“That smells good,” Dad says, joining me at the stove. He stares down into the pan with a hopeful expression on his face. “Cooking for a crowd?”
“Not exactly.”
“That’s a pretty big snack.”
He’s a terrible hinter.
“I’m hungry. I need energy for the game tonight.”
He doesn’t seem to notice the way my voice falls flat, instinctively defensive. I don’t want him to ask about the game, about my reasons for going. About my first interactions with Jen and Bean and everyone else. He’ll want to hear about how everything is fine. That my friends are standing beside me. And when I can’t confirm those things, he’ll worry about what they’re saying. What they might do to me at the powder-puff game. He’ll want to protect me.
But I want to protect him. He doesn’t need to spend his worry on me when he’s busy running a farm, especially since it’s the first harvest season without Caleb here to help.
I fling a piece of bacon in the pan and the melted fat hits me in the face.
“How was being back at school this week?” he asks as he hands me a paper towel.
I wipe my cheek slowly, watching the bacon finish browning. The question is inevitable, I realize. “Okay.”
“People aren’t being . . . ?”
“It’s fine.” The anonymous note left in my locker was the only one that directly referred to what happened that night, except for the ones calling me a killer. And there was no follow-up. I don’t know if the occasional knots that tie in my stomach are because I’m not sure who left it for me—and what they want me to do about it—or due to the powder-puff game tonight.
He nods slowly and maybe he believes me when I say it’s fine, maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he lets it go and I’m grateful. “Right. You need a ride to the game tonight?”
“I’ll ride my bike,” I say, dishing the bacon strips onto a paper towel–lined plate. “Thanks anyway.”
“Enjoy your snack.” He snags two pieces, tossing the hot bacon slices between his hands to cool them, and steps out through the back door.
I watch his long, sure strides until he disappears before I sit down at the kitchen table with my plate.
I can still hear Dad’s flat tone as he told me that they were sending me to his sister’s in Kansas City. A never-ending echo of disappointment. Now that I’m back, we go about our days like neither of us can remember details: me, what happened that night, and him, that open desperation to get rid of me. It creates a strange tension, the inability to look each other in the eye.
Mom’s reaction last May was different. When the alcohol results came in proving that I hadn’t been drinking, that it was something else that caused the accident, she only said, “I knew it all along.”
There’s a certain kind of faith mothers have that makes life bearable.
The crowds are never as big for the powder-puff game as they are for the real homecoming game.
“It’s because they call it powder-puff,” Jen used to say bitterly. “Like we’re out on that field with our makeup kits.” And then she’d roll her eyes all, What can we do?
Still, the south stands, where the late-afternoon sun has warmed the metal, are almost completely full of spectators. The loudest are the alum football players, sneaking sips from flasks hidden down the front of their pants, sexist remarks, as always, at the ready.
“Give me a touchdown, Selena!” someone with a deep voice yells.
“Touch me down!” The guy next to him adds, not making much sense but also not seeming to care.
For one of the first times this school year, the abuse isn’t for me. Those guys don’t care about me and won’t, unless my shirt flies up at some point.
Selena folds her arms across her chest and turns her back to the stands, a frown dragging her mouth down.
But the boys still holler. “I like that view better!”
I finish securing my braid. My blood is hot and angry for Selena. For all of us here, just wanting to play the game.
But then the girls on the field notice I’ve arrived and Selena’s eyes light up. She crosses over to me and plants herself close enough that I can smell what she had for dinner.
“Pretty ballsy coming out tonight,” she says. Her long, dark hair is held back in a ponytail and with an elastic headband, but a piece has escaped and I can’t help watching it as it spills across her high cheekbone.
“I have every right to be here.” I dig my palms into my hips, opening my body to her. Proving my fearlessness. She can’t see the way I’m pressing my toes into the tops of my shoes to keep steady, though. She can’t feel the clenching in my stomach.
In a moment that passes so quickly I wonder if I’ve imagined it, a flicker of worry draws her eyebrows together. Selena hesitates, searching for the correct next thing to say. We are being watched. She is under pressure.
But she struggles. For one tiny second.
Suddenly she throws her hands against my chest.
I stumble backward, catching myself in a half crouch, as though my life depends on not hitting the ground. My ankle threatens to give way, but I will it to behave. I know I look like an idiot; I hear laughter around me. I feel small and tinny under their comments, and if I could walk away without consequences, I would. But turning my back means they win. It means I’ll never be the Kayla I used to be.
“You’re going down, bitch.” One of their voices sails over to me.
“Careful, that’s the killa you’re talking to,” someone else says.
“Watch out,” Selena says in a low voice, just loud enough so I can hear. I can’t tell if the warning is malicious or if she’s actually concerned.
Across the field, Jen watches us as she adjusts the drawstring in her shorts. Not participating. Not stopping it, either. I am so far away from being able to guess what she’s thinking, that it’s hard to believe we were best friends.
I step forward again, closer to Selena. “You too.”
The homecoming court—Jen and Selena and two girls who are not me—was voted on the third day of school after a whirlwind campaign of cupcakes, stickers, and empty promises of friendship in exchange for votes. The winners were announced during fifth period the next day. Some people, like Jay and Jen, were shoo-ins from the beginning. I would have been, too, probably. In a different life. But now, the four girls who still belong to this town are called out onto the field, and everyone’s attention shifts away from me. I jog slowly in place to warm up as they pick captains. Jen’s one of them, holding her yellow flags in two hands.
The rest of us line up along the fifty yard line and wait. I will Jen to look at me. Remember the promise we made each other last year?
She doesn’t look at me.
But Maria, the other captain, does. And she picks first.
“Kayla Martin,” she says without hesitating.
I pretend I get why she picked me first as I sprint over amid hoots and jeers from the field and the stands, take my red flag, and secure it around my waist. My face burns, so I stare at the ground so they can’t see. Maybe it’s a pity move. Or Maria wants someone she knows can catch a football. Probably, though, she picked me to be a dedicated battering ram.
The teams begin to fill out. Jen picks Selena first. My team huddles before we all take our places on the field. Arms drape over every shoulder but mine.
Mrs. Armstrong, our PE teacher, waits, her silver whistle dangling from her mouth.
“Okay, ladies,” Maria says into our small circle of girls, her breathing picking up. “I’m QBing. Hannah, Riley, Fiona, Sarah, and Mel, you’re my lineswomen. Patsy, I want you as running back. Kayla, you’re going wide. Everyone else . . . just find something useful to do. Let’s do this thing.”
We clap and emerge from our huddle. Take our positions at the 50-yard line as Hannah is handed the football and drops into a high crouch. We don’t do kickoffs in powder-puff. I pick a spot on the far left of our line and look at the player assigned to cover me.
<
br /> It’s Jen.
My mouth goes dry. I press my weight into the balls of my feet and tear my eyes away from the hard challenge on her face.
Mrs. Armstrong blows the whistle and the stands erupt in cheers. My pulse throbs in my neck, rushes through my limbs. Static and words of some sort blare out over the PA system. Sounds are muddied as I trace the route I’ll take on the field with my eyes.
“Hike!” Maria yells, and I sprint straight at Jen, fake inside, then blow by on her left-hand side, watching over my shoulder as Maria launches the football in my direction. I’m wide open. I make the catch, tuck the ball under my arm, and face the end zone, just as a pair of hands grabs my ankle. Pain shoots up my leg and my vision dazzles black and spotty white. I slam, whole-body, into the ground, my breath flying out of me, but hang on to the ball.
Mrs. Armstrong blasts her whistle.
“Sorry, Mrs. Armstrong,” Jen says, getting up from her dive. “I was aiming for the flag. Just missed.”
“Are you okay, Kayla?” Mrs. Armstrong asks me.
I stand and brush myself off, moving my ankle in a slow circle until I’m sure I can put my weight on it without limping. A few yards away, Maria watches me, a hard line formed by her mouth, and I get it. She picked me because she knows I’ll do whatever it takes to win. To belong again.
I nod and suck in a quick breath between my teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Kayla Martin with a gain of eighteen yards.” A voice comes over the PA system. “First down at the thirty-two.”
I wipe my hands on my shorts and take my place on my team’s side of scrimmage again. The grass is thick but trimmed short. I stare at it until I catch my breath, then I raise my gaze and lock eyes with Jen.
Bring it.
The afternoon marches on in a blurring series of plays that leave Jen and me both on the ground. Mrs. Armstrong’s whistle hardly takes a rest. The spectators have caught on to something happening and the loudest cheers come when Jen or I have added another injury to our bodies. A bruise in her ribs from my elbow. A scrape across my chin from a well-timed trip that sends me flying across the grass.
But neither of us asks for a truce. We’re settling a score and I’m hell-bent on coming out on top.
My team is behind by one touchdown at the eight yard line with four minutes to go in the last quarter, and I’m ready to tie it up. Maria’s been running the ball the last few plays, but as we huddle, she says, “Get open, Kayla. And don’t you dare drop the ball.”
“No problem.”
I line up across from Jen. She looks tired. Her knees are an angry shade of pink. Raw. I’ve stopped feeling pain—anything—in my bad ankle.
“Hike!”
I dash by the girls battling at the line of scrimmage, then shoot across them on the diagonal, throwing everything I have into this burst of speed. I see Maria pull her arm back and ready myself for the pass. As the ball soars through the air, someone tugs on my braid. My head snaps backward. I spin, keeping my feet under my body, my hands still clamoring for the football. The flash of Jen’s ponytail whipping toward me hides her fist.
Five hard knuckles connect with my cheek with a cracking sound. Finally, I go down. The football lands harmlessly in the end zone and rolls away.
Mrs. Armstrong’s whistle goes ballistic. My teammates yell and gesture angrily. The crowd is wild, stomping in the stands. My face throbs. Blood trickles from my nose to my mouth. I wipe it away with the back of my hand.
“What is going on here?” Mrs. Armstrong yells, running over.
Jen holds her arm out to me. Her brown eyes are hard but a little glassy, too. I’m not the only one smarting. “This field is really slick.”
I clasp my fingers around her wrist and she hauls me to my feet.
“We keep slipping,” I agree breathlessly. Because that’s the way things are done. I accept this beating, and it’s proof of my dedication to her. To her brother. To this town.
“You have to go off the field until the bleeding stops,” Mrs. Armstrong instructs me. I can tell she wants to say something else, but before she can, the crowd’s noise rises to a height we haven’t heard yet.
We all look to the sidelines. Jay Brewster strides onto the field, followed by half the football team’s starting lineup. He’s giving everyone his signature aw-shucks grin, running a hand through his blond hair, tossing a football casually up and down. People start descending out of the stands to crowd around and cheer on the football heroes. The guys give each other friendly punches in the shoulders, clasp fists, and chest-bump. They start to spread out across the field. And even though we have the field until seven, we know they’re here to claim their territory.
Jen and I are the first to look away from the boys. Our expressions, I know, are mirror images of annoyance.
The story of Jen’s life.
But Jen recovers in the blink of an eye.
“I guess game’s over,” she announces with a forced laugh. “We win!”
Her team jumps into a big shrieking pile while the rest of us stand around, wishing this was a more fair game. Maria and the rest of my team are all pissed but not at me, at least. They don’t say anything to me. While they plan to go for after-game pizza, I walk back to my bike to head home.
But the bike isn’t where I left it.
A girl about six or seven years old playing on the ground notices I’m looking for something and points to the Dumpsters before going back to her dirt castle. My rear tire sticks out the top of the huge metal bin. I sigh.
“I don’t know why you played.” Noah Michaelson comes up behind me, holding out an old T-shirt.
I take it and wipe my face slowly. I don’t owe him an explanation.
He shrugs. “I’ll help you get your bike out. Actually . . . want a ride home?”
I drop his shirt back in his outstretched hand and nod.
SPRING
MY EGG SALAD SANDWICH had fallen apart in my backpack before I made it to our table in the cafeteria on Monday.
Jen squeezed her eyes together and stuck her tongue out as I peeled the plastic baggie from its squished contents with a frown. “If you ate normal sandwiches,” she said, “you wouldn’t have that problem.”
I watched her nonchalantly until she took a huge bite of her peanut butter and jelly, then said, “Sorry, what? Didn’t hear you.”
“I thaid . . .” Her tongue caught on the glob of bread stuck to the roof of her mouth and she grabbed her water bottle, washing her food down in between laughs. “You suck.”
“You love me.” My shoulders shaking, I got up to grab a spork.
As I searched for a utensil near the bottom of the pile, a finger tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey, Kayla.” Steven McInnis looked over my head instead of at me. He could do that. He was the tallest boy in the school. The thickest, too, probably. The best offensive lineman on the football team. He protected Jay from everything. “You have Olson for physics, right?”
“Yeah.”
He pulled an orange plastic lunch tray from the middle of the stack, knocking the top two on the floor. As he bent to pick them up, he said, “I know this is last-minute, but do you think I could get your help with the test this week?”
“I’m not taking it.” I grabbed a small pile of napkins from the dispenser. Steven’s eyes flickered back and forth and his fingers drummed on the tray. “I have an A so I get to drop the last test. A policy that made Olson my new favorite teacher this year.”
“Yeah, she’s cool. But I have to take it.” He moved into the lunch line, herding me along with him.
I glanced over at my table. Selena was telling a story and using big hand gestures. Her hand gesture stories were always good. I was getting impatient.
But Steven pushed on. “Do you still think you could help me pass this test? Please? You have an A and I have to pass it to—”
“Dude.” Jay Brewster caught up with us. Steven adjusted his angle so I could slip out from between him and the l
unch counter as Jay slapped Steven’s shoulder. “We have already been over this. No one’s going to fail you. I’ll make sure of it.”
Steven stared at the cafeteria worker as she piled noodles on his plate, paused to glance up at him, then piled some more. “I know, man, but like I said before, I actually want to learn this stuff.”
“You had all semester to learn it,” Jay said. “Should have done it then. I don’t need my guys coming up for ineligibility.”
“I should have.” Steven slammed his plate on his tray and scooted down to grab two chocolate milks. “But I didn’t. I have to get a ninety-five on this test just to pass the class. Kayla said she’ll help me out with it.”
“Um, what? No, I didn’t. I don’t have time for that.” The spork in my hand snapped. I frowned and moved away to grab another one.
But Jay’s voice rose above the din in the cafeteria. “Neither do you, man. Spring training after school all week. Can’t risk missing it. There’s something like six guys who want your spot. I told you. I’ll take care of it.”
I didn’t want to know how Jay was going to take care of Steven’s failing physics grade, and really, I didn’t care. Even with the way Steven was giving me helpless eyes while Jay fussed with the bags of chips, looking for his favorite.
New spork in hand, I went back to my table and poked at my egg salad mash.
“Steven’s failing physics,” I said between mouthfuls. “Wants me to tutor him for the test this week. Do we know anyone who would actually do that?”
“No,” Selena immediately said. “People have lives.” She brushed her ponytail over her shoulder and speared a piece of lettuce. “I hate salads.”
“Then don’t eat them,” Jen said.
“Maria is on the warpath about the cheer uniforms for next year. She wants to go back to pleats. And this ass? Is not flattered by pleats.”
“You look great in everything,” Bean cut in. Then she said to me, “I would help Steven out if I was taking physics. Maybe Leo Marshall?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll mention Leo next time I see Steven, but I’m not hunting someone down for him. Like Jay said, he had all year to pass this class.”
Every Last Promise Page 6
