Playing The Game

by Jeff Shelby

  Finally, she blinked and wiped at her eyes. “I have to go.”

  She turned and headed back toward her front door.

  “Are you coming to school tomorrow?” I asked because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  She stopped, turned around, hugged herself again. “Why do you care?”

  It was a question I wasn't sure I had an answer to. I wasn't sure what to tell her. I couldn't find any words.

  “Yeah,” she said, not waiting for me to answer. “Unfortunately, I'll be there. Because my life doesn't suck enough right now.”

  She turned and went back into her house.

  THIRTY

  “You're home late,” my dad said. “I was just about to go looking for you.”

  I tossed my bag on the couch. “Sorry.”

  “Enchiladas will be done in a minute,” he said. He stood at the stove, his back to me. “Hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  “For enchiladas? Really?” I knew what he was thinking: it was my favorite meal.

  I sat down on the couch and kicked off my shoes. “I'll eat. It's fine.”

  “Brady. What's the matter?”

  I shoved my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt. “Just a crap day.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. It's fine.”

  I knew he was still looking at me, so I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes. But all I could see was the picture of Amy.

  “Practice was okay?” he asked.

  Of course his first worry was basketball. Of course it was. “Fine.”

  “Doesn't sound like it was fine.”

  “We ran drills,” I said. “We shot. We scrimmaged. It was practice. It was fine.”

  He was quiet for a minute and I knew he was wondering whether to push the issue, question me about my effort and my intensity and remind me how important practice was. He'd worried about those things constantly for a year. But I knew if he pushed me, I was going to blow up.

  “Your mom left you a message,” he said instead, pulling plates from the cabinet.

  Probably the only thing I wanted to talk about less than basketball was my mom. “Great.”

  I could hear the metal spatula scraping the side of the casserole dish, heard my dad set the plates down on the table. “Here you go.”

  I pushed myself off the couch and took my place at the table.

  He put a tumbler of water in front of me. “I thought you were going to try and be a little more open-minded.”

  I picked up my fork. “Right. I forgot.”

  “So you'll listen to the voicemail then?” he asked, sitting down next to me. “Maybe call her back tonight?”

  “Not tonight.” I cut into the enchilada and watched the steam rise from the plate.

  “Tomorrow then,” he said. He eyed me for a second. “Must've been some crap day.”

  I shoved the enchilada into my mouth so I wouldn't have to say anything.

  “Well, this may or may not add to it,” he said, cutting into his own food. “Restaurant is cutting back my hours.”

  “What? How?”

  He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Some restructuring. New management. For now, they're bringing in some of their own people to oversee things and that means fewer hours for those of us that have been there.” He cut off another chunk and stuck his fork in it. “But I'm gonna look for another job. Something part-time during the day.”

  “At a restaurant?”

  “Yeah, like a cafe or something. Maybe a breakfast place,” he said, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “And if not, then...anywhere that'll pay me.”

  I looked down at my plate of food. The last thing I wanted to do was eat, because I felt like throwing up all over the place. The entire planet was tilting off its axis today and I felt like I kept losing my balance.

  “I'm sorry,” I said.

  “It's fine,” he said, shrugging, forcing the nonchalance. “I'll find something. I'll figure it out. But I'm not sure how much flexibility I'll have to get to all of your games.”

  I swirled the fork in the sauce. “Don't worry about that.”

  “Hey,” he said, glancing at me. “I'll still get there. But I might have to leave early or get there late. I'll be there, though.” He gestured toward the coffee table. “Arizona sent another letter today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, but this one was to me,” he said, smiling. “It was the suck up to the parents letter. Telling me how great the experience will be for you and I can trust them to take care of you and yada yada yada.” He smiled again. “But still. Pretty cool.”

  I wanted to be excited about it, but I couldn't find it in me. In order to get to a place like Arizona or a school like it, I was going to have to kick ass on the court. I wasn't sure I could do that anymore with the guys I was playing with. I wasn't sure I had it in me. But if I didn't do that, we sure as hell weren't going to have the money to send me somewhere that didn't offer me a scholarship. As it was, it sounded like my dad was going to be working twenty-four hours a day just for us to eat, and that was going to leave me without both parents.

  “Maybe I can get a job,” I said. “Something on the weekends. I think I know a guy whose dad has a landscaping company. Maybe I could mow or something.”

  “No,” he said, his voice firm. “You need to focus on school and hoops. And you need to rest when you aren't doing those two things. The weekends are for homework and getting some sleep.”

  “Yeah, but I could...”

  “No,” he repeated. “I'll figure it out and we'll be fine.” He laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “We'll be fine. You focus on what you need to focus on.”

  He meant basketball. I wasn't sure what it was anymore.

  “Can I borrow your work computer for a few minutes before you go to the restaurant?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “School stuff?”

  “Uh, yeah. Won't take me long. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  He checked his watch. “Better hustle then. I need to leave in about twenty.”

  I wolfed down the food on my plate, then took it to the sink. I stood there for a minute.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said.

  “Yeah, bud?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what? The computer? You know you can borrow it when you need to. And one of these days, we'll figure out how to get one here for home.”

  I shook my head. “Not the computer. I mean, yeah, for that, too.” I paused. “I just meant for everything else.”

  THIRTY ONE

  “It's weird having a boyfriend who doesn't have a phone,” Cam said.

  I'd done the dishes after my dad left for work, tried to do my reading for history but couldn't concentrate, flipped through the basketball games on TV and then gone to bed. It took me several hours to fall asleep and I heard my dad come in some time after midnight. I'd slept restlessly the rest of the night, Amy and our dwindling finances on my mind. By the time my alarm went off, I felt like a zombie. Breakfast didn't do much to clear my head and neither did the bike ride to school. Cam was standing at my locker when I got there and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

  “I'm not getting one anytime soon,” I mumbled, twisting the dial on my lock.

  “It's okay,” she said. “I just wanted to see you this morning. Actually, I wanted to see you yesterday. And last night.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, one, I missed you,” she said, leaning against the locker next to mine. She was wearing jeans, the same ones she’d worn to the party, and a white T-shirt with a fleur de lis on it. At least I think that’s what it’s called. “And, two, yesterday sort of weirded me out.”

  “Yeah, me too, actually.”

  “You went and sat somewhere else at lunch,” she said.

  I pulled the stuff out of my backpack that I didn't need and crammed it all in the locker. “I sat with Jake. I asked you to come sit with us, but you acted like you
didn't want to.”

  “You guys are friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, that's cool,” she said. “But it was just weird. We've sat together the last few days and then after the other day at your house...I don't know. We didn't sit together and I just thought it was weird.”

  I closed the door to the locker, putting the lock back in place. “It was weird. I'm sorry. I just don't know how this stuff works, you know? And I did wait at your locker after school before practice, but you weren't there. Then I had to get to the gym.”

  “I had to go to the counseling office to get a copy of my transcript,” she said. “That's where I was.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I'm sorry I missed you.”

  “It's okay,” she said. She was silent for a minute. “But it sucked because it felt like you blew me off.”

  “I blew you off?”

  “Felt like it,” she said. “I mean, we had what I thought was a pretty good time at your place and then you don't talk to me at all yesterday. That wasn't what I was expecting. It would've been nice to hang out with you. Or talk about maybe going to the dance. Just anything other than radio silence.”

  The guilt tried to get in my head again. “I'm really sorry. I honestly wasn't trying to blow you off. I did wait at your locker. And you didn't want to come sit with me and Jake.” I paused. “Why not?”

  She glanced away. “I don't know. We always sit at the same table, you know? I knew those guys would give me crap if I got up and left. I didn't wanna deal with it.”

  I looked down the hall for second, thinking about what I wanted to say, thinking about the things that had played out in my head while I hadn't been sleeping. A lot of them involved Cam. I needed to know something because I didn't want to just assume I knew what was up.

  I turned back to Cam. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She frowned, like it was the dumbest question in the world. “Yeah, of course.”

  I shouldered my backpack. “The night at Ty's party. Why did you come talk to me?”

  “What?”

  “At the party. You came over to talk to me in the kitchen. Why?”

  She shifted her weight from one heeled boot to the other. “I don't know. I thought you were cute. You were alone. And you'd been looking at me earlier so I thought maybe you were interested.”

  “But you'd seen me with Amy,” I said. “Right?”

  She hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “And you said you saw her go upstairs with Derek,” I said. “That's what you told me.”

  She didn't say anything.

  “Did you see her go upstairs?” I asked. “Like, actually see her go upstairs with him? Were they holding hands or what?”

  She licked her lips and looked down the hall for a second before turning back to me. “Is this about the picture yesterday?”

  “I wanna know about the party first,” I said.

  Her mouth twisted and she spun one of the bracelets on her wrist. “Okay. No, I didn't actually see her go upstairs. I knew she was up there, though. I just told you that because...I don't know why. I wanted you to talk to me and it was like you were fixated on her or something. I couldn't get your attention. So, yeah. I lied to you about that. But only because I was trying to get your attention.”

  “But you knew she was up there, then?” I asked. “If you didn't see her go, how'd you know?”

  “Come on, Brady.”

  “Come on, Cam.”

  She sighed. “Fine. I told her you were up there.”

  My stomach knotted and I shook my head. “Why?”

  Her upper lip folded into her bottom lip and she looked very sorry that she'd decided to wait at my locker for me. “Because Derek told me to, okay? He knew I wanted to talk to you, and he said he wanted to talk to Amy. He said we'd be helping each other out.” She pulled her tightly wound braid over her shoulder and tugged on it. “So I saw her and said you'd gone upstairs. She took off. No, I didn't actually see her go up the stairs, but that was where she was headed. That was it.”

  Except that wasn't it.

  The bell rang and people started moving down the hallways, zombies on the way to their classrooms.

  “Do you know who took the picture?” I asked.

  Cam shook her head. “No. But half the school thinks you took it.”

  My stomach twisted again. “Hard to do when I don't own a phone.”

  “I'm just telling you what people are saying,” she said. “They know you're on the team and they know you were at the party.”

  Unbelievable bullshit.

  I looked at her. “You're sure you don't know who took it?”

  “Brady.”

  “Well, you lied about other stuff at the party.”

  She sighed. “No. I don't know who took it. And I don't know who sent it. I'm sorry, alright? It was stupid. I was being a jealous girl. I wanted you to myself. That was it.”

  I didn't believe her. I wasn't sure if it was because she'd already lied about the party or the way she was acting or what, but I didn't think she was telling me the truth. Part of me wondered what else she wasn't telling the truth about. All I knew was that I needed to get away from her.

  “Okay,” I said, heading toward my class. “Thanks.”

  “Brady, wait,” she said. “What about lunch? Can we—?”

  “Don't save me a seat.”

  THIRTY TWO

  Amy was in her seat behind Jake when I got to history, her arms folded across her chest, staring at the closed textbook on her desk.

  I'd been on edge all morning. People were still buzzing about the picture and phones were still being passed around. I wanted to grab every single one and smash them into the ground. And it wasn't just because I liked Amy. It was because no one else seemed to think it was wrong. But because people were still talking about it, I half-expected her to not be in class. But she was there and it made me wonder again about what she'd said to me the day before about being there. Like she had no choice.

  I sat down and stole a glance at her. She was still staring at the book. If she was aware that I was there, she wasn't showing it. Jake came in and sat down and looked at me, raising his eyebrows.

  I knew that if I talked to her, it was going to draw stares. It was going to be like yelling fire in a theater—everyone was going to notice. I didn't care about what they thought about me, but I didn't want to draw more attention to her because I was sure it was the last thing she wanted. Or maybe I did care what people thought more than I wanted to admit. But I was mad at myself that it was taking so long for me to open my mouth.

  Finally, I swiveled in my seat and leaned to my left. “Hey. Amy.”

  I felt multiple heads turn in my direction at the sound of my voice. I wasn't loud, but I wasn't whispering, either. I forced myself not to look at them and instead concentrated on her.

  Her mouth twitched, and she glanced at me.

  “If you need the notes from the days you were out, I've got 'em,” I said, because I had nothing else to say to her. But I felt like if I didn't say something I would've been the biggest asshole on the planet.

  She stared at me like I was speaking Japanese. Jake slunk down in his desk, his chin tucked to his chest, his almost beard disappearing in the neck of his hoodie.

  I swallowed. “Do you want 'em?”

  Her mouth twitched again and she shook her head. “No.”

  “She hasn't said that in awhile,” someone said from the other side of the room.

  I looked toward the voice. Chuck Buchanan, a short, fat kid with a Dodgers hat turned around on his head and a smirk on his face, was leering at Amy. When he saw me looking at him, he turned away.

  I turned back to Amy. “Seriously. I can copy them for you. Bring them tomorrow.”

  “I'm fine,” she whispered, her hands gripping the sides of her desk.

  “That's what we heard,” Buchanan said.

  I stood.

  “Let it go, dude,” Jake whispered.


  I ignored him, walked around the front of the room and over to Buchanan's desk. His cheeks colored red, flushing deeper the closer I got to him.

  “Love your work, man,” he said, trying to maintain some semblance of cool in front of the class.

  I looked down at him. “My what?”

  “Your work,” he repeated. “The picture you took.”

  I lifted the front of his desk and tipped him straight over backward. His head hit the floor and he winced. The desk crashing into the linoleum sounded like a gunshot with all of his weight in the desk. He looked up at me, his face apple red, his eyes wide, frozen in the desk on his back.

  I heard the teacher behind me, calling my name, more astonished than angry.

  I stared down at Buchanan. He was finally starting to squirm out of the desk.

  The rest of the room was silent.

  I heard the teacher call my name again.

  I walked back over to my desk, avoiding Amy and Jake's looks. I picked up my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and walked over to the teacher's desk.

  I knew I was busted. It was a stupid thing to do. But I was pissed. About a ton of things.

  The teacher wrote me a pass to the assistant principal's office and instructed me to go there immediately. I nodded and kept my head down as I walked to the classroom door. I put my hand on the knob and glanced across the room toward Amy.

  She was staring at me, wide-eyed, with nearly the same look she'd given me when she'd caught me riding by her house.

  What the fuck are you doing?

  THIRTY THREE

  At seventeen, I was probably due for a visit to detention.

  I'd gone to the assistant principal's office and waited thirty minutes before she called me in. She was a stern-looking woman with silver glasses and long black hair. Her hands were folded on her desk as she asked me what had happened. So I explained.

  “He said something I didn't like,” I said.

  “What exactly did he say?”