beach and see most of the guys bobbing around in the ocean. Throwing a football back and forth and making these spectacularly dramatic catches in the water, creating the biggest splashes they can. I blink the sleep from my eyes and see Julian in thigh-deep water, making the passes. The sky is the kind of impossible blue you can see only near the beach. I yank off my T-shirt and join the rest of the team.

  I dive under the first wave that hits me. Instant relief from the heat. I push my hair back from my face and see Julian watching me. He nods and raises his eyebrows. I know he’s asking if I’m okay. I nod back at him and join the crew of receivers. Julian tosses the ball to us over and over, each one of us making a catch more spectacular than the last. When it’s my turn, I try to do a diving backflip and catch the ball with both feet out of the water. It doesn’t go so well for me, and the ball whacks me right on the forehead. I stand up in the water, laughing.

  “Hey, you look better than Darien out there!” someone yells, and everyone laughs.

  “Not cool, man,” Darien says, stepping forward for his turn at a catch. He leaps backward, legs splayed out like a starfish, landing with a tremendous splash and an audible kerplunk. But somehow he still manages to keep the ball in his hands. “Beat that!” he yells when he surfaces. “Beat that, you defensive toads!”

  Plenty of ribbing and dunking and chest puffing ensues, the entire group of us laughing and tackling one another in the shallow water.

  Someone suggests a race, and pretty soon we’re all running full speed down the beach in the sand, all of us trying to beat the pants off the guy next to us. Darien smokes everyone, of course, and some of the bigger defensive guys are still huffing and puffing back near the tents when the rest of us reach the crumbling jetty about two hundred yards away.

  “Who was the genius who suggested that?” Julian laughs, coughing. He pulls on the hem of his tank top. He hasn’t taken it off since we got here, even when we were all goofing off in the water. I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t want anyone to see his bruise.

  “High knees all the way back! Come on, you lazy asses!” Darien yells in a perfect imitation of Coach Marcus.

  Most of the guys run ahead, following Darien like he’s some crazed pied piper, their knees pumping all the way up to their chests.

  I hang back with Julian. “Your ribs okay?”

  “A little sore, but not any worse than yesterday,” he says.

  We walk through the wet sand where the water splashes over our feet. I stop every few feet and pick up shells and shove them into my pocket. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of them when I get back to the tent, but I like the feel of them, warm in my pocket.

  “I’m glad you told me about Frankie and Coley,” Julian says as we get closer to the tents.

  The words I’m glad I told you, too sit right on the edge of my tongue, but I can’t get them out. Instead, I try to smile and I know it’s crooked.

  “It will be good to see Frankie again,” he says to me. “And I’m excited to meet Coley.”

  “I miss them both,” I tell him quietly, squeezing the shells in my pocket tightly.

  We stay at the beach until almost three in the afternoon. Sunburned and sandy, we pile back into Bucky’s truck for the trek home. It’s way quieter than the trip out.

  “Guess none of us went to church this morning,” Bucky laughs, his voice gravelly.

  “The entire back three rows of pews were probably empty.” Julian laughs, too. “Pastor Ernie will forgive us. We had our own kind of church this morning.”

  I rest my head against the seat. We did have our own kind of church this morning, didn’t we? I let that really unfamiliar feeling settle in my bones.

  “Hey, Cap,” Bucky says, turning the volume on the radio down. “You thought some more about that prank?”

  “I can’t make a decision about it right now,” Julian protests. “You gotta give me more time than just overnight.”

  “I really hope you think about what we’re saying,” Bucky says, scratching at his head with a sunburned arm. “This prank war has been going on for so many years.… We can’t be the class that ruins it. Or the lame team that got caught with their pants down because Taylor surprised us and we didn’t retaliate. We’ll never hear the end of it!”

  “Bucky’s right, man,” Darien says. “My dad asks me every day what we’re doing to get Taylor. I can’t tell him we’re doing nothing. You know what kind of flak I’m going to get for that at Thanksgiving when both of my grandfathers and all of my uncles are here visiting?”

  I watch this conversation unfold all around me, but I don’t add anything. I don’t feel like I have as much at stake as the rest of the guys.

  Julian is quiet for a long time, sitting next to me and staring out the window. “Did you know my dad tried to start a petition his senior year to stop the prank war with Taylor?” he finally says.

  “No,” Bucky answers, turning the radio off completely. “I didn’t know that.”

  No one says another word all the way back to Rudy Street. I don’t think anyone knows how to respond to Julian talking about his father.

  “Catch you later, Elijah,” Bucky says to me when he drops us off at the top of Ms. Birdie’s driveway. Julian grabs his gear and hops out of the truck without saying goodbye to anyone.

  “Thanks for the ride, Bucky,” I say, waving to him and Darien as they drive back toward Main Street.

  I catch Julian on the porch and stop him before he goes inside. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Julian looks at me, his eyes full. “I don’t think the guys understand how important this is to me. I’ve heard what they’re saying about their fathers and grandfathers, but what about my father? Knowing that he was working to try to stop it?”

  “There’s got to be a way to do both,” I say. “Give the guys what they’re looking for and honor what your dad was trying to do.”

  Julian shakes his head, looking defeated. “If you have some brilliant plan, feel free to key me in.”

  He pulls the front door open and tosses the camping gear into the hallway near the washing machine. I follow him, throwing my bag of extra shorts I never used onto my bed. We find Ms. Birdie in the backyard, pulling at weeds in the flower beds with a huge straw hat on her head.

  “Hey, Birdie. We’re home,” Julian says, going out the screen door and letting it slam behind him. I stay on the patio.

  “We missed you boys at church this morning,” she says with her eyebrows raised. “I hope you all had a nice little moment of silent prayer at the beach.”

  Julian chuckles and gives her a hug. “I bet Pastor Ernie will forgive us just this once.”

  “Professor Robles-Garcia has invited us to a potluck at her house tonight, boys. You ought to get your homework finished if you’ve got any. We’re heading out of here around five thirty,” she tells us. “How are you doing there, sweet Elijah?” She waves at me on the porch.

  “I’m good, Ms. Birdie. Sorry about church this morning.” I wave.

  “Oh.” She fusses at me. “Julian knows I’m just giving him the business. We’ll say an extra prayer over our dinner tonight. The Good Lord knows you don’t have to be in a church building on a Sunday morning to be a good person. And the Good Lord also knows that there are plenty of people with their behinds in those pews every Sunday morning that are not good people.”

  Two hours later, we’re unloading casserole dishes from the trunk of Ms. Birdie’s Corolla. Buttermilk pie, banana pudding with vanilla wafers, and a massive bowl of spinach salad with feta cheese and blueberries from last summer’s garden. Ms. Birdie has got bags and bags of them in the freezer. My mouth is watering just watching all the food coming into the house.

  Camille meets us at the front door. “Hi, hello, and welcome. Now that that’s out of the way, come with me.” S
he grabs Julian’s elbow and pulls him down the hallway toward her room. I follow behind.

  “I’ve gotten sixteen texts this afternoon, boys,” she says, closing the door behind us and whisper-shouting. She holds her pink phone in her hand. “Sixteen! All from angry football boys who want me to do something about you.” She pokes her finger into Julian’s chest.

  “What are you talking about?” Julian asks.

  “This prank thing! It’s out of control! They all think you’re ignoring them, and apparently they think I have some kind of control over what goes on in that empty vessel above your neck—”

  “Hey, now,” Julian says, putting his hands up.

  “AND,” Camille continues, ignoring him, “they’re asking for my help. So, this is me. Helping them.” She folds her arms across her chest and taps her foot. “Park it.”

  Julian sits on the edge of her bed, and I take the desk chair. Camille paces the wood floor in front of her dresser, steam practically coming out of her ears. “One day! One day I didn’t see you, and you’ve gone and gotten the entire football team upset with you. Do I have to hold your hand? Is that it? Do I have to tell you exactly how to act? You’re the captain, for crying out loud! You’re sailing this ship! You’re not supposed to be pissing people off!”

  Camille isn’t exactly talking to Julian. Or to me, either. She’s kind of talking to the air. I glance at Julian, and he just raises his eyebrows at me.

  “Hey, calm down and let me tell you what happened,” Julian says, patting the bed next to him.

  Camille considers him for a minute and ultimately sits down next to him with a great big huff. She keeps her arms folded.

  Julian launches into a long explanation of the things he learned from Figg, and the reason he thinks it’s better if we just sidestep the whole prank war this year. Camille looks at me when he finishes his lengthy diatribe.

  “And what do you think?” she asks.

  I blink at her. “Me?”

  “Um. Yes. You.”

  “Well, I mean… I can see both sides of this, really.”