by Becca Ann
“Does she know when practice’ll start up again?” I ask. We’ve been talking about his mom for the past few minutes. I guess Oliver had no clue why Coach Fox cancelled practice, and he’s catching me up on the conversation he had with her on my porch.
“Not sure,” he breathes, then gulps. “She’s… on a probationary period… and they… are going to evaluate her… I guess.”
“Evaluate? It’s only been a couple of weeks. We technically just finished tryouts.”
“Yeah…” he rasps. “Guess… that’s… what the principal… or the school board… wants.”
I twist my neck to make sure Oliver’s still doing okay. His voice is sounding a little croaky.
His face a little pale. Why do I always forget water?
“The stream should be just up over the next hill,” I say, hoping that alleviates his spirits. He nods, pushing against his knee as he hoists up on a rock in the trail.
“So, what’s the evaluation process?” I ask, hoping to take his mind off the hike itself. “Are there going to be people sitting in on our practices?”
It takes him a few beats to answer. “I… I… I’m not sure. She’s just trying… to deal with… I mean… a few students and… parents… have complained about… her coaching style.”
“Based on what? The tryout thing?” I scoff.
“I think… we both know… it’s not just… tryouts.”
The burning in my legs from the hike can’t match the one going up my spine.
“Ugh, I hate people sometimes,” I spit. “So what if she’s overweight. They should see the difference her coaching style has made to the team, and if people would pull their eyes out of their butts they’d see that.”
Oliver doesn’t respond, and I turn around to see if I’ve hurt his feelings by calling his mom overweight, only to find him sprawled out in the dirt a few feet down, clutching at his throat.
“What’s happening?” I shriek. “Are you okay?”
He shakes his head, neck flopping like a rag doll. I skid down the trail and land on my knees next to him. He wheezes, gasps, struggles to find air, and the color in his cheeks has turned to a scary gray.
“You can’t breathe,” I say, but I’m not sure if he can hear me because I can barely hear myself. My heart’s pounding up in my ears and my hands are shaking and his chest won’t move up and down, and all he can do is mouth at me, but I have no idea what he’s trying to say.
“You can’t breathe,” I repeat, and he shakes his head. I’m not sure if he’s agreeing with me or if he’s refuting me, but I do the only thing that pops in my panicked brain. I plug his nose and push my mouth against his.
Two puffs of air… is that right? My CPR training has flown out of my head, and I just do whatever I can, pushing in a couple breaths and checking the rise and fall of Oliver’s chest. It’s not moving, so I adjust his neck, trying to still my shaky hands. Another couple breaths, and I can barely register Oliver tapping on the back of my head. Is he asking for more puffs? Does he need more? Is he going to die under my lips?
A small panicked squeak catches in the back of my throat.
He’s under my lips.
I’m not sure what’s happening anymore. One second I swear I’m performing mouth to mouth, and the next I don’t think I’m breathing at all. My hand moves from plugging his nose to cupping his cheek, and it feels weird to be looking into his eyes, so I close mine. He’s all mint brownie and warmth and comfort, and I want to hold onto it for as long as I possibly can.
A tap against my head again, this one different, almost like he’s tapping me with a rock, not his fingers.
My eyes shoot open, and I jolt back, panic edging its way back into my muddy thought patterns. Oliver quirks a half smile at me before putting something to his mouth—an inhaler.
Oh. My. Gosh. Mortification, humiliation, utter embarrassment. I slap my hands over my face, flames licking up my cheeks and through my neck. I peek through my fingers, watching as he holds the puff he took, holds his probable laughter.
I drop my hands, the wave of realization dawning on me. My eyes narrow to slits, and I hiss, “Do you have asthma?”
His eyes soften. “Maybe,” he manages. “A little.”
My jaw clenches so much my back teeth slide off of each other. I grab a handful of fallen leaves and chuck them in his direction.
“You… donkey’s… rear!” I say, my voice bouncing off the trees. “You tell a girl if you have asthma before she drags you up a mountain.”
He coughs, and I stop tossing stuff at him, waiting with bated breath to see if he’s all right.
“My bad…?” he says. And when his voice doesn’t come out croaking, I continue my yelling.
“Your bad? Your bad? Are you kidding me, right now?”
He shakes his head, hoisting himself into a sitting position. His face lines up with mine, but I’m fuming too hard to let it affect me. (Too much.)
“Sorry. I can’t really think.”
“Now? Or ever?”
“Ginger…”
“I’m serious.” I cross my arms, my hoodie making a flump sound. “You were flailing on the ground, and I had no idea what to do, and if you would’ve told me, I would’ve—”
“Treated me differently.”
“Well, yeah.”
He lifts a knee and rests his elbow on top. “Can you get how I don’t want that?” He pulls at his shirt that’s gotten caught between one of the rolls in his stomach. “I’m treated different enough as it is.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t the same, and you know it.” My voice gets wet, and I have to swallow hard before I continue. “You could’ve… and I wouldn’t have known…”
I don’t finish my thought, not really feeling like I need to. He hangs his head, and I turn to face the trail, noting the dirt pattern in the ground from where I slid down the hill. I suppose there is more fight in me than I thought.
“You’re right,” he says, pulling my attention back to him. “You’re completely right, and I’m so sorry.”
I take a second to calm my voice. “Are you okay?”
He nods. “Can we sit here for a minute?”
I adjust my legs, tucking them under me so I’m comfortable. He looks at my knee, almost as if he wants to set one of his hands there, but he doesn’t.
“I really am sorry.”
“I know.” I pick up a leaf and start crumpling it just to fill the silence with the sound. He plucks one up off the ground as well and twists the stem between his thumb and forefinger.
After years of leaf crumpling, in which I massively calm down, Oliver’s mouth lifts into a smile.
“You like me, right?” he blurts, and I can’t help the surprised bolt of laughter that comes out of my mouth.
“Um… what?” I say, too embarrassed to tell him that, heck yes, I like him.
“Sorry… lack of oxygen to my brain.” We chuckle, and I watch him slide his inhaler back into his pocket. It reminds me to check the time. I don’t think we’re anywhere near 6:30 yet, but I want to make sure.
5:27. I stick my phone back into my pocket, rising a little from my spot.
“Because you act like you like me,” he blurts again with a small shrug. “But I’m not a hundred percent sure on what that looks like, since it’s never happened before.”
I raise my eyebrows, and he keeps on talking, staring at his shoes. “I really want to come off confident and relaxed every time I’m with you, make you realize that I’m really into you, that I think about you a lot and I’m intrigued by your quirks, and I can’t explain it, but I like the way you look at me. It makes me feel confident and relaxed, but, Gee, at the same time, you make me crazy nervous.”
I have to stop myself from tossing my arms around him and planting a good ol’ smacker on his crooked lips.
“Are you trying to get out of that hole you’re in?” I ask with a tilt of my eyebrow. He tosses his head back and grins at the canopy of trees above us.
> “Is it working?”
“Maybe,” I say. “A little.” I stare down at his steady hand, daring myself to take it. But my own hand is shaking now with all the things he just said to me.
“You really get nervous around me?” I ask. He laughs, his smile back to its gorgeous self.
“It took me forever just to say actual words to you.”
“Writing notes is just as nerve-wracking.”
“Two days,” he says, holding up his fingers. “I thought about it for days, and you know what I wrote? ‘Hi.’”
My shoulders shake with my laughter. “Genius.”
His eyes drift to my pocket. “Do we need to get running?”
“You’re not running anywhere.”
He tilts his head back and forth, mocking my lame joke and pushing off his knee to get to his feet. He sways a little, and I automatically grab his arm to keep him steady.
“I’m still mad at you,” I tell him as we head back down. I’m not… really, I’m only partially mad. But he should know that he scared the crap out of me.
“I’m still sorry,” he says, then he tucks me under his arm, and I’m not sure if it’s so he can use me for balance or because he wants to touch me. Either way, I don’t care.
“Hey, Gee?” he asks, and I wonder if I let it slip that I love that name or if he just has ESP. His lips lift up in an amused grin. “Did you… did you call me a donkey rear?”
***
We get back to my house and have a pretty epic dinner with my mom and dad, who can be entertaining when they really want to be. Oliver is polite and funny and seems so relaxed that I can’t believe he gets nervous at all, that is until he locks eyes with me across the table, and I see a small tick in the corner of his mouth.
He doesn’t stay long after dinner, it being a school night, and he says that his mom is home now, and he should be with her. I swoon on the spot.
I walk him out to his truck, curling in on myself to keep warm.
“Thanks for the terrifying hike,” I tell him, and he shakes his head at me.
“You should work on your mouth to mouth.”
“You don’t say.”
He grins at the ground, doing that adorable rubbing of the back of his neck. “Yeah… it’s kind of hard to save someone’s life when you’re taking their breath away.”
My heart explodes right there in my chest.
“Nicely done,” I tell him with an approving nod. “How long did it take you to come up with that one?”
“All night.” He laughs at the ground. His smile is the best thing I’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours. Almost makes me forget why he came over in the first place. “So… see you tomorrow?”
He’s totally hopeful. I give it about two seconds of thought before saying, “Yes.” My bottom lip gets a good nibble before I continue. “And come early. I… I may introduce you to someone.”
“Yeah… I may do that too.”
He climbs up in his truck, and the rumble of the engine vibrates through my chest. It’s the first time I’ve thought about the Sharpies since he showed up, and I like that. I like that I don’t want to hide or be someone else around him. I like that I can be weird and be angry and be happy and be anything I feel, and he’s okay with it. Encourages it, even. And before I lose my nerve, I call out to him as he backs into the street.
“Hey, Fox!” I watch his lips turn up at the last name as he leans out the window to hear me over the roar of his diesel. “You’re right. I like you!”
If it’s possible to see a shooting star off of someone’s teeth, I swear I just did, and I make a wish on it.
He waves and heads down the street. I watch until he’s out of sight, and then my eyes land on a figure a few houses down.
Jamal.
His shoulders slump, and he backtracks into his house, the door slamming so loud I can hear it from here.
25
Strength and Horse Poop
Oliver sits down next to me at the cemetery, hip to hip. I smile up at him, and he sort of returns it, placing an already written sticky on my knee.
School board meeting next week. Mom’s nervous.
I pluck my earbud out and furrow my brow.
“What’s this about?”
He lets out a long sigh, leaning forward to unzip his backpack. “They’re reconsidering her for the coaching position.”
“Based on…?”
“The complaints.” He opens up a pack of gluten-free crackers and offers me one. “And they caught wind of the Instagram thread. I’d expect some questions, soon.”
I get sick just thinking about the school board asking me about my bra.
“What would they want to talk to me about?”
“Your tryout.” He sticks a cracker into his mouth, then reaches over and settles a couple on Cayenne’s grave. “It’s a mess.”
“So let me get this straight… Coach is being evaluated because people think she cheated on her own requirements for the cross country team just so that I could be eligible to compete?”
He swallows. “Basically.”
“That is complete horse poop.”
Oliver is halfway through another cracker but pauses to laugh. “You never disappoint.”
“Huh?”
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Just every time I decide to open up to you about stuff, you just make me like you more and more.”
I grin stupidly at the ground. “Yes. Poop is so very attractive.”
“Horse poop.”
“And donkey rears.”
He laughs, wiping his hands free of cracker dust. He leans back, resting on his elbows, and I follow suit, letting my forearm press against his.
“Is she okay?” I ask after a minute. He drops his eyes from the clouds, and his smile starts to fade.
“She says she is, but she’s not.”
Sounds familiar. “What can I do?”
He blows out a breath. “Best thing now is to show up at the meeting. Hope that they let the students have a voice.”
“Do you think I’d help? I mean, I’m the reason she’s in this mess.”
He shakes his head, gaze returning to the morning sky. “You aren’t the reason. Trust me.”
“Uh… do you not remember what you said two seconds ago? She’s getting flack because of that thread.”
“That’s only part of it.”
“My part.” I sit up, twisting around to face him. “She asked me to run, and I couldn’t. I can’t. Oliver, I’m not even sure if I believe the time she marked next to my name. How can I walk in there and tell everyone that I do?”
He pushes up, his face close to mine. “I’m not asking you to do that. Just saying… if you said something—”
“What would I say?” My shoulders slump in a heap, and I look down at my chest. Oliver says he likes me more and more every time he sees me. But how? When every time I get a look at myself, I like me less and less?
“For the record… I think you ran that time,” he says. “My mom isn’t a good liar. She wouldn’t fake something like this.”
“My body isn’t capable of that time.” I tuck my knees up and rest my chin on them. “Maybe she felt bad for me.”
He gives me a once-over, brows heavily furrowed. “What in the world would she have to feel bad about?”
My knees drop, and I grasp the Sharpies, practically shaking them at him. “These aren’t runner boobs. They’re massive.” The outburst is out before I can stop it, and my voice gets wet, and I shove it all back, bury it deep where no one can find it. I let go of my chest, curl back into myself, and push the warmth away from my cheeks. I’m not sure where that all came from; I just have a bad case of oversharing around him. He’s probably looking at me. Or them. I’m not sure. I don’t dare raise my gaze from my shoelaces.
He’s not saying anything, and the last words I said seem to echo around us, clawing at my stomach and the back of my eyeballs. I swallow hard, hoping that I can try to keep this light even th
ough I feel so heavy. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
“No,” he says a little too fast. I give him a look, and he corrects himself. “Well, I mean, yeah… I’ve looked.”
“See?”
“No, Ginger, that’s not why I… they aren’t the reason…” He pauses, and I’m grateful his gaze hasn’t left my face. Have I really come to expect an eye drift south every time I’m with a guy?
“When I describe you to my friends,” he says, “that’s not the description I use.”
“You talk about me?”
“Oh yeah.” He chuckles. “A lot.”
His ears are red, and I’m sure mine are too, but I want him to keep going. He nods to the headstone he visits. “Especially to Beckham.”
A nervous smile pulls at my mouth. “Who is he?”
“My brother.”
The brightest light flickers inside my heart, pulling me even closer to Oliver. “You lost a sibling?”
He nods, then his gaze drifts to Cayenne’s grave. “You too?”
“My sister. She was six days old.”
“Beckham was two years, and we were lucky he made it that long.”
I watch his fingers pick at the grass. “You lived here before, then?”
“Yeah. After he died, my mom took a job in Nebraska. When she got the guts to come back here, Beckham’s grave was my first stop. I guess I wanted someone to talk to.” He cracks a grin at me. “Looks like it worked out.”
Taking a deep breath, I boldly tuck my hand in his and rest my head on his shoulder.
“Cayenne’s my go-to when I need to talk to someone, too.”
“And the food?” he asks. “You have the same reason I do for bringing it?”
“I’m weird?”
My head bounces on his shoulder as he laughs. “Exactly.”
His hand squeezes mine, and even though I’m nervously sweating, I don’t want to let go for a second.
“So what do you say?” I ask. “When you talk about me?”
“You’re the girl I met in the cemetery,” he says, nodding to our surroundings. “The girl I catch talking to herself.”
