The Game Can’t Love You Back

by Karole Cozzo

  I take a step back. I wait on her. Because a minute ago it looked like she had something to say, but suddenly, she’s clammed up again. She’s silent, and rigid, looking past me into the distance, eyes focused on nothing.

  I wait on her, but she waits me out. Waits for me to shut up and leave her alone.

  My shoulders collapse. My head falls forward, and I rub at the back of my neck, all of a sudden feeling sore and tired.

  “Now you have nothing to say,” I mumble. “All right.”

  All the anger, all the everything drains from my body, and when I manage to speak again, my voice sounds as flat and emotionless as her face looks right now. “If it’s easier to make me the bad guy, because of stupid stories people are telling or how things used to be between us, well … have at it, Eve. If it’s easier to pretend nothing has changed in the name of protecting both of us … I guess go ahead.

  “I mean, whatever it takes to win, right? Go ahead. Walk away. Tell yourself whatever you have to so you can feel good about that, so you can tell yourself that you were right, that you won.”

  I only look into her eyes one final time. “You’re making the wrong call here, Eve. And the sad thing is … there are no winners.” I shake my head, swallowing hard. “This time everyone loses.”

  Another glimmer of emotion flickers in her eyes. But now it’s my turn to walk away.

  She’s almost made it easy.

  Chapter 25

  May 7

  Eve

  My brothers come home for Mother’s Day weekend, as is the expectation, as they do every year, regardless of where they’re living, stationed, or being educated come May. We have to celebrate a week early because Evan has an obligation at his base on the actual holiday, but we’re all present and accounted for. My family spends the whole weekend together, taking the train down to the Phillies game on Saturday night. Then we celebrate Mother’s Day like we always do. We go to church. We give her a bouquet of flowers. We go to brunch.

  And then we play ball.

  It’s pouring when we leave the restaurant, but rain doesn’t put a damper on the yearly tradition. My mom opens the fitness center, which is closed on Sundays, and we have access to a huge gym with a full basketball court. We play three-on-two while my dad, the least athletic of the bunch, refs the game. Mom and I play together and call Evan over to join our team. Basketball wasn’t his sport as much as the rest of us, and it evens things out a bit. We’ll cream my brothers, even with Mom playing in her less-than-layup-friendly floral skirt. She has a pair of sneakers in her office, and she’s good to go.

  During quick water breaks, I glance at my mom’s slightly shiny face. I watch her watching us, blissfully in her element—on the basketball court, with all four children in the same place at the same time, getting along. Which, for the record, is a million times easier now that we don’t all live under one roof. Eric’s rubbing the top of Evan’s head, still giving him a hard time about his military-required haircut after all these years. Ethan’s vying for equal attention from them, the way he always did as the youngest of the pack. And occasionally one of them will try to sneak up on me and grab the ball from the crook of my elbow, but I catch them every time and escape without harm.

  We’re into our second game, and our team is on its way to a second victory, when the toe of Eric’s sneaker catches my calf and leaves a nasty scrape that starts to bleed. Eric notices and forms a T with his hands to call time-out. “Eve’s bleeding.”

  “Badly?” my mom asks as she jogs over.

  “No,” I answer, wiping the blood away with my hand. I shove Eric away in retribution. “But I probably need a Band-Aid.”

  “I’ll unlock my office,” she says. “I have a first-aid kit in there.”

  The boys linger around the basket, taking free throws, and I follow my mom out of the gym, down the hallway, and into her office. She disappears under her desk to retrieve the kit, and when she comes back up, she finds me staring at a framed eight-by-ten picture on her desk.

  It’s a picture of my mom, wearing the jersey I recognize from her time playing ball overseas. In it, her face is bright red, most of her hair has escaped its messy ponytail, and she’s bent over at the waist, one hand resting on her thigh. With the other hand, she’s holding a “number one” up in the air.

  I tap the picture as she hands me the Band-Aid. “I never saw this one,” I tell her. I smile wryly over her shoulder. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

  She chuckles, leaning down to wipe my scrape with a cleansing pad. “I was,” she admits. “I had a hundred-degree fever and a strained hamstring, but that was my last game and there was no way I was going to miss it.”

  “Your last game in Germany?”

  “My last game ever,” she says. “Well, my last game that wasn’t in a rec league.”

  I slap the Band-Aid on, and when I look back up, she’s smiling fondly at the picture. “I didn’t know at the time I’d be married and pregnant within the year.”

  “Because you met Dad?”

  My mother shrugs. “Not because I met your father; not really. He probably would have supported me, tried to work something out, if I’d decided to stay in Europe. But he was being sent back to the States, and our relationship was too new for me to be traveling around Europe and him going from base to base back here and have any chance of surviving. So … that was my last game.”

  I tilt my head and stare at the picture some more. Her love for the game practically oozes from the photograph, which is now over twenty-five years old. It’s still tangible. “You just gave it up?” I hear myself asking. “Just like that? For … Dad?”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “I kind of think your father would be offended to hear you put it that way.”

  Then her face grows serious. She reaches out and touches her image behind the frame. “I loved playing ball with my whole heart. I loved being this girl. I loved how tough she was; I loved winning; I loved feeling bulletproof. And it wasn’t an easy decision, when I had to choose between staying in Germany and coming home to be with your father.” She turns and gives me a quick smile. “I mean, I’d loved basketball my whole life; I’d only just met him. But then I realized something,” she continues. “Yes, I loved basketball with my whole heart, but … it was sort of a one-sided relationship.” My mom looks at me. “I realized the game can’t love you back.”

  Her words feel like an unexpected punch to the gut, and I struggle to keep my face from revealing how they knock the wind out of me.

  “I thought I liked that,” she tells me. “The other choice was scary, moving and marriage and everything. Relationships … they take everything—your tears and your energy and your patience. But…” My mom reaches for the other picture on her desk. In it, all four of us kids are eating Fudgsicles on a particularly hot summer day. We’re sweaty and messy from playing outside. My brothers are shirtless and chocolate’s everywhere—running down chins, arms, legs, and bellies. “Relationships give you back even more if you take the leap.” I notice her throat tightening as she puts the picture back into place. “And I wouldn’t change anything I did for the world. Over time, I started seeing it differently. Putting your heart on the line and being weak aren’t the same thing.”

  The watery pressure in my eyes surprises me with its quickness, how my tears betray my attempt to stay emotionless, and I bat my eyelids furiously in an attempt to keep the tears from showing themselves. But my mom notices anyway, or maybe she notices my hands curling into fists at my side, or the way my chest is quaking, the way I’m physically protesting everything she’s speaking of. Putting my heart out there or being weak … I’m not sure I know the difference yet.

  I hated the way it hurt, how hurting felt like losing, after I let him in and then had to be reminded at every turn about the girls who had come before me. I hated how it felt, having my private business put on public display at the party. I hated the way it hurt, even after I tried to shut him out, remembering
those accusations he made, realizing they were true.

  Your brain is telling you to wise up, but your heart is asking you to listen to something other than reason.

  And the struggle … it hurts.

  My mom’s mouth falls open as she watches me. “Eve? Baby?”

  “I don’t like the way it feels,” I whisper, afraid my voice will crumble if I speak any louder, “putting myself out there. It doesn’t feel like me.”

  “I understand.” She nods. “It feels like you’re trying to wear someone else’s skin, and it doesn’t fit right, and it makes you uncomfortable inside and out.”

  “Pretty much,” I mumble. She’s quiet, waiting me out, and eventually I continue. “I just want to run away from the feeling. Go back to the old me. But”—I pause, feeling the tears on the verge of forming again—“it’s like, I can’t quite find my way back there, either.”

  “You’ve had to be tough for so long. Stand up to people’s comments and underestimating you, even mocking you. Stepping into situations where it’s felt like you didn’t have too many allies. It’s scary to let down your defenses after building them up.” My mom considers this for a minute. “But sometimes when you stop resisting change, it doesn’t feel so awful or overwhelming anymore. It’s not as painful when you decide to let it happen.”

  She glances downward, from the corner of her eye, purses her lips like she’s thinking about something. “Speaking of painful…” She hems and haws a bit more before finally spitting it out. “You might want to give up the Ace bandage. That doesn’t feel good. And it makes it hard to breathe.”

  My head jerks up in surprise and my cheeks heat. “Oh my God, you know about that?”

  “Been there, done that,” my mom answers sagely. She points to her own chest. “These revealed themselves at a really inconvenient time, too.”

  “Mom!” I’m mortified, and appalled … and laughing away my tears.

  She sighs and gives me a hug. “My tough girl. I never would’ve wanted you to be any other way. But … for the record…” She steps back, hands on my shoulders, studying me at arm’s length. “I’d be okay getting to know the other parts of you, too. It doesn’t make you weak to acknowledge them.”

  I don’t say anything, thinking our conversation has just about reached maximum cheese capacity.

  “Does all this have something to do with Jamie?”

  The question takes me by surprise, and I inhale suddenly, answering her question without meaning to. A sharp pang of regret hits my gut, and I quickly shake my head. “Not so much,” I tell her. “I’m pretty sure that situation is botched beyond recognition.”

  “Too bad,” she says a minute later. She strides toward the gym, preparing herself for a quick getaway before offering a final opinion on my life. “He was kind of charming.”

  I linger in her office, collapsing on the corner of her desk, needing a minute or two to collect myself before going out to face my brothers and my dad. I feel about ten times girlier than I did walking into my mom’s office, and I can’t seem to bring myself to head back to the court.

  I stare at my mom’s blank wall, thinking back on the week.

  It sucked.

  Me, the girl who generally avoided parties altogether, ended up being the focal point of one of the most talked-about stories to come out of the Party of the Year. I endured Marcella’s endless questions, stares on Monday from people I didn’t even know, and, worst of all, the tension on the field as Jamie and I did everything to keep our distance at the same time our team was trying to secure a trip to districts.

  I could barely even look at him. I’d gotten over feeling disgusted by the stories his friends were telling; now I was disgusted with myself. The night of the party, sometime around midnight, it occurred to me that the things Jamie had said to me were incredibly similar to the things Marcella had said to me after the fashion show. Too similar. And if Jamie and my best friend actually saw it the same way, then … maybe there were some habits I needed to own up to.

  But I couldn’t do anything about it, not really. Lingering anger surrounded him like a force field, making him entirely unapproachable, not like I had the words to fix things even if I ever found the courage to approach him. So I suffered in silence, doing the best I could to keep my head in the game when we were on the field. All the while knowing that with every day that passed, there was another day between us, another day taking us back to the place where we had started. If neither one of us did anything, we’d be back there all too soon. And regardless of how the series turned out, regardless of who got the trophy … Jamie might be right after all.

  We might both end up losing.

  Chapter 26

  May 10

  Jamie

  I’m about a mile away from the school when I notice a person walking on the side of the road, heading in the same direction. I tense up when I get close enough to recognize the curls bouncing over her shoulders, the purple bomber jacket, and the fit of those tight jeans.

  Just keep driving, man.

  It’s been over a week since the party, but I’m still not really feeling too friendly toward Naomi. No, she wasn’t the cause of the problem, but she sure as hell was a catalyst. And she’s definitely pissed off at me, from the way she’s been stopping abruptly and turning on her heel when we end up in the same hallway and staring right through me if we happen to end up in the same group together.

  I don’t owe her anything. And I’m already running late.

  But just as I’m about to pass her, I see the way the wind lifts her hair, how she clutches the sides of her thin jacket together, trying to keep warm on an unseasonably cold morning, and decency gets the better of me. I slam on the brakes, the Jeep coming to a grinding halt in the gravel, causing her to startle and lurch into the grass.

  I lower the passenger window, immediately finding her glaring at me through it.

  “Thanks for the early morning heart attack.” Naomi turns away, tosses her curls, and keeps walking.

  I hit the gas again, driving a couple of feet and idling beside her. “Just get in.”

  I’m trying to be nice here, but I’m not really in the mood to kiss her ass.

  She still won’t look at me. “No thanks.”

  “Naomi. We’re, like, a mile away from school and it’s already seven fifty. Just get in so neither of us is later than we need to be.”

  “I said no.”

  But she makes the mistake of looking over at me, and damn it, I can see hurt there, hiding out behind her indignant pride. And I’m kind of tired of hurting girls when I never even meant to, when I was just trying to … I don’t know … do something differently for once.

  So I slam on the brakes a second time, put the car in park, and jump out and jog around to intercept her path. She stares into the distance over my shoulder, chewing on the inside of her cheek, like if she just keeps ignoring me long enough I’ll vanish.

  I inhale a deep breath, trying to work up the motivation for this. “Look. I’m sorry about the prom thing, okay? I know you thought we were going, and I know it’s a big deal to you. I didn’t mean to screw you over. My head was … somewhere else.”

  “With someone else,” she says.

  I look down, kicking at the dirt with my sneaker. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “You should’ve been honest. And a hell of a lot sooner.”

  Then, even though in all these years I’ve never seen Naomi cry, I swear her eyes start looking a little shiny as we stand there on the side of the road.

  “I don’t want you as my boyfriend or anything, just so that’s clear.” Her shoulders fall and she leans against the side of my car. “But I did … I don’t know … depend on you to be there.” She glances over at me with a small, wry smile. “I always thought we were actually, you know, friends apart from everything else. I always felt like you had my back. It sucked when all of a sudden you didn’t.”

  I look at Naomi. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. I’ve said it before, but this
time, the regret makes my throat tighten, because she’s right—both of us know what it feels like to have people let us down, time and time again, and I don’t want to be one more of those people to her.

  She studies me for a long minute, eyes narrowed, like she’s evaluating the sincerity of my apology or considering how she wants to play this.

  “Guess I’ll think about letting you make it up to me,” she finally says. “Since it wasn’t like I ended up without any options. Brendan’s happy to be going with me.”

  “Did you really think you’d end up without any options?”

  “Not really,” she admits after a beat. She grins. “It’s me we’re talking about.”

  Naomi pushes off my car. “Enough of the deep conversation this early in the morning. Are you gonna drive me to school or what? Piece-of-shit car wouldn’t start today.”

  “Yeah. Get in.” Before walking back around to my side, I give her shoulders a quick squeeze, just to reassure her. “Anytime.”

  * * *

  The next day, after showering and changing into my school clothes after gym class, I linger in the back hallway, outside Coach’s office. His door is closed. It’s weird to find his door closed, so I pull the crumpled pass out of my back pocket to check on the time. I glance at it, see that I’m here at the right time, shrug, and lean against the wall to wait for him to show up.

  But after all the other kids filter out of the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms and the next class files in, after the bell rings and the corridor becomes quiet again, when I see a figure making her way down the hallway, my back stiffens and I stand straight again. Suddenly I feel trapped in the dead-end hallway, because it’s not Coach approaching. It’s Eve.

  I recognize her walk now—long, purposeful strides without any sway in her hips. I recognize the fiery orange Nikes, the ones she’s put yellow-and-black laces in. As she gets closer still, I recognize something else, and it’s the punch-to-the-gut sensation of a familiar scent, the kind only a scent from the past can deliver, because your brain identifies it as a scent from the past. Eve doesn’t smell like “yummy cupcake” or “just-peachy-and-cream” or any other ridiculous girly scent. Eve smells like Tide-washed cotton straight out of the dryer, with a touch of worn leather mixed in, from spending so much time with her glove, I guess. She comes all the way into view, and I recognize one final thing, something I’ve almost forgotten. That look on her face, the one that reveals nothing. I used to see it all the time—her ready-for-battle face, her chin slightly jutted out, her nostrils slightly flared. Eve’s face relaxed for a while there, but … here it is again, forcing me to forget the girl I’d started to get to know, reminding me that in no time at all we’ve ended up on different teams again.