Varsity Tiebreaker

by Ginger Scott

  My head swings back to the front and I deadpan to our doctor with dim eyes and a sour mouth. “Fine. I guess.”

  “Tory,” my mom cuts in.

  “No,” the doctor says, halting her. “Let him talk.”

  I raise a brow and turn my head a hint to the side while staring at her.

  “I did talk. That’s all I’ve got.” So far, my plan on how to handle this is falling to shit, but I have yet to break my promise to Hayden, so, hey—win!

  “Why do you think you answered that way?” She’s not going to make this easy. She’s needling, chewing on the tip of her pen and leaning in as if I’m about to get raw.

  “There are a lot of germs on your pen,” I say, pointing to the spot where her teeth have locked onto the clicking part. She lets go, smirking slightly as she leans back in her chair, which matches mine. I wonder if she ever gets to put her feet up.

  “I bet you’re known as the funny one.”

  Wow, she’s a genius.

  “Among other things,” I say, winking.

  “Tory.” This time, the stern warning comes from my father. I shift and release my hold on my hands, exhaling on his command.

  I rub my face, digging into my eyes that feel puffy from too much sleep. Resting my face on my palm, leaning on the arm of the chair, I stare in thought at the strands of the very expensive-looking rug that’s centered in this room. It doesn’t fill it completely, just enough to stretch under the sofa, the doctor’s desk and these two chairs. My chair is an intruder.

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m disappointed.” I grimace and glance up to meet the doctor’s approving eyes.

  “Go on,” she says.

  I draw a long breath through my nose and shake my head, letting my stare wander off again into the swirling pattern on the carpet.

  “He’s not the favorite anymore; that’s how he feels,” Hayden says, his unexpected contribution widening my eyes so much they actually burn.

  “Hayden,” my mom says, a totally different tone than the one she used with my name. This one is nurturing, and perhaps a bit pathetic.

  “That’s how I feel, anyway. I feel like my brother was always the king, and now that life at home isn’t picture-perfect, he’s less . . . shiny.” My brother’s eyes flit to mine a few times, but he doesn’t stick around long. Probably because I’m full-on gawking.

  “I was a king?” I laugh at the statement, thrusting down on the chair handle and kicking my feet up again because fuck this! “Go on. Please.”

  My dad’s brow is pulled in tight, maybe as surprised by this outburst as I am. I’m starting to think, though, that maybe this is calculated. My brother doesn’t back down, holding my stare as long as I hold his. The longer I look into eyes just like mine, the more animosity stews in my belly. Hayden’s eyes, however, haze with a sinister fog. That bit in the gym, the stretching of my legs and asking me to be on my best behavior here, it was never about Mom or this session. It was about Abby, and those things Chaz put in his head.

  My lips curl of their own accord, my chest gradually bubbling with laughter until it finally erupts and I’m practically cackling, minutes into our family therapy session. Look who’s the crazy man in here!

  I smile with a wide open mouth and look off to the side, trying to form words.

  “Unbelievable.” That’s the only thing I can say.

  “Why do you think your brother was our favorite?” our mom asks, twisting to the side to face my brother.

  “Because I am?” I even surprise myself with the words. I don’t mean it, but now I’m just pissed.

  “Tory,” my dad says, only the second time he’s spoken since we got in here, and both times it was my name.

  I push my feet down again and look my father in the eyes. He doesn’t want to make any of this work. He’s going through the motions. There’s no way he is forgiving my mom for what she did. And there’s probably no way I’ll ever be able to either. This is where the ride ends. My dad isn’t coming to any more of our games, driving in from the city when he’s not traveling. He’s taking his albums, too. And maybe I’ll see him a weekend here and there.

  All of those frames in my mind are just bullshit. Me hoisting up my first MVP trophy and him holding me on his shoulder, him placing my hand on the right strings to make a G chord on the guitar, him telling me to be careful who I love because if I pick wrong, she’s going to chew my heart up and spit it out. He wasn’t talking about me on that last one; he was sharing experience.

  “You know what?” I stand, knowing my pocket is light of keys and that my shit is still in the car. I’ve taken busses before, and it’s not that cold out tonight. I could use a walk. “I’m done. You guys figure out whatever you need to in here. I’m going to take care of things my way.”

  I get to the door before my dad stands to utter my name a third time. I stop him before he does.

  “Don’t act like you want to be here,” I say. His confession is all over his face, his eyes relenting first, followed by the tight line of his lips and the sag in his shoulders. He used to seem like this strong, amazing man. Now he’s just a shell.

  I push open the door and meet the gaze of the front secretary. She doesn’t speak, and she doesn’t even look surprised to see someone making a run for it. I bet this happens all the time. I hold up a hand and tell her to have a good evening, then step out onto the cold sidewalk in my practice jersey and shorts, still cold from old sweat. I tug on the car handle, glad my brother forgot to lock our car again, and pull out my sweatshirt, throwing it over my head and slamming the door behind me. I stand at the edge of the parking lot for a minute, looking up and down the street for signs of a bus line. Traffic is steady but light. I look over my shoulder one last time, giving my brother a last shot at redemption, but he isn’t coming after me.

  I want to choke him, but I also understand this is all coming from somewhere else. Hayden isn’t good with change, and this has been a major adjustment. He’s lashing out, and I’m the one who can take it. But I won’t pretend there wasn’t a trace of something else in that long gape he steamrolled me with.

  Just start walking.

  My legs travel north at first, but unsure how to get around the highway, I end up doubling back a few roads over. I finally find a creek bed that runs underneath most of the big streets between where I am and our neighborhood. I amuse myself for a while with my breath, puffing out thick, icy smoke then slicing it in half with my hand. That works for about half a mile and then I get anxious at my own lack of direction. I start to run, thankful for my lung capacity, and after about three miles, find myself in the last place I ever thought I would be at a time like this—at the end of Abby Cortez’s driveway.

  10

  Abby

  We look like hoarders. Between legal contracts for some of my residuals, contracts from the production company for the film, travel plans, waivers, and the files upon files from my parents’ custody battle, I’m just glad nobody in this house smokes. There is so much paper for kindling, we would go up in flames.

  “Abby, babe, I swear there’s a knock on our door. Can you . . ?” My mom’s glasses are perched at the end of her nose, her fingers dug deep into her temple, and the light above her like a heavy spot on whatever it is she’s reading. It’s something from my dad, but she doesn’t talk about it with me if she can avoid it.

  “You need to eat, and then you need to go to bed, Ma,” I say, hopscotching my way through the living room over papers and a few scattered pieces of laundry.

  “I will. I just have to finish this last—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You always say that. Just one more page,” I tease. My mom looks up at me and smiles with her eyes, her mouth too tired to make the trip.

  “Soon. I promise,” she says. I wonder if she remembers the pencil she shoved in her hair to hold it up out of her eyes.

  “Okay,” I holler, turning around while opening the front door.

  Tory D’Angelo looks back at me, and he looks like he’
s been in a fight. Only he hasn’t been hit, he’s only been emotionally tortured.

  “Mom, I’ll be right in,” I say, stepping out to our front porch to talk with him. My mom hasn’t seen either of the twins in years. She doesn’t even know I’m dating one of them. All we talk about lately are travel plans and court dates. Seems like a confusing way to bring my love life up to her, what with an evening visit from the brother I’m not dating.

  “Hey, something wrong?” I lead Tory down to the first step, motioning for him to sit next to me.

  “I think I need to stand. I’m too amped up,” he says, his feet in constant movement between the two stairs of our porch. He’s a constant whirl of up and down, and he looks like he’s just finished a marathon.

  “You, uh, out for a run?” His hair is slick with sweat. He glances up, straining his eyes, and runs his hand through his hair a few times to push it from his forehead. A crooked smile plays at his lips for a flash of a second.

  “This is kinda weird, I know.” His eyes flutter closed and he tangles his hands behind his neck for a stretch, exhaling while bouncing on his toes a few times. When his eyes open on mine again, he seems more settled, less like a stray dog who just dodged a shit ton of traffic.

  “Let’s just say therapy did not go well.” A sarcastic smile plays at his lips, tightly closed and pulled up in the corners.

  “It never does,” I say, making him laugh lightly.

  My plan to keep our talk outside falls apart as my mom opens the door and leans against the door frame, holding her own tired body up.

  “It’s freezing out. Come inside. I’ll make some cocoa.” She dips her chin so she can peer at me over her glasses, brows raised as she shifts her eyes to my male visitor a couple times, hinting for an explanation.

  “Mom, you remember Tory D’Angelo, right? He threw up at June’s fourth grade birthday party.”

  “Come on,” Tory whispers in exasperation.

  I glance at him and shrug. It’s the one thing I know will stick in my mom’s memory.

  “Oh, yes, the green cake. Glad to see you’re feeling better,” my mom jokes.

  Her reaction manages to pull a laugh from Tory and he drags his tired legs up the step and across my porch, reaching out his hand.

  “Much better. You sure about that cocoa, though?” He cocks a brow, somehow able to charm a real hard-ass like my mom with his personality. Her lips pucker with the smile of a blushing school girl, but he doesn’t have her completely fooled.

  Patting her hand on his cheek a few times, she says, “I’ll get you a bib.”

  My mom leads us inside and Tory glances at me with a wry smile.

  “I see where you get it,” he says.

  As my mom is riffling through our cabinets looking for stray packets of hot chocolate, Tory takes a meandering tour of the state of my home. Our house isn’t as big as his, and it isn’t fancy by any means, but it is historic.

  “It was my grandparents’ house on Mom’s side. My grandfather built it,” I say, feeling the need to narrate his experience. He runs a hand along a wooden sill under a stained glass window that overlooks our dining table.

  “It must be a pretty cool feeling to stand back when you hammer in that last nail and see a house you put together.” He continues to touch the little details, like the corner nook bookcase that holds my grandmother’s dishes, and the chair railing that lines almost every wall, from the front door on to the back of the house.

  Eventually, he turns his attention to the table, littered with documents and my mom’s two spare pair of reading glasses haphazardly tossed in the mix. It’s strange having him here, especially when Hayden usually stops at the door. It’s as if I’ve unintentionally built two worlds, one where the boy I’m dating kisses me in his car and takes me out for burgers, and this one, where shit feels hard. Tory, he can walk in between.

  “This is the best I could do,” my mom says, walking over with two mugs in her hand, the strings from what look like tea bags dangling from the side. She carefully sets them on the edge of the table before clearing a little space by stacking folder on top of folder.

  “You like tea?” I quirk a brow at Tory.

  “Love it,” he answers, for my mom’s benefit, while shaking his head no to me. I pucker a smile.

  We pull out chairs and sit, the rounded corner of the table barely dividing us, and I lift my mug to dunk the bag up and down. I wiggle my brows to Tory to hint that he can do the same until my mom leaves. He does.

  “Tory, it was very nice to meet the older version of you. Please, if you’re going to throw up, the powder room is . . .” My mom points to the door under the stairwell.

  “Thank you, Ms. Cortez,” Tory plays along.

  “Call me Denise,” she insists. She turns her focus to me.

  “Baby, I’m done. I’ll see you in the morning.” My mom moves to stand behind me so she can kiss the top of my head. As she does, I reach an arm up and hug her from behind.

  “Don’t forget the pencil,” I say as she shuffles away. A glance over my shoulder catches her pulling it out and tossing it on the small table where we drop our keys. She heads up the stairs with heavy thumps, and when she’s out of sight, Tory puts his mug down and pulls off his sweatshirt.

  “We like the heat in the winter.” I grimace.

  “It’s fine,” he says, his head finally free from the fabric. He runs his hand through his hair a few times to straighten it, then rolls the sweatshirt up and sets it on the table. He’s still wearing his practice jersey and shorts.

  “Long day?” I look him up and down.

  He blows out a long stream of air and stares at me, the amped part of him finally seeming calm.

  “Longest ever,” he says.

  He twists in his chair so he faces the table and pulls my script toward him, the pages now curling from me reading and carrying it around.

  “You up for a little reading?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “I don’t think you have it in you,” I respond.

  His lips pout for a second but eventually he nods and pushes the paper away, clearly exhausted.

  “You’re probably right.”

  I study him while he scans the contents of my table, all the ugly and exciting things about my life on display. It’s like the ingredients for Abby soup, a little sweet and a little sour.

  “Want to talk about therapy?” He’s staring at the latest argument my father submitted, but I’d rather talk about him than me.

  “I’m not sure,” he says, distracted and distant.

  “Okay, so . . .” I let my voice trail off.

  We sit in silence, Tory glancing over the highlights of my parents’ divorce while my stomach knots in this shameful squeeze, knowing how much worse I’ve made it all. I’ve never quite gotten over the sense that some of their relationship’s demise was my fault. The frenzied legal state it’s at now is most definitely my fault. It’s because I’m selfish, and that might be what ruins me—my mom for sure. I have a feeling Tory’s in that place now, the very beginning of it. I wish he knew his brother was right there with him. They could help each other. I had to swim through the swamp on my own.

  “I should put that on my resume,” I say, needing to break the quiet.

  “Huh?” He pushes away the page he was reading with a flick of his finger and turns his attention back to me, his hands resting in his lap.

  “Bargaining chip. That’s what I am in this whole thing. I’m a bargaining chip for my parents. I don’t really blame my mom, because she’s the one who has also been a parent along with being a manager, but it still feels kinda like—” I cut my words short when Tory interrupts.

  “Like every other kid we know gets to grow up normal and we got ripped off?”

  “Exactly,” I say. My forehead pinches as I consider that for a moment. “Though, pretty much all of our friends are from fractured families, so we really aren’t missing out.”

  “We’re missing out,” he
says swiftly. “They’re just missing out, too.”

  He stands and wanders around my kitchen, moving on to the hallway plastered in framed photos of me through the years. Most of them are headshots, but some are pictures from performances. My favorite is the one of me in tap shoes with a giant heart covered in sequins around my head.

  “You were always a diva, weren’t you?” he teases, tapping his finger on the glass of the frame. I move in closer to cut the glare and take in my ear-to-ear, full-teeth-showing smile.

  “I’m certainly always on,” I joke.

  “Not always,” he replies. I look to my right and meet his waiting stare. It isn’t that he suddenly sees me, but rather that he maybe always has and finally understands my fabric.

  “Therapy . . .” I work to bring things back to him and his needs, but he’s having none of it.

  “Show me more,” he says, moving down the wall and pivoting at the stairs. “Your room up here?”

  He points.

  “Yeah,” I croak out.

  He takes the steps slowly, probably not wanting to ruin his good graces with my mom. I follow, noting how he takes time to look at every photo on the way up. The ones here are more personal, family portraits that include people who are no longer alive. My favorite is the last one near the top of the steps, which attracts Tory’s attention. He pauses there, waiting for me to catch up to him as I climb the last three or four stairs.

  “You in a wedding or something?” he asks.

  “No, it was my fifteenth. We went down to Miami for my quinceañera. Most of my family is down there, which is why my mom prefers to be up here because my aunts and cousins are nosy, and bossy. But that’s also where my abuela lived.” I run my finger along her form in the photo. I felt so grown up on that day, so celebrated and loved. My father even showed up, and for a full weekend, he and my mom didn’t argue once.

  “You said lived,” Tory notes.

  I nod softly and turn to meet his gaze.

  “She died last year. She was in a nursing home down in Florida, and Mom and I hadn’t been to see her in almost a year.” I feel the burn of tears threaten to expose themselves, so I clear my throat and move past Tory to lead him toward my room.