Varsity Tiebreaker

by Ginger Scott

  “All of these are my dad’s. If he leaves permanently, they’ll go with him. But I won’t be here anymore, I guess, so it’s whatever.” His gaze shifts to me for a beat, then to the floor. He sits forward and brings his hands to his lap as his legs fold together. Right now, we’re two kids playing records, but the longer we sit in silence, Janet marching along in the backdrop, simple leaves the situation and complicated seeps in.

  “My brother treating you right?” His head cocks his head to the side and his eyes level me with a look that feels like it’s hiding more.

  “Yeah,” I say. Nervous energy jolts at my insides, so I shift my position and tuck my legs under my body, leaning to one side. I’m careful to keep my focus on the floor, on the albums, on my own fingers and knuckles and skin. The song fades out, a new one begins, and I rush around mentally in search of something new to say while also silently begging Tory to ask me easier questions than the ones I fear are dancing around his head.

  “He’s a good guy,” he continues.

  “Uh huh.” I nod.

  My pulse is drowning in my ears, the beat heavy, leaving me dizzy. I spare a quick glance up to meet Tory’s gaze, hoping maybe he’s looking elsewhere. Or maybe simply smiling, happy to see his brother happy. Me happy. But that’s not what I get at all. My chest squeezes when our eyes lock, his mouth a soft smile that hints at regret. My lips part and I draw in a quick breath, thinking for a moment that I’ll say something—anything—that acknowledges there is something unspoken and heavy in the room.

  “Hey, I heard the music.”

  Lucas’s welcome presence breaks the tension, and I take the out, climbing to my feet and putting more distance between Tory and me. Tory stretches out his legs and crosses them at the ankles, tipping his chin to grin at his friend.

  “Just dusting off some of my dad’s gems,” he says.

  He and Lucas seem to speak without words, staring at each other with knowing smiles that verge on the cusp of words, as if they’re about to trade insults with each other or something.

  “Right, well . . . I’m going to take off and thought since I’m leaving, maybe Abby needs a ride home?” Lucas turns his attention to me, his eyes wide in a way that signals I’m to leave now. It feels oddly parental, but also . . . he’s right.

  “Sounds good, yeah. We got through a lot. Just let me get my stuff in the kitchen,” I say, moving toward the stairs. I get a few steps down before pausing and making eye contact with Tory again, his expression erased from any of the strangeness from before. “Hey, thank you, by the way. I feel really solid on this now.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Tory says, moving his focus back to Lucas so they can continue whatever weird-ass staring match they have going on. “We can pick it up again Saturday.”

  My mouth pops open, ready to turn down the offer, but before I’m able to push out the words, something inside me makes me stop. I say nothing and instead descend the rest of the way into the kitchen, shoveling the script into my purse and hooking it over my shoulder in a smooth, brisk move through the rest of the house. I’m sitting in Lucas’s truck before I take another breath. Lucas, however, doesn’t come down for another fifteen minutes.

  9

  Tory

  I didn’t need a lecture. I knew exactly what I was doing, where the line was, and how I was walking all over it.

  Lucas gave me one anyway. I guess that’s his job, though. I’m used to getting different kinds of lectures from my best friend. Usually, he tells me not to eat something that says fire hot or drink one shot too many before jumping from the roof into the pool. Dumb shit.

  Abby’s a different story. I know what I’m doing, and I know it’s wrong. My feelings are wrong, the goddamn dreams I’m having are wrong, and this animosity I’m developing against my brother is wrong. It’s not his fault that he figured out how to talk to Abby like a human before I did. Hell, he had no clue I had a real thing for her. I flirt with everyone. Abby’s just the only one to ever shoot me down, over and over. Me hitting on her and her telling me to eff off became our routine, a one-act show that we perform at every party and in every class we have together.

  And then, I don’t know . . .

  I even liked the rejection. It was attention, a push-pull that was a challenge, yeah, but also, she has this edge that feels, I don’t know . . . a lot like me?

  I have to stop this cycle, though, otherwise I’m going to spin out. I slept through Wednesday, and I’ve been about as social as a toad all day at school, but I can’t completely turn away from the outside world just because I have a crush that hurts to deal with. It’s time to find my groove again, especially since Hayden and I are heading right from practice to our first family therapy session. If I bring this mood in there, nobody is going to make progress, which is what my mom keeps preaching this is all about. Making progress. Some fucking family goal.

  The junior high moved their players outside for practice, which has all of these twelve- and thirteen-year-olds pissed as hell at us. One kid calls me a douchebag on my way into the locker room I long ago outgrew.

  “Yeah, you too, kid,” I say back, getting a rise out of Hayden and a few of the other guys nearby.

  I dump my gym bag on the bench and change out of my jeans and sweatshirt into shorts and a T-shirt, then take a seat to wipe down the bottoms of my basketball shoes. Hayden drops his stuff next to me and I catch the photo on his phone screen of him with his arms wrapped around Abby. The angle is weird because it’s a selfie. Couple shit.

  Deep breath, Tory. Deep breath.

  “Hey, nice job landing Cortez, man. You tap that yet?” Chaz, whose real name is Chad but insists on forcing everyone to use the stupid z, tabs his shoes against my brother’s back as he walks by and takes a seat on the next bench over.

  “Oh, ha, yeah. Thanks, man. And I don’t-I don’t talk about that stuff.” Hayden’s respectful, but his grin is super evasive and full of innuendo. I drop my shoes to the floor and let them land with a heavy smack against the concrete. Chaz and Hayden both look my direction.

  “Sorry.” I shrug.

  Not sorry.

  “That’s gotta really piss you off, right?” Chaz’s question lingers unanswered. I don’t bother to look up because I assume he’s just goading my brother about not getting laid or some shit. Frankly, I’m glad Hayden isn’t talking about it. If he’s gotten to that level with Abby, I’m going to have a really hard time ejecting that visual from my head.

  “Ah, I see. Silent treatment, huh?” Chaz keeps going, and I finally look up to catch him leaning forward, arms resting on his knees so he can stare at me like a major asshole.

  My brow wrinkles.

  “What the fuck?” I glare at him for a full second, then lean forward and slip my feet into my shoes, lacing them tight around my ankles.

  “Ha! Baby Hayden sweeping in and taking what big brother thought was his. Yo, your brother hates you right now,” Chaz taunts, thinking he’s super clever playing around with the meaningless fact that I slid out of my mom’s vagina a full minute before Hayden did. What an ass!

  I stand without reacting, finding inner strength I didn’t know I had, and stop with my stance square with Chaz. I palm the side of his face a few times with a playful force.

  “Why don’t you just run along now and get the water for us starters, yeah?” I wink and flash a tight smile before turning and heading into the gym, catching the deep oooooh that sounds behind me from my teammates. Hayden’s voice better be in that mix.

  After jogging a few laps around the gym that once seemed so big when I was little, we all circle up at center court and begin our stretches. The tension left from my little moment with Chaz is still very much present, and there’s hardly a sound other than the occasional snicker from someone trying damn hard to keep their mouth shut. Coach Newsome is a nice guy, but he doesn’t do drama during practice. He calls stuff like this “playtime” and I’ve seen him kick guys out of the gym—and once, off the team—for letting gi
rl trouble interfere with the business on the court.

  I turn to face Hayden and nod for him to go first for our hamstring stretches. He lies in front of me and lifts his right leg, holding it straight for me to push toward his body. I try not to look down because I know he’s staring right at me.

  “Hey, thanks for running lines with Abby the other day. She said you were actually pretty good at it,” Hayden says.

  I blink slowly, tempted to leave my eyes shut. He’s talking. Why is he talking?

  I glance down and nod my chin.

  “Yeah, no prob.” His focus hangs on to my eyes, a hint of suspicion in the way they dim. I raise my brows and shake my head a little in question, calling him on his silent question. I know he’s got one.

  “You do hate it, don’t you?”

  Fuck.

  I sigh and roll my neck and lean forward, stretching him a little more, probably to punish him. He takes it.

  “Hayden, I don’t anything. I’m just trying to get through practice then to this therapy shit that’s not going to work so I can go home and go to sleep. That’s literally all I have going on in my head right now.” I let go of his leg and purse my lips when our eyes meet. His head tilts just a hair, trying to read me better. I snap my fingers, calling for his other leg.

  I assume he’s letting things go when he gives me his left leg and I look away, repeating the stretch in blessed silence. Once he’s done, I squat to lay as he stands to work on me. I give him my leg while my head rests on my threaded fingers and I look off to the side. But before he pushes my leg forward, he grasps my foot in both hands, his fingers squeezing into the top of my foot hard enough that I feel it through my thick-ass shoe.

  “Hey,” I protest, jerking my foot but unable to break free.

  Hayden’s jaw is set and his eyes are searing into me, and I wonder if he has a hidden camera near dad’s albums.

  “You need to take it easy on Mom.” This is so out of left field that the only reaction I can possibly have is laughter.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I shake my head, amused. Hayden clearly isn’t joking, though. I’m so struck by it because no matter how many ways I bend the truth, I’m still on Dad’s side.

  “You don’t hear her cry at night? Your cold shoulder is killing her,” my brother says, finally pushing my leg forward to stretch.

  I stare at him with my mouth agape.

  “I’m killing her.” I repeat this as if it might suddenly make sense. It doesn’t.

  I switch legs.

  “Just . . .” My brother pauses, grimacing as he pushes forward on my leg. Hayden doesn’t like conflict. He never has. And he’s partly right—though, no fucking way I’ll admit that. My parents have never been picture perfect, and they fought all the time. They also made up a lot, too. Dad went out of his way to make sure my mom had whatever she wanted. She just didn’t want him.

  “I won’t pick sides in therapy. Is that what you’re asking?” I chew at the inside of my mouth and wait for him to admit it. He finally agrees, nodding once and letting go of my leg. I hold my hand up, partly for a lift but also for a gentleman’s agreement of sorts. I pat my brother’s back a few times with a heavy hand and Chaz can’t help the commentary.

  “Aww, you guys work it out?” he says.

  “Yeah, we took care of things while you were over there on the bench,” I reply, not bothering to look his direction. My brother snorts out a laugh.

  We muddle through practice, as good as practice can be in a gym that feels too small for our bodies and with rims that can be lowered to my height. We work on plays mostly, which is boring for the guys like Chaz who barely have a role, so at least I get to watch him stand around and whine with the irked look on his face.

  I was hoping for more of an outlet though, because even after we leave the gym there’s a clenched fist in my chest, like I want to scream or hit something. It’s the anxiety from this impending doom that Hayden and I are driving toward. He’s driving, actually. I’m riding shotgun, preparing mental lists of all the passive aggressive things I’ll want to say but won’t because I promised.

  “You don’t have to speed there,” I say the closer we get.

  “We’re late, so . . . kinda do.”

  Hayden’s back teeth are gnashed. I recognize it because I do the same damn thing when I’m stressed. I’m doing it now. We have different reasons, though. Hayden hates being late. I hate having to do shit I don’t believe in.

  We pull in, parking between the minivan and my dad’s truck. How incredibly prophetic. Hayden rushes out of the car, but I take a moment to myself to let what’s happening really sink in. I can’t remember the last time I truly idolized both of my parents. I still do my dad, I guess. I just don’t see him now, haven’t really in a while. Even when he was at home, he was never home. He travels a lot for work at a job that bought the house we live in free and clear and has kept both of my parents in new cars for my entire life. Hayden and I share because my brother is practical and insists on it. Dad told me on the side that he’d get me my own ride, but it never felt that important. Wish I’d taken him up on it now, though. If I had, I’d still be on my way to this session while Hayden was here right on time, waiting for my ass to show up.

  My brother raps his knuckles on my window. I don’t bother to look, breathing out hard enough to flap my lips as I push the door open and join him out of the car.

  “I was enjoying the last bit of quiet I’ll have for a while,” I say.

  “Like you have ever wanted things quiet,” my brother scoffs.

  Touché.

  Our parents are in the waiting room for the family therapist, Dr. Majestic. I thought my dad was shitting me when he texted me the info for Hayden and me to come, but no, that’s really this doctor’s name. It’s going to take superhero powers to fix the broken things in this household. Dr. Majestic sounds a lot more like a villain.

  “Son,” my dad says, reaching toward me first to shake my hand. We make the same uncomfortable, fake smiles at each other because neither of us wants to be here. We’re a lot alike, stubborn with a veil of easygoing.

  “Hey, Dad,” Hayden says after a few seconds, nodding to our pops.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Psh,” our mom sounds.

  “What, I can’t call him kiddo? I suppose that’s babying him?” My dad is on edge, which is not promising for the next fifty minutes. I looked up the fees and at four hundred an hour, I hope my parents spend less time on childish sounds and button-pushing when we get in the room.

  None of us are sitting, which is typical. We’re the family that, when we go out to eat, hovers impatiently around the hostess stand even if the wait is an hour. We have this unspoken strategy that standing makes other people uncomfortable so they seat us faster. It works.

  “Gio? Natalia?” My parents turn in sync.

  “Hmm?” they both say.

  My eyes fall to the floor and I lead the way toward the incredibly tall woman standing with her door held wide open, welcoming—like the gates to hell. I glance up when I pass her and give her a crooked smile. She probably thinks it’s my way of greeting her and expressing how upset I am over all of this, but really, I just think it’s cool she’s my height.

  The rest of the family files in after me, the four of us cramming onto a sofa made for three. The black leather is stiff and it squeaks with our weight, a sound that repeats each time any of us moves. This won’t be distracting at all.

  “I have other chairs,” Dr. Majestic says, indicating a high-back recliner pushed against the wall.

  “I’m on it,” I say, happily volunteering. I grab the chair by the arms and slide it a few feet forward so it’s now part of the circle of death. I get in and immediately pull the handle, kicking my feet up and crossing my ankles.

  “Salvatore.” My mom’s voice has that scold-tinge to it, like when I was a kid and made a farty noise in the back seat of the car during a long drive somewhere. I give her a sideways lo
ok and consider putting up a challenge. Hayden clears his throat and I give in.

  “Fine,” I say, lowering the foot rest and sitting up enough to rest my elbows on the arms and fold my hands together on my lap. I’m ready for testimony.

  “All right, first . . . I’d like to congratulate you all on this very important first step. I want you to take a minute and congratulate yourselves, quietly or silently. Thank yourselves for this. I know coming here isn’t easy, and the fact you rose to the challenge means you all have something invested in this family unity.”

  My dad breaks first, puffing out a short laugh that he quickly covers with a cough. My mom gives him a stern look, which he pretends not to see. I enjoy the show while my brother shrinks, his head falling into his shoulders as he sits on the rubbery sofa between them. I can’t believe I’m here.

  Congratulations, Tory. You did it.

  Yeah, this Dr. Majestic is full of it.

  “I’m familiar with your file and I understand the circumstances, but I’ve found that the things we report on paper are often not the real story. Why don’t we start at the root, being open and honest. Shall we?” Dr. Majestic scans the room, getting nonverbal commitments from each of us. I shrug, just like my dad, while Hayden and my mom nod.

  “Good. Tory, let’s start with you.”

  Aww, fuck.

  “How has your parents’ split made you feel?”

  The heat from four pairs of eyes is instantly on me.

  “Ha!” I laugh out, mostly from the audacity of the question. My mouth hangs open, and I look first to my dad, who is of absolutely no help, his eyes clearly saying he doesn’t want to be here. I move to Hayden next, who has a poker face that would save any gambler, and then there’s Mom—oh-so hopeful, expectant Mom. She wants me to be her good little boy.