The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  At red lights, I pulled off my shirt and shorts and wriggled into my uniform, not even caring that anyone next to me might see. Once I got to the field, I flung my door open and sprinted toward the lights, my heart sinking as I skidded into the empty dugout. I was the last girl to arrive, but they all turned toward me from the field, where warm-ups were already under way.

  Yeah, I’d made it, but it was close enough that no one was particularly thrilled with me.

  I didn’t offer an excuse—not only because I didn’t have one, but because none would have been acceptable—as I joined them on the field, muttering an apology to each of my teammates and finally Dad.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t look at me, but I looked at him. For the first time in more than a month I looked at him without wanting to crawl outside my own skin. I looked at him, and I wanted to cry. Not because he’d hurt me—though he had—but because I knew that soon I’d have to devastate him.

  “I nearly scratched you from the lineup card.”

  I nodded and listened with growing shame to the passing remarks from several of my teammates.

  “What the hell, Dana?”

  “Where were you?”

  “What’s more important than this?”

  Used to be I would have said Nothing, and I would have meant it. Nothing was more important than getting my team to state. But that was before I’d found Brandon, before I had to spend weeks living with the sick dread that Dad had known, before I lost my brother, my sister and the guy I’d fallen for all in one night. It was before I had to look at myself and question the drive to win I’d always thought was for the game itself.

  It didn’t matter that our team won the game—narrowly. I hadn’t pulled my weight, and it was obvious to everyone. The only one who didn’t rag on me was Jessalyn, though if we’d lost, even she would have had a hard time not blaming me. When we were finally alone in the dugout, without fear of being overheard, she laid it out.

  “I know you are dealing with unbelievably hard stuff right now, and it kills me that I can’t help you, but, Dana, you can’t keep doing this. We need you here, all of us. We’re a team and when you’re late like this, it looks like you don’t care.” She sat next to me, close enough that her shoulder leaned into mine, and the contact helped to soften the sting of her words. “I know you care about every player on this team. I just don’t want them to doubt that, okay?”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t do more than that. Jessalyn wasn’t trying to kick me when I was down, but I was so low at that point it felt like it anyway.

  I left her gathering her stuff in the dugout and ran smack into...

  “Nick.”

  He’d been MIA at my games since we’d talked. I understood, but that didn’t mean I’d missed seeing his face any less. Things between us at school were still strained, but according to Jessalyn, he was fine at work and, though she didn’t say it, basically anywhere I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to assume he’d come to the game just for me, but the fact that he had come despite knowing he’d see me meant I could hope our friendship wasn’t done for good. I could use a little hope right then.

  “I’m really glad you came.”

  Nick swallowed three times in rapid succession. “Yeah, I um... Dana, I’m not—I mean, yeah, but—”

  I smiled at him. He really was a great guy, even flustered and so nervous that he couldn’t meet my eye. I heard someone coming up behind me and I turned back to see Jessalyn emerging from the dugout. She slowed when she saw me with Nick, but I waved her closer. Nick would probably be more comfortable if it wasn’t just the two of us. My smile fell as I turned back to Nick, who wasn’t having any trouble looking at her. In fact, his expression was almost pleading when she reached my side.

  I started as if someone had fired a gunshot. How had I been so stupid? “You like him,” I said to her. I would have picked up on it if I hadn’t been so distracted by everything with my family.

  Jessalyn met Nick’s gaze before answering, though the look alone was confirmation enough. “I’ve liked him all year.” She said it almost like a confession. Maybe to him it was.

  Guys were kind of a gray territory once they’d dated another teammate. Nick and I had never been officially anything, but it was close enough that Jessalyn wasn’t bounding with excitement waiting for my reaction.

  “All year?” I asked, my voice registering how stunned I was. “Are you kidding me right now?”

  She slowly drew closer but said nothing.

  “Jess—” I had no idea what to say to her. I turned to Nick. “And you came tonight for her.”

  He tried to make his head disappear into his shoulders.

  I could suddenly see how it must have happened. All the shifts they were working together, and they were probably talking at night. Another piece fell into place. “That night I came over and you were weirdly secretive about your laptop, was that because you guys were messaging?”

  “Nothing was remotely going on then. I just wasn’t sure how you’d feel, knowing I liked him with everything else going on. Are you mad?” Jessalyn asked.

  I felt disoriented and hurt, like I’d taken a ball to the head. “No, I’m not mad, but then why did you keep pushing me to...” I’d been going to say she’d been pushing me to go out with him, but she hadn’t. She’d been pushing me to decide how I felt without making me take her feelings into consideration. It had never even occurred to me, because Nick was so shy and Jess was so not-shy. But even if I never would’ve thought of the two of them, I’d have expected her to tell me—and Nick—straight off if she liked him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what? That I was falling for the guy who practically levitated every time he saw you? You kind of did,” she added to Nick when he and I both made a strangled noise of protest. “What good would it have done?”

  “Dana!” Mom was shouting at me from the parking lot. “I need your keys.”

  My eyes shut. Dad would want to drive home alone with me so it would be nice and private when he chewed me out for nearly being late again. “I don’t know what to say right now, but I have to go.”

  Jessalyn’s face fell. “But we’ll talk, right?”

  “Dana!” That time it was Dad calling me.

  “Yes, we’ll talk. I promise.” I hurried to the parking lot, registering the sympathetic look from Mom when I handed her my keys and watched her drive off.

  “You’ve never been late to a game before,” Dad said. He didn’t get in the car right away. Neither did I. “And now you’ve been almost late twice in a month.” He rested his arms on the hood, his head shaking as he spoke. “You almost didn’t play tonight, and college isn’t that far away. I’ve been talking to the coach at ASU about you—other schools too. Is that what you want them to see? You warming the bench the entire game? Because that’s what’ll happen if you pull this again.”

  “I don’t want that,” I said, my gaze on the asphalt.

  “You made a commitment to this team, to me. That’s supposed to mean something.”

  The muscle behind my eye started throbbing. I didn’t want to think about how little he’d once cared about commitment. I just wanted to feel one emotion at a time. I wanted to be only angry with him or only feel sorry for him, not this stomach-churning mix that kept me from even looking at him.

  “I won’t be late again. I promise.”

  I got into the car then, and after a moment, he took his own seat and we drove home, both of us angry and confused, when I was the only one with a right to either of those emotions.

  * * *

  I was lying on my stomach alone on my bed later when Mom knocked and poked her head in. I sat up as she came in and slid around behind me. Without a word, she combed my hair with her fingers before beginning to braid it.

  “So, fun ride home
?”

  I leaned back against her and closed my eyes. “I didn’t mean to show up at the last minute, I really didn’t.”

  “If you don’t mean to do something, you have to try harder not to.” She tied off my hair and rested her hands on my shoulders. “I know it’s hard being seventeen, but it’s hard being forty-one too. Lay off your dad.” And in the same sweet voice she added, “Otherwise, I’ll have to strangle you in your sleep.”

  I laughed a little the way I was supposed to. “You love him a lot, don’t you?”

  “More than all the Kisses in the world.” She leaned in and brushed her mouth against my forehead. “Look at the beautiful girls he gave me.”

  I caught her wrists when she started to stand. “Always?”

  She frowned a little.

  “Will you always love him more than all the Kisses in the world? Even when he messes up, when he does unlovable things?”

  “Is this about the boy you’ve been disappearing with, hmm? Not tonight, but we’re going to talk about that.”

  I wasn’t even mad that Selena had told Mom. I’d known she would. They were both too alike to keep secrets.

  “No, that’s...over.” I ducked my head, hiding my slight chin quiver. “I’m asking about Dad because—” I met her gaze again “—I need to know you’ll still love him even when it’s hard.”

  She pulled her head back, the teasing smile leaving her lips. “Of course I will.”

  I closed my eyes and started to stand. I wanted so much more than the automatic answer from her.

  “Hey.” She drew my attention back to her. “Love isn’t always easy, not the good kind. The kind that may start here—” she tapped two fingers against her chest “—but finds its way here too.” She lifted her hand to her head. “That kind of love is more than a feeling or a word. That kind of love is an action, a promise, and it’s not dependent on perfection or ideals. It’s real and lasting and it’s worth everything. It’s worth fighting for. And we’re fighters, yes?” She waited for my nod before filling her lungs with air and smiling. “So I fight for the people I love. Always.”

  She kissed me one last time before closing my door softly when she left. I waited less than a minute before following her. I stopped at the top of the stairs and listened to her slide in next to Dad on the couch. After a moment, her voice drifted up to me.

  “I think you should go up and talk to her.”

  “I already talked to her.” And by the sound of his voice, he’d had enough. I drew back farther from the edge of the wall hiding me from view.

  “You yelled at her. There’s a difference.” There was a pause. “She’s always trying so hard to make you see her. Maybe she’s trying a new way.”

  “How do I not see her? Practices, games, I was spending hours with her in the backyard until—”

  “See her apart from softball.”

  I leaned into the wall at my side, pressing closer so I’d be sure to hear his response.

  “I see her,” was all he said, but softer.

  There was a sound that might have been a kiss. “I know, mi alma, but sometimes it can be hard to feel it. And Dana needs to feel it. If you can’t say it, then you have to find a way to show it.”

  Back in my room I leaned against my door, half wanting to bolt downstairs and...stand there openmouthed, because it wasn’t just Dad who didn’t know how to say things. I did want him to see me, to fight for me. I’d always wanted that; even now I wanted it. Especially now. I slid to the floor and drew my knees up, hugging them.

  I just wanted to skip past all this next part. I wanted to jump ahead to after I told my parents, to after all the pain, to where it was okay again. To where it was just softball and stupid problems with my friends at school. I let my head bang against my door. All year Jessalyn had liked Nick. All year. It must have killed her watching me waver back and forth with him. If she’d just told me she liked Nick, that would have made it so easy for me to realize I didn’t. Clearly Nick was open to the idea—more than open. It would have been perfect, and no one would have gotten hurt. I banged my head again. And again. Because I couldn’t skip ahead. I had to deal with the now. I glanced at Selena’s guitar case, which was leaning against her side of the bed, and I knew my brother’s was probably in a similar position in his room.

  Actually, for all I knew, he’d thrown it away. I hugged my knees tighter, gripping my elbows until the skin turned white.

  Chapter 38

  Selena decided to extend her stay with Whitney indefinitely. Mom thought Selena’s ongoing absence was due to lack of support from her and Dad with Gavin and Nashville, an assumption I was in no position to disabuse her of.

  “I think my room was just getting a little crowded,” I told her on Tuesday while school was canceled due to a power outage. We were grocery shopping, a task that she positively loathed and always needed company to complete. “She doesn’t have to share a bed at Whitney’s.”

  Mom was scowling as she turned down the cereal aisle, her flip-flops slapping on the worn linoleum behind her. “She doesn’t come to the game, and she’s suddenly working double shifts and can’t come to dinner.” Mom shook her head. “This is about more than a bed.”

  I added a box of my favorite cereal to the cart, tugging the front of it along behind me until Mom’s resistance on the other end stopped me. I looked back.

  “Forget something?”

  I stared blankly at her.

  “Your dad’s Raisin Bran?”

  With half a nod, I knocked another box in the cart.

  “Well, you’ve talked to her. What did she say?”

  I shrugged, randomly adding nonlist items to our cart. I wasn’t paying attention to which aisles we turned down, grabbing whatever Mom directed and continuing to make noncommittal responses to her questions, until the cart not-so-gently hit my back and pitched me forward a few jerky steps.

  “Mom!”

  “Oh, are you alive? You’ve been shuffling along like a zombie since the canned-goods aisle. You’re supposed to make grocery shopping less soul sucking, not more. Between your moping and Selena’s absence, I’m starting to question my mothering skills.”

  “Me too. Maybe don’t ram your kids with grocery carts.” I rubbed the small of my back for emphasis.

  “This is the most alive you’ve been in days, weeks. Dana, is something wrong? You know you can tell me anything.” She shifted from the somewhat playful tone to something more earnest. “Even if you think I’ll be upset, I want you to know you can come to me.”

  I found myself wanting to believe she meant even something as horrible as Dad cheating and fathering a child. That I could talk to her about Brandon the way I’d always been able to talk to her about anything. That she could fight her way through all that and somehow still love him enough to grieve over the son he never knew. And maybe she could, but not without me and Sel there with her.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. School and softball have been a lot lately.” When she didn’t nod at my feeble excuse, I gave her something a little closer to the truth. “And Selena and I got into this fight. That’s the real reason she’s staying over at Whitney’s.”

  Mom shot a hand toward me. “And were either of you going to tell me this? You know you could have said something.” The cart started moving again, and I relaxed, knowing she was accepting my half-truth. “Do I want to know what the fight was about?”

  “No,” I said, turning away from her. “You really don’t.”

  Mom sighed. “And as long as you work it out before tomorrow night, I won’t say another word.” She picked up two boxes of cake mix from the shelf.

  “What’s tomorrow night?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Now help me pick.” She turned the boxes toward me. “Chocolate or yellow? He changes his mind eve
ry year.”

  Sweat prickled at my neck as I looked at them.

  She tossed them both in the cart. “We’ll do one of those swirl cakes, mármol—what is the word in English?”

  “Marble.” My steps slowed to a halt as she continued down the aisle to grab frosting and birthday candles.

  Thursday was Dad’s birthday. We always had a family dinner just the four of us. From the moment Nick had told me about his DNA test results, I’d been dreaming of that dinner and the look on his face when I gave him my gift and told him I’d found a family member of his. Finding Brandon had consumed me so entirely that I’d forgotten why I’d gone looking for Dad’s relatives in the first place. I’d forgotten about his birthday and the fact that I no longer had a gift for him, but something much more horrible for all of us.

  I pulled out my phone and read the last text I’d sent to Selena.

  Me: Please talk to me.

  That was two days ago and she still hadn’t responded.

  Mom was right about my being a zombie lately. I’d felt even less alive since that night at Lava Java. I missed Chase. I had no right to miss him, but I did. And I missed him for him, not because of what I could learn from him. He was a channel of information that had been cut off, and I wouldn’t have cared if I could still see him.

  Brandon remained a distant figure. I was no closer to him than I’d ever been, but knowing I’d wasted my one real opportunity to forge a relationship with him was more devastating than I could have imagined. In the span of two months, I’d gone from cursing his existence to mourning his loss. But as often as my thoughts strayed to Chase and Brandon, the absence I felt most acutely was Selena’s.

  We’d never gone this long without talking. I couldn’t remember us going longer than a day without at least texting. This whole thing with Dad and Brandon was the first time I’d kept something important from her, and I’d been so relieved to finally tell her. I’d been so sure that once the shock wore off, she’d come to me and demand to see the DNA test results, probably even insist on testing Dad again. And I’d have let her if she needed more than Brandon himself and what I’d learned. I didn’t. The truth was inescapable. But I would have done it for her; I’d have waited as long as she needed, even if each day pretending with our parents was torturous.