The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  He looked at me on the other side of the cage. “You’re up.”

  I was conscious of Chase’s eyes on me as I took his place, aware that he was likely looking at me as intently as I’d studied him. Once I started hitting, though, I forgot everything but the ball and bat in my hands. Half my life had been spent in a batting cage or on a field with Dad pitching to me and Selena, cheering our wins and helping us to improve when we lost, lifting me on his shoulders the first time I hit a home run. How could I reconcile the pain of what he’d done with the happy memories that came unbidden now? I missed the next pitch and only tipped the one after that. Chase couldn’t see my face or my rapidly blinking eyes to know that anything was wrong. I twisted my toe into the ground, trying to focus only on the ball. Crack! And another, until my pitches were out. Then I turned to Chase with a smile I didn’t feel.

  “Up for another round?”

  We hit for a long while. The crack of the bat sounded good—it always did—but somehow it was extra cathartic now. My mind would no sooner drift than my body would swing, and the impact would bring me right back to the present.

  When we were both too spent for another round and my mind had stropped trying to stray, we made our way to the parking lot and sat on the open tailgate of Chase’s truck.

  “This was fun.”

  “It’s not smashing a building, but yeah.” I smiled, glancing at Chase. Like the night we first met, his shirt was damp with sweat, and I could feel a furnace of heat coming from his body. We were close enough that our arms kept brushing, and once or twice our knees. Everywhere we touched, it was like little fireworks went off and shot straight to my erratically beating heart.

  Chase laughed. And then he did something that knocked my smile right off my face. He slid his hand into mine, lacing our fingers together and resting them on his thigh. His hand was as warm as the rest of him, and calloused, even more than mine. He didn’t act like it was a big deal, taking my hand, but it felt big to me. And nice. Really, really nice. My skin was darker, more tan than the sun had made his, but it was possible he’d catch me by summer. His closely cropped hair might lighten then too, but I hoped not too much—I liked the dark brown on him. I wondered if the color came from his mom or dad.

  “Can I ask you something...kind of random?” I said, keeping my eyes on our linked hands.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you ever see your father?”

  I felt the muscles in Chase’s arm contract. “No, I don’t see him.”

  “Your choice or his?”

  “Both. He’s never come back and I’ve never gone looking.”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  I turned our hands over, revealing more of my skin, a mix of Dad’s and Mom’s. I could hide from the sun for the rest of my life and the color would never fade. “Were you ever curious about that side of your family?”

  “No. I don’t want anything that’s connected to him. And I don’t need anything from him either. I have a father in my uncle Bran.” He squeezed my hand. “Are you thinking about looking for more of your dad’s family?”

  “No.” My answer was immediate. “I’m still reeling from looking the first time.” I suddenly decided to be as honest with Chase as I could, maybe as a way to balance everything I had to conceal. “Part of me wishes that I hadn’t done it at all. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find out things about my dad that I can’t reconcile with my life.”

  “What things?”

  I shook my head. “He did something...really awful and painful.” I took a deep breath. “But there’s something else that he might have done that is infinitely worse, something I don’t think I could ever forgive him for.” If he knew about Brandon and had hidden him... “The possibility alone is enough to make me feel sick every time I look at my dad, but if I keep digging and discover it’s true...”

  “You can’t ever go back.”

  “I can’t.” I looked up at Chase. “The worst part is that I found something good too, something completely amazing,” I said, thinking about the fact that Sel and I had a brother. “But it’s all tangled up in something that will hurt a lot of people, people I care about, possibly in ways we can’t ever recover from. I can’t tell them about the good without revealing the bad.” Chase’s gaze never left my face and under his stare, warmth started to spread through my body, hitting but not thawing the knot of ice in my stomach. He was one of the people who might get hurt. I started to pull my hand free, but he stopped me.

  “Would you want to know?” Chase asked. “If it was someone else in your position right now, would you risk the bad for the good?”

  Initially, I’d have said no, that it was better to be ignorant than in pain, but that was before I’d met Brandon. Whatever else had happened, he was a good thing. My voice was soft. “I would.”

  “Then you have your answer.”

  I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. I wanted to tell him the whole truth and see if he still felt the same way, but for Brandon’s sake, I couldn’t. And I wasn’t ready to risk losing Chase when I’d only just found him.

  Before I could slip my hand free, I heard my name from across the parking lot.

  “Dana?”

  My breath froze. I turned to see Jessalyn and Sadie walking over. This time Chase didn’t stop me from pulling my hand free, though my friends were close enough that they had to have seen us holding hands. Jessalyn was going to give me so much crap. Not only had I blown them off—blown Sadie off when she could have used all the support she could get—to be with a guy that I hadn’t told her about, but I was giving her further proof that I didn’t have even potential feelings for Nick. I’d have to talk with Nick. I really didn’t want to hurt him, but based on how things were going with Chase, wise or not, I needed to be honest with Nick. I’d have preferred to do that without Jessalyn looking at me like I’d cheated on him—I hadn’t—but she and I were going to have to talk too. Just not in front of Chase.

  “Hey.” I pushed off the tailgate to stand when they reached us, glancing quickly at Chase when he moved to stand beside me. “Guys, this is Chase. Chase, these are my friends Jessalyn and Sadie from my softball team.”

  “Hey.” He shook their hands in turn. “I hear you guys are really good. What positions do you play?”

  “Pitcher,” Sadie said.

  “Shortstop,” Jessalyn said, eyeing Chase without any of the subtlety Sadie had used. “And how do you know Dana?” She was annoyed and didn’t bother to hide it.

  “We just met the other day,” I said. “He helped me out with a low-blood-sugar situation, so I thought I’d return the favor and show him how to hit.”

  Jessalyn slid her eyes to me. “Yeah, Dana hits hard when she wants to.”

  I pleaded with her silently to be nice, and she did dial it back a little. She stopped frowning, but I could tell by the tight way she held her mouth that she wasn’t just mad at me; she was disappointed too.

  We chatted another couple minutes before they went in. Alone with Chase again, I worried that he’d comment on the semi-awkward meeting or the way I’d dropped his hand as soon as I’d seen my friends, but he didn’t. In fact, the last thing he said to me before I got in my car was, “When can I see you again?”

  * * *

  Mom was still working when I got home that night and Dad was in the shower, so I was able to slip into my room and turn the lights off, ostensibly to go to sleep. They’d be able to see my car in the driveway, so I didn’t even need to give the cursory “I’m home!” shout-out.

  I didn’t drift peacefully to sleep. I lay in the dark staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Selena and I had put up when we were little and shared a room. They barely glowed. I’d been gone almost the entire day, and they’d had no light to absorb. I felt just as dim.

  I
t’d been easy to avoid Dad today, but tomorrow would be different. We had another game, and afterward Selena would sit us all down and share her very-likely-not-good news or she would have told me already. I’d be expected to talk to him, civilly, as though he hadn’t cheated and possibly done the unforgivable.

  I decided to think about Chase instead, and the warmth of his hand in mine. When I closed my eyes, I could still feel him on my skin. Without realizing it, he’d given me permission to hurt him...but he’d also given me every reason not to.

  Chapter 16

  Jessalyn did not do cool and composed. She did loud and in your face—or more specifically, my face.

  “Seriously, Dana? Seriously?”

  She hadn’t even bothered to get in the pizza line for lunch the following day. She was standing next to it in the quad when I saw her. She also didn’t wait for me to get close enough to keep our conversation private. I was still twenty feet away when she started.

  “Who even was that guy last night?”

  I didn’t answer until I was within grabbing distance of her arm. I tugged her away from the faces turned toward us in the pizza line. “I told you who he was. Chill out, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

  “It’s not me you need to tell.” She wasn’t even trying to keep her voice down.

  “Enough about Nick. You’re not his personal bodyguard. And we’re not dating!” My voice rose to match Jessalyn’s. “He and I are friends, and don’t you give me that look. It’s true. He’s never asked me out. We’ve hung out and he comes to our games, but you see him more than I do now that you’re working together. I never said ‘Nick, I like you’ or ‘Nick, I want to be your girlfriend.’ Yes, he’s a nice guy and a great friend, and yes, I thought I might get to the point where I’d want something more between us, but you’re right, I don’t. I met this other guy, and I already feel more for him than I ever will for Nick. So, there.” Suddenly exhausted, I let my arms fall to my sides. “Are you happy? Is that what you’ve been waiting for me to say?”

  Jessalyn did this thing. It was so much worse than yelling at me across the quad or lecturing me in front of the pizza line. She didn’t say a word; her eyes slid just slightly to my left, and all the animosity fled from her face.

  I knew what I’d see before I turned, but when I met Nick’s gaze and saw him there, close enough to have heard every word I’d just said, close enough to see that not even Jessalyn had known how deeply I’d been capable of hurting him, few things had ever felt worse.

  Chapter 17

  I looked for Nick the rest of the day but he was a ghost and what I needed to say to him couldn’t be done over text. Jessalyn, on the other hand, couldn’t have avoided me if she tried. I was waiting at her locker at the start of practice.

  “What did he say?” I asked when she reached me. She and Nick had American Government together for fifth period.

  “Nothing, so either he’s in love with me now too, or he doesn’t want to talk to either of us.”

  I sank onto the bench, and a second later Jessalyn joined me. Quietly, I said to her, “You could have just talked to me, asked me instead of yelling in front of half the school.” In front of Nick. I braced my head in my hands. “Did you see his face?”

  Her voice was soft too. “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “That’s it?” I opened one eye to glance at her sideways. She was staring at the closed lockers in front of us. “You don’t have anything else to say to me?”

  “I don’t feel like yelling anymore.”

  I closed my eye again, then braced my hands on my knees and straightened up. “Fine. Chase. Yes, he’s a guy I like, and yes, I didn’t tell you about him. I didn’t know for sure if there was anything to tell until last night. It’s complicated, but I would have told you. And Nick,” I added.

  Other girls were filing into the locker room, preventing me from telling Jessalyn exactly how complicated things were with Chase. She waited for me to elaborate, and when I didn’t, her brows pinched ever so slightly together in genuine hurt. “I asked you not to be that girl and you did it anyway. It was a sucky thing to do, Dana.”

  And with that, she finished changing and headed out to the field.

  * * *

  I’d lingered too long in the locker room after practice hoping to catch Jessalyn alone and finish the conversation we needed to have, but it didn’t happen, so both my parents were home when I let myself in. Mom was emerging from the office in the same clothes she’d been wearing yesterday, looking tired, but her smile was triumphant. I guessed she’d figured out the triangles. Dad lowered the tablet he was holding and was the opposite of smiling.

  “Where’d you go last night?”

  “I left you a note,” I said, avoiding all but the briefest of eye contact as I made my way to the kitchen.

  “You had a homework thing?” he asked.

  “That’s what I wrote in my note.”

  Even Mom’s smile dimmed a bit at my less-than-respectful response.

  Dad followed me, leaving Mom in the living room. “Right, with Jessalyn. You get it all done?”

  I grabbed a banana from the bunch in the bowl. There was something off in his tone that didn’t jibe with the routine question he’d asked. Rather than looking up, I focused on peeling my banana. “I’m all set.”

  “That’s not all you are.”

  My eyes flicked to his and I halted midbite. His arms were locked and he was resting his palms on the kitchen island. My respect for him had been demolished in the past few days; otherwise I might have been more concerned at the you-are-in-big-trouble vibe radiating from him.

  “Jessalyn is close to failing History. Her teacher talked to me after practice today, because Jessalyn missed another extension on some report she’s supposed to turn in.”

  My mouth opened automatically, a lie coming easily to my lips without me even breaking a sweat. “Right, that’s why—”

  “If you lie to me again, Dana, it won’t end well for you.”

  “Lie to you? Lie to you?” I mirrored his pose on the other side of the island. I’d barely looked at my father since finding out about Brandon, but standing across from him while he prepared to lecture me about honesty was more than I could bear. I almost said it, right then, almost screamed out what I knew. My mouth was opening again, the truth ready to pour out, when the only thing that could have stopped me in that moment entered the kitchen behind Dad.

  Mom looked between me and Dad. “What is going on in here?”

  Dad’s eyes never left my face. “She lied about where she was last night.”

  “Dana?”

  “And she’s gonna tell us where she went right now.”

  Both my parents were staring at me, though with polar-opposite expressions. Mom looked confused, like she was waiting for me to explain away a misunderstanding. Dad looked pissed, like he was waiting for—demanding—an explanation that he’d already decided he wouldn’t accept. I was torn right down the middle. I was so angry with him, but I still didn’t know how deep his betrayal went. Laying into Dad the way I burned to would shatter Mom. It was going to hurt enough when I did; unanswered questions would only make it worse.

  So I beat the words down. But that did nothing to cool my temper. “Fine. I lied.”

  Dad’s expression wavered. He hadn’t been expecting me to come right out and admit it.

  “I didn’t go to Jessalyn’s, and I didn’t do homework. I went to the batting cages with a guy. I didn’t tell you because I thought you might say no. So I lied.” I drew out that last word, making sure to hold Dad’s eye as I did. I couldn’t help it. If I’d felt more guilty over blowing off Dad, I might have tried to lessen my lie by pointing out that Jessalyn and Sadie had shown up too, but I didn’t feel guilty enough to want to try. I didn’t feel guilty at all.

&nbs
p; “A boy?” Mom said. “You lied to us over a boy? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Nothing,” I said, eyeing Dad and his inexplicable silence.

  “I lied because I never do anything besides softball and homework. But don’t worry, Dad.” I shifted my eyes and only my eyes to him. “I hit better than I ever have. I’m good for the game tonight.”

  It would have been cool to toss my banana peel in the trash can on my way out of the kitchen after that, having left both my parents speechless in my wake, but I didn’t get to be cool—I got to be yelled at, tag team–style.

  Lying was wrong, ninth commandment–level wrong, and let’s throw in breaking the fifth commandment about honoring parents too, since I obviously hadn’t done that either. I didn’t know that I’d ever been yelled at so thoroughly and for so long before in my life. Not because lying was the worst thing I’d ever been caught doing, but because I wouldn’t apologize. I was defiant and obstinate at every turn. I didn’t express remorse. I didn’t promise never to do it again. I was like a kid possessed, one who was too stupid or too far gone to see that every willful and barb-tongued response was only digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole of my own making.

  It might have gone on indefinitely had it not been a game day. Like matching Pavlovian dogs, Dad and I both turned to the kitchen wall clock the second it hit five o’clock.

  Games were sacrosanct. Not even a knock-down, drag-out fight could delay them.

  Dad and I left the kitchen to change and gather our stuff, then met back downstairs in the garage.

  “Adriana, are you coming with us?” Dad asked Mom, who was still in the kitchen where we’d left her. She tossed the sponge she’d been using on the island countertop into the sink and shook her head.

  “So our daughter can complete her transformation into Pete Rose, ready to charge the mound the second she gets on the field? No. I’ll text Selena to pick me up on her way.” With one last head shake of disgust from her in no particular direction, Dad and I headed out.