by Emma Kress
Quinn vaults onto a gravestone and stands on her hands. She turns around twice before bringing her feet down and backflips off the stone. Michaela hurdles a bench, followed by Ava, who balances on its back and then dives into a parkour roll. We roll, jump, leap, vault our way toward the back graves, the ones that dip down into the valley.
Buried beneath us are the old ways, but we fly free above them all.
Slowly, the sounds of a party overtake the sounds of the night. There are only fifteen or twenty people gathered among the overgrown graves. Two of us shinny up a tree. A few perch on a pedestal at the feet of a stone angel. I climb another tree, Liv at my heels. Even though she’s masked, I’d know my best friend anywhere. Since our talk at Declan’s party, we’ve never been closer. Twin strands in a tightly woven rope.
We find a crook in the branches, two hunt-ready hawks. We wait, like all good hunters do.
“So,” whispers Liv, “I’m thinking about having sex with Jake.”
I’m so shocked I almost fall out of the tree. I grip the bark, its edges pressing into my palms. “And you choose this moment to discuss it?”
She shrugs. “I was just thinking about it.”
I force myself to go light. “You’re thinking about sex with your boyfriend while we’re in a cemetery? Liv, you’ve been seriously holding out on me.”
She muffles her laugh with her hand. “No. I guess I’ve been thinking about it all the time. I just finally opened my mouth.”
She’s been thinking about it all the time but she’s only just now telling me. Maybe we’re not twin strands in a tightly woven rope. “Well,” I say, “if you’ve been thinking about it so much, you’re probably ready, right?” I look back at the party. “I mean, knowing you, if you say you’re ready, then you are. Do you think you’re ready?”
There’s a pause, and I don’t know what she’s thinking beneath her mask. In the pause, I realize I don’t want her to have sex. It feels like it’ll put her on the road away from me. The road where she studies in Europe, not North Carolina, the road where she travels the world for real. Without me.
“I remember Cristina saying that she wanted it to be about everything else as long as possible before she and Mateo did it. That once you have sex, then it’s all about sex. But I’m not sure it has to be like that.”
I try to push down thoughts of Liv across an ocean and concentrate. Liv always knows what she wants, so the fact that she’s debating it says a lot. And she’s talking to me, which is a best-friend thing to do, even though I am the last person in the world she should be talking to about this. Just thinking about sex makes my stomach hurt.
I bury that too.
“I think it can be however you want,” I say, because I want that to be true—and maybe it is true … for Liv.
“That’s just not how everyone talks about it though, is it? That it’s however we want?”
Light bits of laughter and deep voices drift to us from the party.
“I mean,” she continues, “it always seems like a seesaw. Like one person’s pushing harder than the other, one person’s floundering in the air.”
I remember us, me and Liv, opposite each other on the seesaw at Tyson Road Elementary. “But isn’t flying the fun part?”
Liv turns to me, and while I can’t see her face in the dark beneath her mask, I can feel her gaze. “You’re different,” she says.
The breeze picks up and I grip the branch tighter.
“I mean, yeah. We used to love that seesaw when we were little. Then, after…”
“After my dad’s accident,” I finish.
“Yeah.”
“I got all rigid and anal and—”
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” she says.
We’re quiet, the shadows gathering and moving over the graves and drinkers like ghosts.
“Well, Liv Liu,” I say finally. “You are the most amazing person I know. I seriously won the best-friend lottery. And, as far as I can tell, Jake is one of the better guys. So, if anybody can rewrite the script, it’s you guys.”
I hear her exhale a deep breath. “Thanks, Zo.”
I said it because it was the right thing to say. And Liv deserves all the right things. But I can’t help but feel that I just opened a door that reads Abandon Zoe This Way, and she walked on through.
Liv gives a small laugh. “I’ll take notes. You know, for when it’s your turn.”
“Um—”
Dark shadows dart below. A few of our teammates are racing across the grass, leaping over gravestones. The partygoers scatter.
The hunt has begun.
Liv and I swing down and fly after them. Two guys are standing around a girl, her wet white shirt clinging to her body. She’s shaking, crying.
“They poured their beer on her?” Liv whispers. “Disgusting.”
Two of my teammates slam into one of the guys. The girl runs away. But the other guy grabs for my teammates. I run at him like he’s just another gravestone and pounce onto his back. He buckles, and I flip off him before he hits the ground. Another lunges for one of us—maybe Dylan. But she ducks out from under him and shoves, toppling him off-balance. Liv looks at me and, even with the mask, I can tell she’s smiling. They didn’t have a chance against us.
We leave our prey moaning on the ground, the gravestones etching long shadows across their faces. We sprint back through the graves, the cold, dark night keeping our secrets.
Girl number 3 saved. Us, 3. Them, 0.
* * *
Nobody expects us to win today. Northridge has never beaten Sommersville. They won our first game of the season. They’re undefeated. And they always go to sectionals.
But our first game was a long time ago, in another lifetime. I was a different girl. Our team was a different team. We lost that game because of Kups. Now we’re more than just a field hockey team. We’re a team of parkour-flying, ass-kicking, girl champions. And when I think about that team going out to face Sommersville, well, I almost feel sorry for them.
Almost.
On the way, we make up new cheers.
We are the team.
We are the chicks.
We have the skills, can’t beat our sticks.
You are the lost.
You are the beat.
You are the mud beneath our cleats.
When they run onto the field, the cockiness rolls off them like stink off the dump. But it doesn’t ruffle me the way it did six weeks ago. Instead, I give them an eyes-narrowed, all-knowing kind of smile. They might as well be splashing in the backyard kiddie pool while we’re flipping high dives at the Olympics. I look across the field at my teammates. They feel it too.
We hold more power than anyone told us we could.
When the whistle blows, we explode.
It’s a dance, but Sommersville doesn’t know the steps. Every time we steal the ball or pass it out of their reach, their swagger slips. We chisel bits of pride and grit off them, and by the half, the field is littered with shavings of their former selves. They yell at each other. They storm off the field. They may know what it is to win, but they have no idea what it is to be a team.
They may have been undefeated, but we’re unbeatable.
We win: 4 to 1.
And I’m hungry for more.
We’re in the locker room changing after the game and I cannot be looking at this empty Saturday.
I put my hands together and make puppy eyes, “Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top? Pretty please with Doritos and quesitos and Big Bob’s ice cream and Rice Krispies Treats on top?”
They laugh.
Sasha shakes her head. “I am so beat, you guys. I just want to veg out and watch stupid rom-coms.”
“Yesssss,” Michaela says. “Between our weekends and my AP classes I haven’t had just a night to relax, you know?”
“But it’s a nice Saturday, and there’s sure to be a party somewhere.” I tie my sneakers. “Besides. Don’t you guys feel good about what we’re
doing? We’re saving girls.”
Liv nods. “It does feel pretty great.”
“There’s one under the bridge.” Cristina releases her hair from her ponytail.
“Oooh,” Dylan says.
“See?” I say. “The bridge! It would be so fun!” After summer rains, people always bridge jump. Well, daring people do.
Cristina finger combs her curls. “I love that bridge. It’s the best for taking photos—those curved iron arches, the rust-covered tracks. Just imagine doing parkour there.”
“It would be sweet to fly across those arches,” Bella says.
“I don’t know.” Michaela adjusts her headband. “We’d be really exposed. It wouldn’t be the same as the other places.”
“So?” Kiara says. “Let assholes see they can’t get away with being assholes.” She swats her with a sweatshirt. “Come on.”
“Do you think we could get hurt though?” Ava asks. “Falling off an arch would break some bones.”
“No way,” I say. “Those arches are fat. There’s plenty of room for us. All fun. No broken bones.”
Liv gives me a funny look.
Michaela raises an eyebrow. “It would be fun.”
Ava looks at me, a slow smile spreading. “You’re really in this, huh Cap’n?”
I grin back. “Absofockinglutely.”
* * *
The bridge is an arched iron cage, big enough to host a herd of wild animals. We creep along the abandoned railway tracks, and the music grows louder, bouncing between the bottom of the bridge and the river.
Tiki torches line the edge of the river, creating halos of light every few feet along the rocky riverbank, marking the line between the rocks and the river for the fifty or so people clustered beneath the bridge. I spot some yellow-and-blue varsity jackets—Queens Falls kids. Silver kegs catch the light.
The river rushes by black and wild.
We stroll down the tracks, the overgrown weeds brushing our legs as we aim our feet for the railroad ties. The music echoes off the bridge’s underbelly, wrapping the partiers in a sound cloud, us above it all.
I take one of the steel arches at a run, my sneakers clinging to the bumpy iron. We swing across and between the diagonals and curves. The bridge keeps our secret. After all, the bridge was built to hold trains. A few girls don’t make it creak. We’re silent assassins. We perch in the joints, a gathering of crows.
No, a murder of crows. A group of crows is called a murder. Something powerful snakes through me.
We hear the guy’s laughter first. A couple clambers up the embankment. The guy wears a Queens Falls jacket, and I don’t recognize the girl.
“Just wait,” he says. “You’ll love it.”
Wordless sounds from the girl.
“Come on.” He tugs at her arm but she holds firm. “Babe, I swear.”
If a guy ever calls me “Babe” in that whiny, entitled voice, I will punch his face.
“It’ll be so fun,” he says.
They step out onto the tracks. We hold our breath, waiting.
“Lie down,” he says.
She shakes her head. “Jay, I’m telling you this freaks me out.” She tugs at his arm. “Come on. Let’s just go back to the party.”
“Don’t be such a wimp.” He sits down right in the center of the track. “Trains don’t even run here anymore.”
She edges over and sits next to him.
“I promise you it’s even better lying down.” He lies down, his head in her lap, his body long between the rails of the track. He doesn’t seem to notice us in the darkening night.
“Jay, I really—”
“Leah.” He gets up on all fours. “Come on. It’ll be hot.”
He crawls over her so that she’s lying down and he’s on top of her. He kisses her neck.
“Jay. I don’t like it here. Really.”
“Come on. Just a little longer.” He stops and then gives a holler. “Oh man, can you feel it, baby?”
She shakes her head. “Feel what?”
“The train!” he shouts. “The train’s coming. This is going to be so hot.”
She punches him in the chest. “Get up! Get up!”
He laughs and rolls out of the way, and she leaps to her feet.
“I was just messing with you, babe. You’re so gullible.”
They’re both standing now.
He grabs her arms. “Come on.” He’s kissing her neck, saying things I can’t hear.
“No!”
He steps back but he still grips her wrists. “Look what you did.” He nods his head down to the tent in his sweats. “You can’t expect me to go back to the party like this. Just take care of it for me.”
He says please as he shoves her head down, down, down.
I look at the others.
We are bullets bursting on a bonfire.
TWENTY-THREE
WE SWING-JUMP-SOAR. WE RAIN HELL.
“What the—” He pushes Leah off him, and she races down the track.
I run straight at him, planting my foot right on his knee.
But he grabs my leg fast and slams me on the tracks. My knee twists and the back of my arm hits the rail. White-hot pain blooms in the center of my triceps.
Shit.
I’m flat on the ground, arm throbbing. He stomps toward me, his feet deliberate between the tracks.
He looms, tall and strong.
I refuse to let him win. Not tonight. Not ever.
I struggle against the pain to push up, to get clear.
Two of the others run up from behind, swinging a third into him, and he falls. I roll out of the way just in time.
He howls and stands up slowly, blood pouring from his nose. “Oh.” He wipes his hand across his face and looks at it. “You guys picked the wrong guy to screw.” He jabs at one of us, but she ducks fast and rams her shoulder into his stomach.
He throws a punch at my head, but I grab his arm and use it to push him toward the edge. The water rushes below, alight from the fire of the Tiki torches.
I hesitate for a second.
Then I let go of his arm just in time to ram my foot into his back.
He yells as he falls off the bridge and crashes into the water below.
We lean over to see him gasping to the surface and bellowing the second his head clears the water. “Those assholes jumped me!” he shouts. “Did you see that? They tried to kill me!”
We race across the bridge, leaping from one railroad tie to another, fast, strong, and deadly as a train.
Girl number 4 saved. Us, 4. Them, 0.
* * *
At school Monday, everyone’s talking about the bridge party. A gang of guys came out of nowhere. They shoved Jason Stimple off the bridge. They were from Queens Falls/East Ridge/the City.
Jason Stimple, a kid I never even knew before Saturday night, becomes like a fucking god Monday morning.
There’s even talk of calling the police.
We never hear Leah’s side of the story.
Ava leans up against my locker after fourth period and I can see the irritation on her face.
“Can you believe this shit?” I say. “People are talking like we’re the bad guys. Like we’re the ones who need to be policed.”
“Maybe we are.” She says it to her shoes, and her voice is low and the halls are loud and I’m pretty sure I heard her wrong.
I must have heard her wrong.
“What?”
She turns to me. “He could’ve gotten hurt, Zo. Real hurt. Like hospital hurt.”
I cannot believe these words are coming out of her mouth. “So?”
Her eyes widen. “So?” She shakes her head. “We’re supposed to be helping people, not hurting them.”
“I was helping. His girlfriend is fine because of us. Because of me. Besides. People jump off that bridge all the time in the summer.”
“After big rains. When the water level is high.”
Her words storm in and start rearranging everything i
nside my brain. I’m trying hard to put it all back where it belongs but it’s like the shelves changed size or something. “Whatever. He was fine.”
“Thank God.”
I roll my eyes. “I think we’re the ones who should be getting thanked. We’re the ones protecting people.”
“Are we?”
I stare at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
Ava bites her lip like there are words tumbling around inside her mouth that she’s biting back. I’m not sure I want to hear them.
“Look.” She exhales. “There’s a difference between being a team and a cult. We’re not a cult.”
I laugh. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”
She nods slowly. “Just so we’re clear. We’re not going to follow you off a bridge.”
“Way to be dramatic, Av.” I smile and she smiles a weak one back. “Nobody’s going off a bridge but the bad guys.”
She walks off.
Any fockey player knows that when you play hard, you get turf burn. That’s all this is.
* * *
My right arm’s still bruised from smashing against the train rail. It’s not broken, but it definitely hurts to grip the stick. My knee feels out of whack too. So I’m not great at Monday’s practice. And, I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but everyone’s treating me weird. Like I’m a thing that could break or explode. I don’t think I’m imagining it.
Monday night, I massage arnica into my muscles, alternating heat and ice when I can. I need it to hurry up and heal. In time to beat Queens Falls tomorrow.
We play on their turf. Even though they’re our rival school, our section is sparse. But a few parents—and Uncle Bob, Eileen, and their stupid video camera—are there and they yell, “Off with their heads! Down with the monarchy!” against the beating feet of the home side.
Their taunts against us can’t be screamed. In whispers, they hiss, “Whores bitches Northridges.” We hear their rhymes on the mid-October breeze. We’ve heard them before. We’ll hear them again.
I shake it off. We’re heroes. We’re saviors. We can win this.
