by Teagan Kade
“I inflated his grades. I logged into the system and bumped them, just to keep him here ’til you could get them up.”
I sit down. “Oh, Dad.”
“Manning was winning again, Lucy. It was all because of him.”
“But you told me our sessions were working, that I was helping keeping his grades up.”
“You were, but not enough.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He stands and begins pacing again. I’m so used to seeing him do it behind the pulpit that he suddenly seems like a preacher again, though far from saintly now. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. It was stupid, foolish.”
“I mean, I understand the whole you-chose-me foster thing, but surely you knew this wasn’t the answer. Dad?”
“Yes, Lucy, I know. I’m just lucky the Board isn’t going public with it.”
“And what about me? Did you bump my grades too?
He shakes his head in dismissal. “Of course not. You had no part of this. I made that very clear to the Board. Your position won’t be affected.”
As comforting as that is, I can’t help but think of Nate. “And Nate?”
“I stepped down under the proviso he gets a second chance.”
“And the Board gave it to him?”
“They did.”
“Have you told him all this? Does he even know?”
I can feel my eyes getting hot and wet, can feel my father’s shame, his desperation, and all over what? Stupid basketball? Some act of personal redemption? “When? When are you going to tell him?”
There’s a knock on the door.
“Is that him? Is that Nate now?”
He nods.
“Jesus Christ, Dad!”
“Hey,” he snaps in a sudden show of rage, “do not take the lord’s name in vain.”
“What does the good lord have to say about lying and cheating? Huh? What does he say about that?”
“Don’t you dare-”
“What does he say about sex before marriage, because I’ve been having sex, Dad, a lot. Real kinky, dirty sex, and you know what? I love it.”
I know this is hurting him, but I can’t help myself. I want to press and press until he breaks and I feel better.
He picks up a box and starts for the door, but I block his path. “Did you know we even did it here once? Right on your desk?”
He slaps me across the face, and I’m so shocked, so completely paralyzed, I barely process Nate charging towards him. I watch Nate bring a heavy first smashing into his jaw, Dad spinning to the ground and Nate lifting his fist again, his eyes wide and hand bloody. I manage to grab it just in time.
“Go!” I tell him. His arm relaxes and he looks down at Dad coughing on the floor, hand to his jaw.
I’m not even there. It seems too surreal. I’m just a specter of myself, a doppelganger do-gooder.
Nate goes, the door slamming behind him.
Dad puts his hand up. “Lucy, I’m so-”
I can’t even look at him, my eyes teary. Everything is falling apart. “Don’t, Dad. Just… don’t.”
*
I’m still shaking as I take my seat next to Amber in the Cat House. She’s sucking on a lollipop almost as big as her head. She points to Nate swinging his arm around, stretching. “What’s up with boy wonder? Looks like he’s trying to pass a kidney stone.”
I wipe away a tear. Breathe. “He hurt his arm.”
“Bad?”
I shrug, somehow managing to find Happy Lucy. “Maybe. Stubborn mother trucker won’t let anyone look at it.”
Amber remains optimistic as always. “Probably knows his body better than anyone else.” She winks. “Except for you, maybe.”
I’m watching Nate hard, but he’s deliberately not looking in this direction. “He’d better.”
The other players come on and get into position. I send off a small prayer as the buzzer goes and the game begins. I hate him right now, but the last thing I want to see is someone else I love get hurt.
It’s clear from the start the arm’s a problem. Nate receives every pass with the opposite hand, letting an easy chest pass slip when he can’t get the good arm into position to receive. He shoots from inside the key five minutes in, manages to sink it, but his face pulls together in agony afterwards. He holds his hand up to the light, testing his fingers.
It’s not looking good.
I’ve got my eye on the opposition center coming into the second quarter. He’s bigger than Nate, taller too. I can see it’s hard for Nate to get past him playing man-on-man, but he does, more than once, the frustration all over this guy’s face as the crowd cheers again and the Panthers move four points ahead.
The opposition coach calls time out. I try to read his lips, but all I get is ‘sponge cake.’ Somehow I doubt they are planning a bake sale.
I look over at Nate, seeing him icing up his arm. Coach Smith comes over, but Nate waves him away. Idiot. Don’t do it. Sit this one out.
I don’t know what the opposition coach said, but they come out hard on the offense—classic run and gun. The big center runs Nate to the floor by charging up against his bad arm. I stand from my seat. “Come on!”
The ref shakes his head, Nate helped up by Tyson and still struggling. He says something snarky to the center. For a moment I think it’s on, but Tyson manages to get Nate away before he can get his fists up.
Even so, I don’t like the way the opposition center is looking at Nate, the way he’s watching his arm.
He knows.
“Nate!” I yell out, trying to get his attention, but the idiot ignores me.
“Nate!” I try again, but the whistle blows and the game’s back on.
The opposition center knows exactly what to do this time. He drives hard down the middle, Nate holding position and prepping to leap for the block. I see what’s going to happen before it does, see the whole thing unfold as I scream, “Nate!”
The center doesn’t jump at all but lowers his shoulder and slams into Nate’s bad arm, the force of the impact sending him sliding past the ring to the front row.
There’s a scream from someone seated nearby, Nate limp, a shard of bone, dirty white, jutting from his elbow.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NATE
It’s a perfect day outside, the kind of postcard perfection that forces even the most determined study rats from their hidey holes, but not me.
I’m propped up with a pillow in bed watching another shitty reality show on another shitty channel with a shitty arm that’s as useful to me as a chocolate teapot. I look down at the thing, the pathetic excuse for a limb, and start to smash it with my free hand. The pain’s good. At least I can feel something.
I smack it against the side of the wall and come close to passing out, let the pain move through me like a shot of cocaine, let it ebb and flow and fill up all the empty spaces inside me, because that’s all I am—a useless fucking container of flesh and blood, a good-for-nothing who will never play again.
Fuck the doctors. Fuck them all.
There’s a knock on the door, but I’m not in the mood for visitors. “Fuck off.”
Lucy enters, closing the door softly behind her. Something about the way she does it drives me insane, like she’s entering a respite home careful not to wake up the other patients.
She drags a seat across and sits. I look away. She reaches out to touch my arm and I pull back. “Don’t.”
I know I’m killing her. I can see the hurt in her eyes, the way she pities me. I hate it. I hate what I’ve become and what I’ve lost. I should never have come here, never have tried.
Lucy’s voice is scratchy when she speaks, scratchy like she’s been up all night sobbing, too many days spent by my side in the hospital. “You should try moving around. The doctors said-”
I snap at her. “Do I look like I give a fuck about what the doctors say?”
“Nate…”
“Don’t ‘Nate’ me. You don’t know what it fe
els like.”
“I’m trying to-”
The anger courses through me hot and strong. There’s a mallet pounding away at my skull. I spit each word at her, let the poison out. “What, Lucy? You think you can fix me? Is that it?” I hold my busted arm up. “You think you can fix this? If it wasn’t for your stalker boyfriend, I’d be fine.”
Tears are pricking at the corner of her eyes, but she remains composed, her hands in her lap. “That’s not fair.”
I sit up, grimacing and baring my teeth. “You know what’s not fair? Being treated like I’m a fucking invalid.”
She boils at this, her cheeks growing red. “Okay, Nate, you want some truth, a dollop of reality? You are an idiot. I told you not to play, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? Thought you knew better.”
I slump back into the bed. “Give me a fucking break.”
She stands over me, a pearly tear making a wet track down her cheek. “No! You fucking listen. You drew me in. You made me care for you, and then what? You just throw it all away, like that? I’m not going to let you destroy yourself, stand here idle while you self-destruct.”
“You should, because you and me, it’s over. It was over from the start.”
She wipes another tear off her face, cheeks puffy. “You don’t mean that.”
“No?” I whack my arm against the wall again, the sound of it making her jump. “You were just another lay, another pussy.”
“Fuck you,” she says coldly.
“Oh, so we’ve finally learned a naughty word. Good for you, baby.”
She stabs her finger at me. “Don’t you dare-”
“What? You can’t handle the truth? A girl like you could never be with a guy like me.”
She’s tearing up inside, shaking as she teeters in front of me. There is a sliver of sanity deep down inside me that knows I have gone too far, but it’s outnumbered and outgunned. This right here is the real Nate Compton. She has to know. She has to be forced away no matter how much it hurts. It’s better that way.
I pick up a stack of papers beside the bed and throw them at her. “Just fuck off, will you?”
Shaking, she takes a step closer. “No. I care about you. You can’t make me love you and then discard me like I’m a candy wrapper. It’s not you speaking. It’s the pain.”
I swipe at her. “You’re the fucking pain! Get lost. Go already.”
She remains defiant and all I see is red, pulsing anger and hate and baseless emotion. “Get. The. Fuck. Out! How many times do I have to say it?”
She can barely speak she’s shaking so hard, but she remains firm. “No, I’m not leaving.”
“Go!” I thrash in the bed, the frame jumping up and down, the windows shaking with the power of my voice, my throat dry and fiery. I throw my pillow at her, pound into the wall with my fist until it’s covered in plaster. “Leave!”
She takes another step closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I shake my head at the ceiling. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She sits on the bed, her hand on my leg. I pull it away, turning to the wall while my heart continues to pound inside me, a fat, blubbery waste of muscle.
She breathes out, voice wet and weary when she speaks. “You might never play basketball again. So what? What about me?”
“What about you?”
“You’ve got me.”
I scream it at her. “I’ve got NOTHING! Do you hear me?”
“You don’t mean it.”
“I do. What would a stuck-up bitch like you know?”
That does it. It cuts deep, right to the bone. I see the shock register, the hurt, and I want her to hurt. He is inside me, forcing the words out. His fists are pummeling my face, over and over, until I’m a pulpy, whimpering mess on the floor. He boots me in the chest and I’m broken, but not completely. After another five minutes I barely feel the blows at all, just his voice, distant. I can see her eyes watching from the hallway, the red of her ribbon a solitary beacon of hope in the darkness.
You’re fucking worthless.
Kick.
You’re scum.
Kick.
No one will ever give a shit about a little turd like you.
Kick.
Your parents died to get away from your faggoty ass. You know that?
But even back then, my face covered in blood and one eye closed over, I was happy. I was happy because I knew she was safe, that his anger was spent for today.
It all flashes before me as I lay there, Lucy once more the timid little girl I knew in the home. I can’t force her away. I can’t let the only good thing in my life slip through my fingers again.
She turns, but I grasp her wrist and pull her to the bed, holding her as she bucks and screams. “I’m sorry,” I beg. “I’m sorry,” the words a sloppy mess and everything, all the hate and bile, just rushing out of me, pain loosed from my body until we’re both clutching one another on the bed, our faces together and the entire world lost.
“Forgive me,” I plead, taking her face in my hands, making sure she understands. “I can’t lose you again. I won’t.”
I feel the heat of us together, the release of everything I’ve held so tight finally free and the catharsis that now follows. I smell her, sunshine and apples, warm and welcoming—life.
I draw her up and hold her in my lap, cradle her there and press myself into the crook of her neck, feel her pulse against my swollen lips, the salty taste of her tears.
“I’m broken,” I confess. “I’m fucked up, Lucy, and I might never be the same. What am I going to do? What the fuck am I going to do?”
She wraps her arms around my neck and looks me dead-on, those bottle-green eyes I fell in love with still as luminous as ever. I’m raw before her, more than naked. I’m completely exposed.
“You’re not alone,” she says, the words wavering. She holds me tighter still. “I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere no matter what you call me, no matter how many pillows or papers you want to throw. I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”
And there is such relief, such hope in her words that for the first time in forever I know it will be okay as long as I have her.
I pull her face to mine and kiss her, my hand clamped against the side of her face and such desperation in the act we can barely breathe, a hot mess of emotion caught in our own bubble. She melts into me, rocks into my body, our tongues meeting and pressing against each other, an infinite exploration.
We’ve kissed before, but this is different. When we finally draw apart, I feel her—all of her—right down to my toes, this girl that has pulled me down and built me up again, this simple virgin girl who has somehow broken through the fortress around my heart.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I’ve been such an asshole.”
“You’re my asshole.”
“I’m what now?”
We both laugh at that, the tension suddenly broken.
She runs her hand down my chest, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Well, asshole, you certainly didn’t have to give me a concussion to get my attention. You could have just walked up and spoken to me like a regular guy.”
“Still holding onto that, huh? You’re never going to let it go, are you?”
“Let it go, sure. Let you go? Never.”
I swallow hard and nod. That Disney princess smile lights up her face, but it’s different now. There’s not a hint of fear in it.
*
Tyson’s tying up his laces, the training court half-lit. “What’s it going to take to get you back out there, big boy? Cock suck? Because I will if I have to, take that big Caucasian anaconda of yours and gmpf gmpf gmpf.”
He’s still making a choking noise when I push him off the bench. “As tempting as that sounds, I think I’ll pass.”
He stands, smoothing down his uniform. “Suit yourself, but seriously, this moody Don Draper shit has to stop. You ain’t going to get to the NBA by warming that bench with your ass all day.” He tosse
s me a ball and I catch with my good arm, flicking it up and letting it spin on my finger.
Tyson steals it back. “Could always try out for the Harlem Globetrotters. Got a bit of boot polish back in my room that would work wonders.”
I barely hear him. I’m still looking at my hand, feeling the energy pricking at the tips of my fingers, itchy to hold that leather again. In my mind the training court becomes the Cat House. Brilliant white light beams down from overhead, the crowd painted black and blue. I smell the leather and sweat, food fried far beyond what it ever should be, hot dogs. It’s the smell of “hope and dreams,” Coach would say, “America.”
“Yo, Rain Man, you hearing me?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, what are you going to do now?”
Given I’ve been cleared of conspiring with the Dean, the Board allowed me to continue on at Manning provided I get my GPA up. Lucy seems to think it’ll be a cinch if we put in more study time—actual study time…
“I don’t know,” I tell Tyson. “Hit the library. Actually try this education thing out.”
He laughs. “You’re not fooling me, son. I know exactly what you and that gal of yours get up to in the stacks.”
“You been peeping on us?”
“Word gets around. That’s all I’m saying.”
“About my ‘Caucasian anaconda’?”
He throws the ball back at me and tilts his head to the court. “Go on. Let’s see if King Compton’s still got it or if he’s just another cripple looking to cash in a disability check.”
I stand, grinning as I make my way past him. I stand at the top of the key, the ball in my good hand.
Compton.
Compton.
Compton.
I can almost hear them, but more than anything I can picture Lucy, her golden smile brighter than anything else in that stadium.
I draw the ball back and fire, a little more backspin than normal but the ball still sailing through the net.
Tyson tosses it back. “You got lucky.”
All I see is Lucy. “I sure did.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LUCY
Amber’s busy stuffing clothes of various dark shades into her suitcase, the swarm of excitement downstairs making it clear break is upon us.
