The Game Can’t Love You Back

by Karole Cozzo

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  Copyright Page

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  For all my fellow feisty girls

  The Farmington Reporter

  December 28

  ELECTRICAL FIRE DESTROYS GYM, SENIOR WING OF FARMINGTON SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL

  Staff Reporter

  In a fortunate turn of events, Farmington South High School was closed for winter break when an electrical fire broke out at approximately nine o’clock Tuesday morning, and no staff, students, or family members were present at the time. The fire raged for over an hour before it was contained, ultimately destroying the gym and senior hallway of the building. Investigators report that the fire is being attributed to a wiring system compromised by age and wear.

  Farmington South High School, originally the sole high school within the district, was slated for renovations at the close of the school year, which were scheduled to run the entirety of next school year as well. However, in light of the fire, students will be absorbed by Farmington East High School for the remainder of the current school year, effective January 4.

  This announcement from the superintendent, Dr. Gerald Coyle, was met with concern and disappointment, especially from members of the Farmington South senior class and members of sports teams that are midseason. While sports that are currently in season will continue to represent Farmington South, spring sports athletes will also be absorbed by Farmington East teams.

  “Our hearts go out to the students who will have their lives, academic plans, and extracurricular activities disrupted by this event,” Superintendent Coyle said on Wednesday evening. “However, I urge everyone to remember that while Farmington has been operating with two high schools, at heart we are one community, and I know we will all come together to support the students from Farmington South as they cope with the loss of their school earlier than anticipated.”

  The superintendent announced that Farmington South students will receive their class schedules in the mail prior to school recommencing in January, and that school staff is working overtime to rework the existing Farmington East schedule to accommodate the influx of new students.

  Saturday, December 31

  Dear Superintendent Coyle:

  On behalf of Farmington South varsity athletes, I’m writing to ask for your reconsideration of the decision to integrate the Farmington athletic teams for the upcoming spring season. We understand that this will put somewhat of a strain on resources and practice facilities available at Farmington East, but we are willing to be flexible and understanding if allowed to continue to represent the Farmington South Bulldogs for the remainder of the school year.

  For many of us, the bulldog is more than an emblem we wear on our uniforms—it is a source of pride and a tradition of excellence that we are passionate about upholding. We have been asked to adjust to many sudden changes, and being allowed to keep our teams together would go a long way in terms of bolstering our spirits at this time.

  To show my level of commitment to this effort, I have spent the last twenty-four hours of my winter break driving around the community, collecting signatures from 152 fellow student athletes in support of this petition, which are included below. We are willing to do whatever it takes to remain Bulldogs, and we sincerely hope you understand our feelings at this time, and will reconsider what seems to be the “easy” decision to collapse the teams for the spring season. Not only are team titles, personal awards, and scholarships for graduating athletes on the line, our very identity as Bulldogs is being stripped away. We beg you to rethink and rework this.

  Respectfully,

  Eve Marshall

  Varsity Soccer—Cocaptain

  Varsity Basketball—Cocaptain

  Varsity Baseball

  National Honor Society—Treasurer

  Peer Tutor

  Spanish Club

  Bulldogs Go Green Club

  Mock Trial

  Future Business Leaders of America

  Choral Club

  Monday, January 2

  Dear Miss Marshall:

  Thank you for your thoughtful, well-written letter on behalf of your fellow student athletes—it is a testament to the intelligence and spirit that students from Farmington South will bring to their new school tomorrow!

  However, unfortunately, I am unable to grant your request that Farmington South athletes be able to continue as separate teams for the spring season. In considering facilities, transportation, staffing, and scheduling with the schools coming together, it is simply not possible.

  I assure all Farmington South athletes that you will find your rightful place on Farmington East Pirates teams, and that these teams will be even stronger when you come together. I ask you to keep an open mind and consider the benefits of our teams joining.

  I wish you all the best in this transition. I’m certain you will rise to the occasion.

  Go Pirates!

  Kindly,

  Dr. Gerald Coyle

  Superintendent, Farmington Area School District

  Two months later …

  Chapter 1

  March 1

  Eve

  I’m seeing stars.

  I wake up at six forty-five a.m. and hazy early morning sunbeams illuminate my sheer curtains, but after my eyes adjust to the light, I’m still seeing stars.

  Three smaller stars shoot out from the marble base of the trophy, aspiring to reach the bigger, central star they frame, the one that’s engraved with a golden basketball. The trophy is draped in the net from the championship game. The W was a team effort, and some might say the net should be displayed with the big team trophy at school. But most people would say the net belongs to me, so here it is.

  I smile, the same smile I’ve woken with for the past week, since the trophy came home with me. My trophy spent the first night on the pillow beside my head, but now it’s in its permanent home so I can wake to the sight of it every morning. State champions. It has a damn fine ring to it.

  My gaze drifts to the left of the trophy, coming to rest on the framed certificate commemorating my selection to the All-County Girls’ Soccer First Team in the fall. EVE MARSHALL, FARMINGTON SOUTH, JUNIOR, 5′8″, FORWARD. Not as newsworthy as a state championship, but the best I could hope for. Offense wins games; defense wins championships. And on the soccer field, I didn’t have the defense to back me up and take us all the way. A familiar sense of satisfaction fills my chest as I look at my name. I don’t say it out loud, but maybe I prefer individual accolades anyway. I was pumped I’d been recognized as an individual, at least.

  And then my gaze drifts right, past the stars, to the empty spot I’d reserved on my shelf. Before, a Cy Young trophy ending up there was inevitable, but now … My smile disappears as I grind my molars together. Stupid fire. Stupid Dr. Coyle and heartless administrative decision-making. They’ve effed up everything.

  I whip my covers back, my feet hit the cold wood floor, and I storm into the bathroom for a quick shower. My thick, lon
g dark hair is so routinely plaited into two French braids to keep it out of my face, it could probably braid itself by now, and it stays in place despite the shower.

  Then, feeling subversive—and ready, willing, and able to show it—I tug a Farmington South Bulldogs hoodie over my head and pull on a pair of black sweatpants. My sneakers are the only clothing I put any time into selecting. Studying all eleven pairs of Nikes, I finally select the black-and-fluorescent-green Cross Bionics. They’re badass. Superhero colors.

  After bounding down the stairs, I’m in and out of the kitchen in a flash, grabbing a Clif Bar from the pantry and a bottle of Minute Maid from the fridge. Marcella’s already behind the wheel of the cheery red Jetta parked in the driveway next door. She’s bobbing her head, shiny brown hair gyrating right along with her, and her lips are moving. Taylor Swift. I inhale a deep breath. I just know it’s Taylor Swift.

  I sling my backpack onto my shoulders and cross the narrow patch of grass that separates our houses. As I climb into the passenger seat, she quickly swipes her index finger across the face of her iPhone to silence the music, but not before I get a glimpse of the cover art on the screen, a wild mass of blond curls and red lips. Swifty. Knew it.

  “Good morning, Eve,” she greets me.

  I glance at Marcella’s colorful outfit. Mustard wool miniskirt, tight red sweater worn over a shirt that she’d referred to as “chambray” when I’d questioned if jean shirts were really in style outside of Nashville. She should look like a walking advertisement for hot dog condiments, but somehow, on Marcella, it works. It always works. “Why are you so fancy today?” I ask.

  “It’s not fancy, it’s classy. There’s a difference.” She gives me a once-over and scrunches her face up. “Why are you so unfancy? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

  “Look at my face.” I give her my death stare and toss my bag onto the floor with more force than necessary. “Does it look like I’m in the mood?”

  Marcella shrugs once and backs out of the driveway. I’m pretty sure she knows better than to take my moods personally.

  For the record, probably the only, and I mean only, reasons Marcella and I became best friends are (1) we were born exactly one week apart, and (2) we have lived next door to each other our whole lives. There’s no undoing a friendship that was an entire childhood in the making, regardless of how totally different we’ve always been.

  So we drive in comfortable silence the two and a half miles to Scott’s house, finding him sitting at the curb, eating a sausage-and-egg breakfast sandwich. A second one is wrapped in foil on the sidewalk beside him. His face breaks out in that wide, patented Scott grin the second he sees us, for no damn reason at all. Scott’s always smiling for no damn reason at all, and usually the sight of his smile makes me smile, too. Scott MacIntyre’s my other best friend, the “mac to my cheese” as he likes to say, but nothing can shake my surly mood today.

  Scott is short and squat, as if his body’s been compressed from all the time he’s spent behind the plate, catching for me, and he lumbers into the backseat. He leans over the headrest and grips my shoulders with both hands. He shakes me a little bit. “Pitchers report today, baby!”

  I twist in my seat and give him my best Really? face.

  He collapses back with a sigh and buckles his seat belt. “The team is going to be stronger than ever,” he says. “You just need to get with the program.”

  “You’re delusional if you think it’s going to be that simple.” I flick my braids over my shoulders and reach down to pull my chem binder from my bag, promptly ending the conversation. I have an exam today, and it won’t hurt to work out a few more practice equations now, especially since I’m supposed to be picking trash up with the Go Green Club during my study hall. And it’s a waste of his breath to try to convince me that what’s happening today is a good thing.

  I inhale sharply as I remember last season’s first practice. I jumped out of bed that day, counted down the minutes of every single class. The memory brings a stabbing pain of loss to my gut. I used to relish the first day of practice. Today I’m dreading it like nothing else. I clench my fists around the binder edges, my mixed-up emotions simmering down to a bitter anger as I consider—for about the hundredth time—the injustice of it all.

  * * *

  When we enter the lobby, which still smells and feels unfamiliar—even two months in—an invisible magnet draws Brian to Marcella. Literally. Their bodies make contact at several points, simultaneously. Fingertips. Hips. Lips. It’s all a little bit too much for 7:40 in the morning. Okay, a lot bit too much. I should be used to it by now, since Brian and Marcella are pretty much an institution. Brian and Marcella. Marcella and Brian. They’ve been together for so long now, sometimes it’s hard to tell where Marcella ends and Brian starts.

  They turn back toward me and Scott. We huddle close together in the crowded space, still working at recognizing faces, trying to find friends among strangers. The lines are starting to blur some, which aggravates me. Hands in fists, I fold my arms across the bulldog on my chest, just as a rowdy group behind me shoves its smallest member, a short girl with pink hair the color of Bazooka gum, right into my back, pushing me into Scott.

  “Whoa, sorry.” She giggles as she attempts to right herself, pulling her oversize black hoodie back up on her shoulder.

  I get a better look at her. In addition to the cotton-candy-colored hair, she has pink-and-blue gauges in both earlobes. Two round studs pierce the skin above her lips. Underneath the heavy eye makeup, she looks like she’s about twelve.

  Then she scampers off, losing herself among the group of ripped-black-shirt-wearing guys who were jostling her about.

  I quirk an eyebrow and shake my head.

  “Your judgment is showing.” Scott grins, nudging me in the ribs. “You might want to tuck that back in.”

  “No judgment,” I lie. “I just don’t get people like that. Who works so hard at not fitting in?”

  Marcella snickers.

  “What?”

  I swear her gaze flicks to my Bulldogs sweatshirt, but she just smiles at Brian and shakes her head. “Nothing.” She tugs on his hand. “We should go. The student council meeting’s all the way down in Mrs. Trimble’s room. And today we’re taking the final vote on the prom theme!”

  “Okay, babe.”

  Marcella, the eternal good sport, is handling the loss of her presidency over the junior class of Farmington South with grace and dignity, jumping right back into school politics at Farmington East without missing a beat. She separates herself from Brian for a quick second to give me a hug, the scent of her trademark Burberry perfume washing over me. “See you at lunch.” She tugs on a braid before reaching for Brian’s hand again.

  “See you.”

  My gaze follows them as they’re swallowed up by the sea of bodies, and I catch a glimpse of some of my friends from the South girls’ basketball team in the alcove near the ramp. I gesture toward them and Scott nods, down for whatever. I take three steps in their direction … and then stop in my tracks, fingers tightening into an angry claw around my black backpack strap.

  Blocking my path is the Farmington East baseball team. Its members are loud and amped, several of them dressed in last year’s T-shirts, bearing the words THERE’S NO “I” IN TEAM. And as I watch them, they get even louder and more amped, calling out and slapping fives. Because their captain has just arrived, whipping them into a frenzy.

  And God grant me patience. Because if his entrance wasn’t so damn irritating, I would walk over and laugh in his pretty face.

  Jamie Abrams.

  He swaggers across the lobby with the air of a rapper who’s sustained a gunshot wound or something. I mean, I swear, he might actually be faking a limp. It’s early March and partly cloudy, yet he has sunglasses on. Inside. Jamie’s got his East baseball cap on backward, and he’s wearing his Windbreaker, embroidered with his cocky nickname—ACE—in gold over his chest.

  Jamie Abrams, Go
d’s gift to Farmington baseball. God’s gift to Farmington girls.

  I can’t stand him.

  Not that I’ve ever spoken to him. I’ve been avoiding him like the plague the past couple of months.

  But that doesn’t stop me from hating him, or more specifically, hating the idea of him. From what I’ve observed—discreetly, of course—his prime objectives for coming to school include flaunting his overhyped image and finding his next hookup. He’s always talking, always laughing, always whispering in one girl or another’s ear. I can’t really believe he takes anything that seriously, so I highly doubt that baseball is an exception.

  Even if he has been the star pitcher for two years and counting, securing the position his freshman year, which is pretty much unheard-of. He’s good, sure, but there’s no way in hell he’s as dedicated as I am.

  Yet I’m willing to bet he feels entitled to that Cy Young trophy. Because everyone makes him out to be such a rock star. Because this team is more his than mine.

  That trophy belongs on my shelf.

  And there’s only one for the taking now.

  My natural competitive impulses flare, and I realize I’m glaring at him. I shake my head in frustration. I’m used to glaring at the person in the batter’s box, not the one wearing the same uniform.

  As I stand there, shooting daggers, something weird happens. I see the muscles in his back tense beneath his Windbreaker and he stops running his mouth, midsentence. He turns and looks right in my direction, as though he can feel my fiery gaze upon his back.

  Slowly, he removes his hat, running one hand over the top of his close-cropped light brown hair. The glasses come off next, and before I’m ready for it, his cool, steady, slate-blue eyes are piercing mine. The look on his face bears no trace of the sleepy-eyed, cocky smirk combo I usually see him using when he focuses on other girls.