The Art of Falling

by Jenny Kaczorowski

  Chapter Seven

  The percussive clump of Bria’s boots against the bleachers drew more stares than even she was used to. She ducked her head to avoid the glare of the setting sun, but avoiding questioning eyes was an added bonus.

  “I can’t believe you’re making us do this,” Abby grumbled behind her.

  “I don’t know,” Dolores said. She clutched a camera with an absurd zoom lens to her chest. “I think it’s going to be fun.”

  “Yeah, but you can eat the hotdogs.” Abby glowered at her.

  “No one forced you to be a vegetarian,” Bria said. “It’s just the more ethical choice.” She stopped halfway up the bleachers and turned into a row. From that vantage point she could make out Ben on the sideline, warming up his arm. His fluid movements and self-assured stance captivated her. With the ball in his hand, he came alive, like she did with a paintbrush.

  Along the edge of the field, the cheerleaders rubbed their bare arms and pranced around in the crisp night air, while some of the other players ran and jumped in place. Without the sun, the breeze off the ocean chased away the remains of the warm, Southern California day.

  The stadium lights came on with a burst that made Bria suck in her breath. Even she couldn’t fight the simmering excitement.

  The cool air, touched with salt and wood smoke from fireplaces, smelled of possibility. Fall, with its fresh starts and golden moments, hung around her like a mantle and she nestled deeper, inviting it into her soul.

  The cold from the metal bleachers seeped into her skin and she pulled up her hood before tugging down her sleeves and looping her thumbs through the holes in the cuffs. She rocked her feet up and down to get blood moving through her legs. By force of habit, she tapped out the steady beat of a multiplication table inside the toes of her boots. Five times four is twenty. Five times five is twenty-five. Five times six is thirty. Five times seven is thirty-five.

  “I guess this won’t be so bad,” Abby said. “We’ll freeze to death before the game starts.”

  “Oh, shut it,” Dolores said. “It’s what? Maybe 60? My mom drags me back to Wisconsin every Christmas. Do that for seventeen years and then we can talk about cold.”

  “I’m going to get some coffee,” Abby said. “Maybe that will sustain me.”

  “Get me one too?” Bria said.

  “And a hot chocolate?” Dolores said.

  “I hate you and your non-vegan ways,” Abby said, stepping over them to reach the stairs.

  The players took to the field for the kick off. Dolores lifted her camera and the shutter clicked in rapid succession. Bria only half paid attention as the ball shot through the sky and everyone started running.

  “So how long have you been crushing on Ben?” Dolores said.

  “What?” Bria spun around.

  “Sweetie, I’ve known you since second grade when you had that crush on Jason Spangler. You’re all mopey again.”

  “Lor, what am I doing?” She threw her hands into her lap.

  “Honestly? I haven’t a clue. What on earth could you possibly see in Ben Harris?”

  On the sideline, he pulled his arm back, muscles flexing as he tossed the ball into some sort of net thing to warm up.

  “Does Abby know?” Bria asked.

  “I doubt it. She’s kind of wrapped up in Eli right now. Besides, this is so far beyond the realm of possibility.”

  “We used to hang out with him, remember?”

  Dolores shook her head. “Yeah, until he went all jock. Seriously, does he even read? What would you guys talk about? I mean, I get the attraction. Look at those arms. And his legs? But eventually you’d have to stop making out and have a real relationship.”

  Bria’s cheeks warmed, making the air around her even colder. “He’s not as dumb as everyone thinks he is.”

  “You know why he’s not in any of our classes? Because he takes all the easy ones. It’s not hard to maintain a qualifying GPA if you take nothing but shop and pop culture.”

  “I know.” Bria stared at her feet. The bright stadium lights reflected off the scuffed toes of her boots. “It’s just a thing. I’ll get over it.”

  “Good. Because you need someone who can challenge you. Someone to fight with. You’re no good when things are easy.”

  A smile caught the corner of her mouth and she turned toward Ben again. “Easy. Right. Because being with him would be so easy.”

  Abby pushed into their row, holding three cups and glowering. “Totally scalded my hands. This better be worth it.” She stood between them and each took one of her cups.

  “Oh yeah,” Dolores said, face relaxing as she inhaled the steam from her hot chocolate. “Totally worth it.”

  “You didn’t burn your palms juggling them up the bleachers.”

  Bria wrapped her hands around the paper cup and sighed as the heat worked its way into her fingers. “Thanks, Abby.”

  “Did I miss anything?” Abby asked.

  “A bunch of guys in tight pants have gotten a little too grabby when tackling each other,” Dolores said, flipping through the photos on her camera.

  “They’ve thrown the ball between their legs a couple times,” Bria said.

  “That’s called snapping the ball.” They both stared at Abby. “What? My family watches the entire NFL season. Every game. Always has. Here we go, Steelers, and all that jazz.”

  “So what’s happening now?” Bria asked.

  “What down are they on?”

  “Down?”

  Abby sighed. “This is going to be a very long game.” She pulled her legs up under herself. “Okay. Downs. Basically a play. They snap the ball and when the ball or the guy holding the ball is down, that’s the end of the down. Hence the name.”

  “See,” Dolores said. “This is going to be fun.”

  ~

  At the half, the scoreboard showed the Huntsmen up 28 to 3 over the Topanga Beavers.

  “Can we go now?” Abby said, standing and stretching.

  “We should stay for the band,” Dolores said. “Isn’t Eli playing tonight?”

  “I don’t really need to watch my boyfriend parade around with a giant drum strapped to his chest.”

  “Come on, it’ll be cute.”

  She sat back down and glared at Bria. “I’m freezing and I’ve spent the last hour and a half talking about football, my least favorite subject in the world. I hope you’re having fun.”

  “I kind of love seeing you so crabby,” Bria said. “Little Miss Sunshine can be cranky if she wants.”

  The band marched onto the field, taking their positions to spell out OHS. Abby spotted Eli and tried to hold back her smile, but it slipped out around where she’d bit her lip.

  Five minutes in, the fight song wound to an end and the mascot came out, brandishing his knife. Bria groaned and covered her eyes with her hands.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Dolores said. “It’s about to get worse.”

  Bria peeked between her fingers to see someone in a bad beaver costume waddle onto the field. The crowd booed and roared as the stupid thing staggered toward the hunter.

  The hunter pranced back and forth in front of the bleachers, egging the crowd on. When the yelling reached a fever pitch, he turned on the beaver and ran his oversized foam knife across its throat. A gush of red Kool-Aid shot out of its neck and Bria turned away.

  “Ugh! That’s disgusting!”

  “Wow.” Abby stared at the field. “Just wow.”

  “Leaving now?” Dolores said.

  “And never attempting school spirit again,” Bria said.

  They marched down the stairs, but with the crowd moving around, it took them until the kickoff to reach the bottom.

  Ben took the field, head held high and breath smoking in the crisp air. His uniform, scuffed with grass and mud, hugged his body, the shoulder pads exaggerating the narrow taper of his chest to his hips. He yelled something to the other players, everyone moving into position.

  “We should stay for the snap
,” Abby said. “See my brother up close. He actually is really good at this, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “It got him a couple scholarship offers,” Bria said.

  “Truth. Who knows? Maybe he’ll go pro and we’ll all end up on Football Wives or something like that.”

  Ben raised his arm to make a pass but before the ball left his hand, a player from the other team popped up from nowhere and launched himself at his legs.

  The impact drew a collective gasp from the crowd and Ben went down. Hard.

  “Shit,” Abby said.

  He didn’t get up.

  Abby clamored over the side of the stands to reach the field. The coach yelled at her, but she pushed forward, pointing at Ben and yelling back. With her colorful hair, she looked like a rabid pixie among all the green- and white-clad coaches and players.

  Another coach sprinted onto the field, waving over someone with a first aid kit.

  And a freaking stretcher.

  Bria’s heart pounded, freezing her in place. The pain twisting his face gnawed at her and everything in her ached to make it stop.

  She had no right to care, no right to help. No place at his side. No reason to feel his pain like her own.

  After an agonizing eternity, Rick Wallace and Jake Moreno helped Ben upright. With one on either side, he limped toward the bench. He lifted a hand to signal he was okay and the crowd erupted in cheers.

  “We’ll wait here for Abby,” Dolores said, peeling Bria’s fingers away from her arm and yanking her back to earth.

  “Yeah.” Bria blinked a few times to clear her head, but when the coach sent out another player to take Ben’s place, it all slipped out of focus again.

  ~

  “What now?” Bria asked Dolores when they finally climbed into the car in the rapidly emptying parking lot. Her stomach still hadn’t settled, the agony on Ben’s face etched on her heart.

  “I don’t know.” Dolores buckled her seatbelt. “I feel like we should go smash some mailboxes or jump off the cliff or something. I can’t sit still.”

  “Abby said she’d text after they’re done at the ER. I mean, he walked off the field. He’s probably fine.”

  “What if he’s not? What if it’s another concussion?”

  An endless parade of ghoulish injuries marched through Bria’s head. Concessions, spinal injuries, permanent damage to joints. Death.

  She pulled out her phone. “He’ll be fine. He’s always fine.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Raf. I have a better idea than smashing mailboxes.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m all about mystery,” Rafael said, sliding into Bria’s back seat. “But I kind of thought we’d be alone when you asked me to meet you in the middle of the night. Hi, Dolores.”

  “I don’t know what she’s planning either,” Dolores said.

  “Did you bring the brushes?” Bria asked, sliding her hands over the smooth, hard steering wheel. “I got the code to the gym.”

  “No way.” He leaned over the back her seat, eyes on fire. “You’re going to actually do it?”

  “Wait,” Dolores said. “Shi – shoot. You’re going to deface the mural.”

  Bria pulled up to the curb across the street and down a little from the school. “High school sports are stupid. That mural doesn’t even represent most of us.”

  “Is this about Ben?”

  “It doesn’t matter who it’s about,” Rafael said. “This going to be ‘effing awesome.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Dolores said.

  “Then get out.” Bria still gripped the wheel, steadying herself before she turned off the engine and yanked the keys out of the ignition.

  “Why have we been driving for the last twenty minutes if we’re just coming back here?” Dolores stared at the lights from the stadium of the other side of the high school.

  “So people saw us leave,” Bria said. “Gives us an alibi.”

  “You’re really going to do this?”

  “Of course she is.” Rafael clapped his hand on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. “Bria Hale is fearless, just like all the rumors.”

  “Okay,” Bria said and she popped open the door. “Let’s do this.”

  Rafael and Dolores trailed behind her across the deserted street. She tried the gym door, but it refused to give. The game had ended long before and, judging from the lone car in the parking lot – a beat up Honda with a Cristo es el Señor bumper sticker – the only people left were the clean up crew.

  “I thought you had the code,” Rafael said.

  “I do. Just give me a sec.” She fished out her phone and scrolled through her text to find the one she needed, taking an extra second to make sure she hadn’t missed an update from Abby. Although part of her didn’t even want to know. If something had happened, those few hours of ignorant bliss needed to be savored. Like those moments she’d spent years ago at the hospital, in the comfortable clueless haze of her painkillers, just before her world imploded.

  She punched the code into the keypad and the lock opened with a thunderous clunk.

  “You guys coming?” she said, pushing the double doors open before the lock reactivated.

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” Rafael slipped in behind her.

  Dolores hesitated, and then, with a defeated sigh, followed them inside. “I’m blaming him if we get caught.”

  The door closed behind them with a thud and all three jumped.

  “Let the fun begin,” Rafael said, reaching for the light switch.

  “No lights,” Dolores hissed. “It’ll draw too much attention.”

  “No one will notice the lights,” Bria said, but she left them off and walked toward the mural. Her boots squeaked against the polished floor, a cacophony in the vast, empty space.

  Instead of worrying about Ben, about his broken body and his tenuous future, about her feelings for him, and the sheer panic that she might never see him again, she focused on the stupid painting of the hunter, directing fear into rage. She stopped under the mural and kicked the wall. “God, this thing is ugly.”

  “What’s the plan?” Rafael said.

  “Can you really get into the closet?”

  He crossed the gym, wiggled the closet handle a couple of time, and slammed his hip into the door. It creaked open and he flashed a triumphant grin. “I find janitor’s closets come in handy occasionally.”

  “Gross.”

  He walked up beside her. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. I just like to have a quiet place to do homework.”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you done flirting?” Dolores said. “Because this is freaking me out. Do what you have to do and then let’s get out of here.”

  “Can you do it all in one night?” Rafael asked.

  “The motto will have to wait,” Bria said, ignoring the nauseous twist in her stomach. “Too much detail for tonight.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to use spray paint?” Dolores said.

  Bria twisted her head around. “Spray paint? I’m not a vandal. This is a protest. It has to look good. Better than it looks now.”

  Dolores walked closer to the mural. “What are you going to do with the beavers?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far in my head.”

  “Roses.” Dolores turned around. “If you’re going with the Dia de los Muertos thing, it needs to be roses.”

  “Okay then. Red roses. And I’ll make the knife a candle. What about the gun?”

  “Shit,” Rafael said with another grin. “You’re actually going to do this.”

  Bria pulled her pencil free from her hair and marched up to the mural. The graphite barely left a mark on the cinderblock, but enough that she could sketch out the outline of the sugar skull and a prayer candle clenched in a skeletal hand. “Of course I am.”

  ~

  A knock on her bedroom door snapped Bria out of a deep sleep. The late night had taken its toll. Her mouth felt all
fuzzy and her eyes ached from trying to focus on the door. The scent of cheap interior paint clung to her skin and her arm ached from holding a brush too long.

  “It’s open,” she finally managed.

  “Were you still sleeping?” Dad shuffled into the room. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. You never sleep this late.”

  She reached for her phone, squinting at the time, and then scrambled to read Abby’s texts. “Oh, thank God, he’s okay.”

  “Who?” Dad stared at her.

  “Abby’s brother. He got hurt last night.”

  “What time did you get in?”

  “I don’t know.” She dragged herself up from her pillows. “Two or three?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to have a curfew?”

  “Dad.” She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s the weekend. I’m seventeen.”

  He frowned. “I am still your dad. I don’t like you being out that late. Especially when you don’t tell me where you are.”

  “You could have called. Or texted.”

  “I did.”

  She picked up her phone again, scrolling through the missed call list. “Oh. The ringer’s off.”

  “You scared me. A lot.”

  “Sorry?”

  He frowned. “Just don’t do it again.”

  “Okay.” Stifling a yawn, she got out of bed and pulled her hoodie on over her camisole. Dad didn’t need to see the scar. Ever. “It’s never been a problem before.”

  “I actually saw Mr. Harris this morning. He told me about Ben.”

  “We were at the game and saw it happen.” She kept her back to him while she pulled her hair into a ponytail. The fresh reminder hit her like a brick. “Abby said there wasn’t a concussion.”

  “That’s what he said. He also said someone vandalized Topanga High in retaliation. Spray paint, broken windows. I know you and Ben used to be close. You had nothing to do with it, right?”

  Bria turned back around. “Topanga? Nope. I haven’t been up there since that Shakespeare thing last summer.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “The worst act of vandalism I’ve ever done was egg Mr. Shane’s house after the spring musical freshman year – and that was Abby’s idea.”

  “This definitely isn’t egging your drama teacher’s house.”