Crossing the Barrier

by Martine Lewis

  At that, Wes looked up at him. “You think?”

  “No. I’m sure. If you do this again, Coach will kick you off the team. What do you think the colleges will do then? Is that what you want?”

  For his only response, Wes shook his head, his eyes fixed on the ground between them.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get groceries.” With that, Malakai turned around and climbed into his jeep.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  LILY

  After spending the weekend at Sandra’s trying to work on her homework and talking at length to her best friend about Malakai and his dating Andrea, Lily had made her way to school wishing all of it weren’t true.

  But it was.

  She had seen them kiss with her own eyes.

  She had seen them talk after the game.

  And it hurt.

  A lot.

  She had sat away from him during the last two days because being so close hurt her more than being away. And being away was like an open, festering wound to her soul. She craved his presence so much all she wanted to do was cry, like she had done at Sandra’s the previous night.

  By lunchtime, her need had turned her stomach into a ball, and her head was pounding as if the school were full of drummers playing a discordant beat. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed for the remainder of the week.

  But she had to be in school.

  She wasn’t the first person to suffer a broken heart, and she would survive. Besides, she wasn’t even dating Malakai, only liking him too much for her own good.

  As Lily made her way to the cafeteria to get lunch, she became less and less in control of her nerves. The emotions of the few students in the corridors were assaulting her already raw mind, and more than once, she had to stop and lean on the wall so she wouldn’t collapse. Her head hurt something fierce from the effort of pushing all these feelings away, and she was afraid she would pass out. She wished with all her heart Sandra was there, but she had a group assignment to complete and couldn’t meet her.

  She was still a few yards away from the cafeteria when the feelings slammed into her like a tidal wave. She took a step back and leaned against the wall, her hands on her thighs, pushing with all her might against the assault. But it was no use.

  Keeping all of it at bay was like trying to hold a wave with her bare hands. She should have known better than to believe she could manage the cafeteria without Sandra. She hadn’t been able to do it on a good day. What had possessed her to believe she could do it now that her heart was bleeding so badly?

  “Lily, are you okay?” David asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  It was her luck he happened by just as she was about to collapse.

  “No,” she answered, David’s contact finally allowing her to get her mind under control.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Brotherly concerns washed over her, and she took comfort in the feeling.

  “Too much going on,” she answered. “Too much, too soon.”

  “You’re not making sense,” he said, pulling away.

  The moment he did, Lily was hit again. Quickly, she grabbed for his hand.

  “Oh! Emotion overload,” he said, slowly nodding.

  A flash of anger accompanied his understanding, which surprised Lily. She wondered what had him so worked up but didn’t ask. It was one of those times when it was better for her to let him have his privacy.

  “I need to get lunch,” she said. “Can you…can you come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  Lily pulled from the wall and, with David’s hand on the small of her back, made her way on shaky legs into the cafeteria. At the food counter, she quickly took a few fruits, a salad, and a container of milk, and made it to the cashier, all the while shadowed by David, his hand subtly touching her at all times. She was so grateful she could have cried.

  Once she paid, they walked to the hallway. A few yards past the door, Lily turned to David. “Thank you,” she said and gave him a hug. “You’re the best.”

  Something Lily couldn’t identify was mingled with his brotherly concern. She also felt a lingering anger she could not explain.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “Where’s my sister?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow. “She’s always with you at lunch.”

  “She had to finish a group assignment at the library.”

  “Want me to come with you then?”

  “Nah. I should be okay now.”

  “Okay, well, if you need my help again, text me, okay? You know I’m here for you.”

  “Okay.”

  Lily watched him walk away, wondering again why he was so angry.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  MALAKAI

  “Oh! Isn’t that priceless,” Zoe said, gleeful about something that was going on behind Malakai’s back.

  He was sitting at his usual lunch table with a few other players, and they had been talking about the last game, the wrapping from his BLT long forgotten on the table in front of him, when Zoe interrupted him by tapping his shoulder.

  “She definitely likes to play the field, in every sense of the word.”

  Malakai followed Zoe’s glance; David was escorting Lily to the serving line. What struck Malakai the most was the way David was continuously touching her, his hand on her lower back, her arm, or her shoulder.

  That was the way Malakai wanted to touch her. And he saw red.

  He would have stood up and pounded on the center, but he remembered who he was with and swallowed his jealousy. Zoe was still behind him, entirely too satisfied, and Malakai couldn’t let her walk away without a response. Doing so would be the equivalent of losing face, and he would have none of that with this girl, especially not with his teammates around, teammates who were now looking at him with different degrees of confusion. Zoe would pounce on something like that like a jackal, and she would never let him live it down.

  “David’s like a brother to her,” he said, sporting a smile he hoped looked sincere.

  “Well, brother or not, they do look rather cozy,” Zoe said with a smirk.

  Malakai decided he had made his point and returned to the conversation with his friends.

  “You know her?” Luis asked. “She’s cute.”

  “Yeah. I bumped into her at the beginning of the year,” he answered before turning the conversation back to their last practice.

  Once the conversation was going again, Malakai glanced toward Lily. She was paying, David by her side, still touching her. Malakai clenched his fists under the table and felt like someone had punched him in the chest.

  Maybe David was not the friend Malakai had believed him to be after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  MALAKAI

  Practice later that afternoon had calmed Malakai’s temper only to a degree. He had been the last one off the field, working himself as hard as he could, and the last one in the showers. He was zipping his bag when the door to the locker room burst open. David walked in, and Malakai ground his teeth at the memory of the center walking into the cafeteria with Lily.

  The way he had been touching her…

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” David asked, taking two steps toward Malakai, his fists clenched at his side.

  Malakai frowned, taken aback by David’s anger, which rivaled his own. He had never seen the center so furious before. “What did I do to who?”

  “Lily.” David was turning an interesting shade of red and breathing as if he had run a mile-long sprint.

  “What do you mean what did I do to her? I was trying to get to know her, but obviously, I shouldn’t have bothered, seeing as you had your hands all over her no later than lunchtime.”

  Malakai could not understand why David hadn’t just claimed her when Malakai had mentioned he liked her the previous week.

  “Well, someone had to be there for her after the mess you made. I thought you were different than the others, I t
hought you liked her. But you fooled me.”

  What mess could Malakai have possibly made? He had barely spoken to Lily despite his best efforts to do so. In the last few days she had sat across the room from him in every one of their classes.

  Malakai’s short nails dug painfully into his hands.

  “You’re just like the rest of them,” David continued before Malakai had time to say anything. “You’re more interested in kissing Andrea and being part of the ‘in’ crowd.”

  “Wait! What? I don’t even like Andrea. Why would I be kissing her?”

  “You tell me. But don’t you lie to me. Lily and Sandra saw you.”

  Then it hit Malakai.

  Lily had been short with him on Friday, and had switched seats in class ever since. Friday was the day after Andrea had kissed him, the day when he had tried to tell Lily about his evening and when Wes had interrupted him. He had expected Lily to hear about the kiss, but see him?

  Then something else struck Malakai. Could Lily possibly like him back?

  “Did she go out on Thursday night?”

  “Yeah. My sister and her went out to dinner.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “What did you do?” David asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “I think she saw Andrea trying to kiss me.”

  Could things get any worse? He might lose his chance with Lily for a girl he didn’t even like.

  “Try to kiss you? Dude, how can a girl try to kiss you if you don’t want her to? And how can you think you’re not with Andrea if you go around kissing her?”

  “I didn’t kiss her; she took me by surprise. I didn’t expect it. We were talking, and the next thing I knew she was kissing me,” he said, shaking his head as if he had water in his ears. “Listen, David, I don’t like Andrea. She’s cute and all, but…I don’t like her.

  “And to be totally honest with you, I think I like Lily a lot. Like, really like, like. Like, wow-I-think-I’m-in-trouble like,” he added, scratching the back of his neck.

  “Okay. So what are you gonna do about it? I mean, Lily thinks you’re with Andrea, and I hate to tell you this ‘coz I feel like I’m betraying her, but she likes you, you know. I don’t know why, but she does.”

  Malakai’s heart completely stopped.

  She liked him.

  It was real.

  He had a chance after all.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  In reality, Malakai was afraid he would make things worse, which he seemed to be doing a lot of lately, even when he wasn’t doing anything.

  “Why don’t you come by Sunday? She’ll probably be at my house, and you can talk to her.”

  At the thought, Malakai’s heart began to race. He could easily imagine Lily in a bathing suit by the pool, and that view alone would have convinced him. In the next moment, he felt like a total douchebag to find her so physically attractive when she deserved so much more.

  “Okay,” he heard himself say, even though he knew he would try to talk to her sooner. He couldn’t wait four days. He wanted to talk to her, now.

  “But listen, dude,” David said, becoming serious again and pointing at Malakai’s chest. “Lily, she’s special. She’s like a sister to me. She has a shitty home life, and she doesn’t need anyone messing with her. She’s not your typical girl, and she deserves a good guy who will like her just the way she is. If you really like her, go for her, but don’t you dare toy with her. She doesn’t deserve that.”

  “I won’t,” Malakai said seriously.

  “Good, ‘coz if you do, I’ll seriously beat the crap out of you, and since you’re a scrawny little thing, and I’m about a hundred pounds heavier, guess who’ll win that one.”

  “I guess that hundred pounds is why you play center and I play wide receiver,” Malakai said with a chuckle.

  “Well, there’s that,” David said, now grinning.

  “Thanks, David.”

  “Don’t mention it. But fix this, with Lily, I mean.”

  Malakai nodded firmly. He had every intention of doing just that.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  MALAKAI

  The next day when Malakai made his way to his first class, Lily was sitting at the back, close to the window, reading a book. She was wearing a yellow and black school polo shirt, and Malakai never thought someone could make the school colors look so good.

  She looked miserable, however, as if she hadn’t slept the previous night, and he hated to think it was because of him. Had he known, he would have done something sooner. A girl like her should always be smiling.

  He made his way to her and sat at the empty desk to her right, dropping his bag on the floor and setting his coffee cup on the desk.

  “Hi,” he said, scratching the back of his head.

  She just looked up at him without seeing anything, as if he were a ghost.

  “I’m not dating Andrea,” he said. He grabbed the hotstopper from his cup and began to play with it.

  “Really? I could have sworn you were.” Lily turned away and resumed reading.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I don’t like her,” he added quietly.

  It was the time now or never to make it right, to tell her he liked her. Now was actually so perfect Malakai could not have created a better time if he had tried.

  “I–” he began.

  “Malakai!” someone called from the front.

  With his jaw clenched to the point of pain, Malakai looked up. Of course he had to be interrupted at this precise moment, this moment when he was about to tell the girl he liked that he actually liked her.

  Nathan, one of the defensive linemen, and Lori, one of the cheerleaders, were making their way to him. Malakai would have hit something but took three deep breaths instead.

  His moment, his perfect timing, gone.

  The newcomers took seats in front of him, and Malakai threw them a nasty glare.

  “Were we interrupting something?” Lori asked innocently.

  “Yes,” Malakai answered coldly.

  “No,” Lily answered lightly at the same time.

  Malakai glanced at Lily. She had put her book down and was smiling sweetly at Lori, who was looking at the two of them in quick succession.

  “Which one is it?” she asked.

  “Who cares?” Nathan said with a shrug. “Malakai, we’re thinking about having a party after the game Friday. You should come this time.”

  “Yeah, we’ll all be there, even Andrea,” Lori said with a knowing smile.

  Malakai flashed the girl another nasty glare, then looked at Lily when he heard a commotion coming from her desk. In the next instant, she was walking away, to her regular desk in front of the class.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Lori asked, her hand against her heart.

  “Don’t worry about her, honey,” Nathan said sweetly. “She’s just a band geek.”

  Malakai grabbed his own books and was standing up when the bell rang, and the teacher walked into the classroom, beginning his class without so much as a “Good morning”.

  Malakai dropped in his seat and stared at Lily for the entire length of the period. Once the bell rang, she immediately disappeared through the door before Malakai had time to make his way to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  LILY

  On Sunday morning, Lily woke up feeling like she had spent the night on a bed of peas. She had a lot of homework to do, which she had barely touched all week, and she had no idea how she would get through the day. At least Beatrice was away, for which she was thankful.

  The only marginally good thing that had happened since Malakai had last spoken to her was the football game on Friday night. At the beginning, the euphoria of the crowd had gotten to her again, and it was the first time since the previous game she had felt better. Unfortunately, the game had been uneventful and the other team was so pathetically bad the crowd’s euphoria and excitement had d
ied down quickly. Lily found it ironic that of all the games the uninteresting one fell on the week she needed cheering up the most.

  It had also been hard to see Malakai play, and to hear everybody saying over and over again that he was dating Andrea, even though he had told her he didn’t like the girl.

  But the worst part of Lily’s weekend had happened the previous night. Against her better judgment, Lily had agreed to attend a dinner Beatrice was giving in the hopes of pleasing her, and again, it had backfired badly.

  She sat at the dining table, next to Beatrice, smiling like the woman wanted her to. A boy in his early twenties sat next to her. He looked okay, but he was rude and condescending, treating her as if she couldn’t think on her own.

  It got worse when he touched her thigh under the table. His thoughts were so loud Lily had no problem seeing what was really on his mind, and it wasn’t pretty. He wanted to sleep with her, that she expected, but he was far from gentle about it. Images of other girls were mingled with images of her, other girls he could have very well done the same to. The horror of the situation was compounded when he sneaked his hand higher up her thigh, and Lily had to abruptly stand.

  “Mother, may I be excused? I don’t feel well,” she asked Beatrice, all pretenses at smiling gone.

  “No, you may not,” Beatrice answered gently, her perfect smile plastered on her face.

  Lily left anyway, running to the refuge of her bedroom.

  This boy was the worst one she had been introduced to, or so she believed, but she didn’t know, really. The others had never touched her, and she had never gotten a good feel for what they were really like. She had never seen images like these coming from them either. With her shielding, she had only had a general sense of her guests, and most of them had been bored if nothing else. This one had been downright nasty. He was a ball of lust, violence, and narcissism.

  Lily had had enough.

  She locked herself in her bedroom and remained there until everyone was gone. Once they left, she made her way to the kitchen to get something to eat. After all, she had left after the soup was served.