I lean forward to meet her halfway, except the bleachers rattle with another thunderous pounding and I almost tip over. “Better than ever.”
A callused hand on my bicep tugs me back gently. I take a breath and inhale the scent of fresh cotton from Marcos’s sweatshirt. It’s tinged with something else– coconut shampoo, I think. The combination smells incredible. It makes me want to burrow my head in his sweatshirt for the winter.
Get a grip.
The lights shine off of Dimitri Bondarenko’s head before the ball is kicked into play. Five minutes later, Juliana shouts, “You gotta be kidding me, ref! Are you blind?” as Andreas earns a yellow card for tripping a six-foot-tall Galway Beach Purple Tiger.
At the end of the first half, Roberto Aguilar goes deep into enemy territory and shoots. It’s in. The crowd goes ballistic. Screams and hip thrusts like some sort of soccer dance. Maroon and white. Black and white and brown. Little kids bounce on their daddy’s shoulders as they’re lifted above the girls shouting nonsensically.
Whether or not it’s the love of Ponquogue soccer or the thrill of vanquishing Galway Beach on a Saturday night, the whole school must be here. The whole town. How many of them will forget the game by Monday? Which hand, raw now from clapping and fist-pumping on a cold night, wrapped its fingers around the marker to write UCK YOU SPICS?
“Nailed it!” Cassie shouts. She’s up on her feet, eyes shining in the heavy throb of the lights. Surrounded by every Ponquogue resident, she seems positively buoyant, floating on their excitement. I watch her for a moment until I leap to my feet too, shouting along with everyone else until that energy becomes part of me, until I stop wondering who did what and why.
DURING HALFTIME, WHEN the stands thin out with people venturing toward popcorn and porta-potties, I catch Cassie’s annoyed voice. “Let’s get out of here. They’re gonna win. I need sleep.”
“You’ll be fine,” Juliana says. “You can nap on me.”
“You don’t even like soccer.”
“True,” Juliana agrees. “But if we leave, I’m never gonna hear the end of it from Andreas.”
I’m still riding the warmth of the crowd’s energy. If Cass can make other friends, so can I. So what if any time I’d tried to talk to Juliana during work breaks over the summer, she’d looked straight over me and laughed at everything Cassie said? Perhaps we can come to a new understanding. “Why?” I say. “Are you guys dating?”
Both Juliana and Cassie turn to stare at me. That united look is like ice on Mt. Everest. It’s something I can’t scale.
Or…not.
Juliana seems slightly perplexed, as though she forgot I was here. It’s true that I haven’t stumbled over anything in the past forty-five minutes. Cassie, on the other hand, frowns at me. You don’t know anything, that look says.
It’s like when she slammed her bedroom door shut in my face when we were nine and I’d made fun of her glittery sneakers. That had been warranted. What the hell did I do now?
Marcos laughs uncomfortably, just in case I thought that things couldn’t become more awkward. “That’d violate the bro code, right?”
After a beat, my too-slow mind catches up. Oh. He means that he and Juliana dated. Adorable. That’s probably why Juliana’s looking at me with confusion; she’s wondering why the hell I asked her if she was dating her ex-boyfriend’s best friend.
Well, here are the facts. I don’t care about any code. I don’t give any shits about Juliana’s love life. And I wish Cassie hadn’t looked at me like that because I sure as hell would love to not feel like an idiot.
Then Cass slaps Juliana’s arm and says, “I could totally see it!” and Juliana shoves back, saying, “Shut up–you say that about everyone.” She’s fighting back a grin, which explodes into a laugh when Cass continues, “You and that guy from Anthony’s Pizza had chemistry!”
“Not like you and gas station guy,” Juliana retorts, causing Cass to tip her head back and laugh.
“Who’s gas station guy?” I can’t help asking.
Cassie’s eyes stay on Juliana. “Hey, he gave me ten cents off per gallon.”
“Got us to Montauk and back,” Juliana agrees.
“When?” Apparently I’m a glutton for feeling like an idiot.
Cass shrugs. “Time flies.” Those two words inexplicably send Juliana into a fit of laughter. Inside joke, I guess.
Marcos raises an eyebrow at me, expecting me to clue him in. I can’t. The longer their exchange goes on, the more moments are checked off the list of you weren’t there. For a fleeting moment, I wonder if I should have chosen my father’s second option instead of opting to be grounded. Cass would have called me instead to go to Montauk, the tip of Long Island. We would have had our own jokes from the day.
I shouldn’t care. I should count down the seconds until the players run out under the lights again. At the end of the year, I’m the one she’s moving to the city with.
Heck, I used to have other friends. When I’d wake up before dawn for a competition, a group message would be underway between my teammates.
May throw up on the runway today. Emery, our unspoken leader, always kept it real.
Can someone bring bobby pins? This is out of control. Monica sent a photo of her dark brown curls, all of which were perfectly tamed.
Mom’s stopping for snacks–who wants what? Ally had her priorities straight.
Their texts after my surgery–Visit soon plz! Jess got her blind change to Jaegar! OMG Emery got an email from Nebraska!–hurt too much. They were flipping, swinging, learning new skills while I was figuring out how to roll out of my bed, grab my crutches, and hobble to the bathroom with the least amount of pain.
So I’d stopped answering, and after a while, they’d stopped sending.
I exhale and watch my breath turn to smoke.
“How’s your knee?” Marcos says.
I turn to him in surprise. “It’s okay. Why?”
His own knee starts bouncing. “Your presence has been sorely missed on the Olympic team, I’m sure.”
This guy has the uncanny ability to make me smile against my will. “Pretty sure the Olympians are getting by without me.”
“Are you cleared to get back in the gym?” He folds his hands over his knee. A slender scar winds around his middle finger. I have one like that, too, straight down the front of my knee.
“There is no ‘back in the gym’. I’m done.”
Marcos actually looks concerned by my response. His thick eyebrows shoot up and he places his hand on top of mine, like he hopes to reason with me, only to hastily rescind it. “Why?”
I’m sick of defending my decision. I’m also confused by the residual tingles that shoot through my fingers upon Marcos pulling his hand away. Cassie’s right. My relationship with gymnastics is done, and it’s time for everyone else to accept that and move on, too. “Too many injuries. The ACL was the icing on the cake.”
“ACL tears are common in soccer,” he says earnestly, like he’s a team doctor or something. “Plenty of players make a full recovery.”
Congratulations. My ACL was the grand finale in a career littered with pain. Not doing gymnastics is the only way to ensure I’ll fully recover. Thanks, but no thanks, Marcos Castillo.
He mistakes my silence as me considering his words. “You see what I mean?”
“You’re friends with all the soccer guys,” I counter. “Why aren’t you on the team?”
That strikes a nerve. His shoulders stiffen and his gaze turns back to the field. “It’s not my thing.”
I should feel glad that I shook him off. Instead, guilt washes over me. Whatever’s up with not being on the team clearly bothers him.
“Oh,” I say. One round syllable.
The whistle blows for the second half.
WHEN ANDREAS DEMOLISHES Galway Beach’s defense for the decisive goal, the slamming of feet to metal rattles my teeth. “What the crap is going on?” Cassie calls over the ruckus.
“The eart
hquake,” Marcos says. “It’s what they do for Andreas.”
As soon as the final buzzer goes off, the stands erupt. Juliana grabs Cassie’s hand, Cassie pulls the elbow of my sweatshirt, and we roll with the crowd onto the field, a maroon-and-white landslide of noise. The field lights dazzle, and when I blink, I see white explosions.
Damp arms around my shoulders and rock-solid chests against my face. It’s one tidal group hug and no one’s left out. The mascot, Dashing the Dolphin, leaps across the field. So many high-fives that my hands hurt. The guys don’t discriminate against those who didn’t play.
“Over here!” Preston Bolivar lifts his phone to his glasses. I reach for Cassie and instead catch jersey, slick in my hands. Andreas, the star. I try to wriggle away, but his arm captures my shoulders–we see eye to eye–and Marcos appears on my other side. Andreas makes a sound like a wolf howling to the moon, and I crack up; everyone does. The vibration makes the whole line buckle. The phone’s camera flashes and another cheer rises.
It’s almost like something worth being a part of.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHAT’S UP WITH Marcos?” Cassie says, spinning her sunglasses between her thumb and index finger.
I take a gulp of iced black coffee (blegh) and return to typing. I’m not used to this much caffeine, and my fingers keep misfiring on the keyboard as a result. At some point, my thesis statement referred to Hamlet as “Hamster.” Ten minutes before the first bell, I’m still only two pages deep. I’d completely forgotten about the assignment until I woke up this morning. So much for that GPA that’s kept what’s left of my pride afloat.
I fumble for one of Cassie’s ubiquitous Post-It notes. There are no blank ones, so I scrawl “Real madness or fake?” on one that reads, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” It slips out of my fingers and tumbles into the abyss of scarves and flip-flops on the floor.
“The madness thing has been overdone,” Cass says, reading over my shoulder. “Although you know that Beth O’Leary is going to act like she’s the first person to wonder if Hamlet was faking it.”
I stab at the screen. “Here I discuss how Ophelia should have told Hamlet to screw off.”
Cassie snorts. “The assignment’s a textual analysis. Good luck with that.”
“Then what’s the point of all of the coffee mugs with Shakespearean insults if Ophelia never got to use them? Fuck the nunnery, man.” This is the worst. I need days of preparation, not the last-minute dance that Cassie thrives on. “What’d you write about?”
She tugs the coffee from me and takes a noisy slurp. “C’mon, Savs. You know me better than that.”
AKA she didn’t do the essay. Even after Mr. Riley’s meeting. I should ask why not, but with another page to write, I need to stay focused.
“Seems like you and Marcos hit it off swimmingly,” she says.
“I guess.” Thanks to you talking to Juliana the entire night.
Nine minutes until the bell.
I had to bribe Cassie with the promise of buying her coffee in exchange for her picking me up so early. Driving out to Montauk for the sunrise? No problem for Cass. Waking up early for school? Forget it.
“Ugh, I forgot Ophelia in my intro.” Amateur mistake. Scroll, scroll, accidentally exit the document– “You have to be kidding me!”
Cassie shuts off the radio. This means trouble. Now my palms are sweating enough that the keyboard glistens. “Can I be honest with you for a second?” she says.
Can I be honest? she’d asked when I’d attempted eye shadow in sixth grade and smeared blue up to my eyebrows. Or when I’d missed a spot of sunscreen and had an odd shaped patch of brilliant red skin on my back.
I’m not going to like this. I know it already.
She adjusts my ponytail, smoothing down the free-flying pieces. “Marcos is nice and all, but can you imagine Papa Gregory dropping you off for a date in El Pueblo?”
Whoa, whoa. She’s rolling down a mighty slippery slope here. (I didn’t hit my head hard enough to actually nap against Marcos’s laundry-fresh sweatshirt, right?) In the flat area between Main Street and the bay, down the hill from the mansions, tiny bungalows are crammed together on barely paved roads. It’s the place my classmates call El Pueblo, where many of the immigrant families squeeze together.
“Hold up.” I raise my hand for further emphasis. “First of all, El Pueblo is not an official place.”
Cassie sighs. Two weeks older, so much wiser. “Just because it’s not on your precious Google Maps doesn’t mean that–”
“Secondly, what date?” Let’s be honest, at the first notion of a date, Dad would log into the school system to check the guy’s GPA.
“You’re kidding, right? Marcos didn’t take his eyes off you the entire night. Even Juliana noticed.” A wicked glint in her eyes. “After your super-hot ‘make-out session.’”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, God, don’t bring that up ever again.” Which is basically my way of saying, I know you’ll never let me forget it.
She cracks herself up, tipping her head back. “It was adorable. You were like a fawn standing on your legs for the first time.”
I try not to smile; I really do. Then I recall the stunned look on Marcos’s face, combined with the caffeine in my system, and I start laughing with her.
A knock on the window.
Cassie screams in surprise, I yelp, and then we’re cracking up afresh. It’s like the sleepovers when we’ve been up far too late and something that isn’t funny at all gains hilarity the more we laugh.
“Holy shit, we summoned him.” Her eyes bug out comically, and as she rolls down the window, I can barely look Marcos in the eye for fear of laughing again.
He rests his forearms on the window frame and smiles at both of us. I’m distracted by that single crooked front tooth. It’s so damn cute, I bet he got out of trouble all the time as a little kid.
“You smell baby fresh,” Cassie greets him. “What’s your secret?”
I whack her arm. “Cass, you can’t just ask people about their personal hygiene.”
“Says who?” Her eyebrows lift and her lips purse in mock propriety. The laugh I attempt to hold back comes out as a snort.
Marcos smiles uncertainly. He definitely thinks we’re ridiculous. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, thanks.” Cass elbows me–I told you so, that move says.
Marcos turns to me. His jaw flexes just a moment before he speaks. It’s almost hypnotizing. “How’s sixth period for you, Savannah? Meet in the library?”
“That’s when we have lunch,” Cassie says before I answer. Her tone has shifted from playful to cool.
“We could work in the cafeteria.” Marcos’s smile wavers a little.
“Work?” Cass turns to me, confused.
“I found out Savannah was tutoring you, and she offered to help me out.”
“Oh, right. Tutoring.” Never have three syllables held so much sarcasm. “Well, that sounds fun. I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”
Marcos raises his eyebrows, but I have no explanation. I can’t focus on math, or Cassie, or the fact that his dimples have disappeared. I still have to finish that damn essay. “Sixth period sounds great.”
“Bye, Marcos.” Cassie nearly shuts the window in his face. I’d give him an apologetic look, except he’s already turned away. “What the hell is going on, Savannah? Library trysts?”
“He overheard our meeting.”
“Make sure you tell Mr. Riley. He’ll nominate you for sainthood.” Just mentioning the assistant principal’s name makes her eyes darken.
“What’s the real problem, Cass?”
The directness of my question makes Cassie drop her eyes to her shimmering silver scarf. It’s unseasonably warm today after the cold weekend, humid enough to bring back hints of early September, and all of that makes me sweat more.
“Juliana invited me to a party in El Pueblo over the summer. It was at this guy Nelson’s house–he graduated a couple of years ago.” She tuck
s in her right index finger and cracks it. Middle finger. Ring finger. “They have, like, twenty people in one house there. Lots of poverty. Lots of crime. Juliana lives there, and she says it’s a shithole. Not a place for a girl like you, Savs. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
What’s that supposed to mean? “Marcos, well, let’s just say that that night, he wasn’t exactly–” The rest of her words are buried by the first bell.
Shit. My essay isn’t close to done, my battery’s about to die…
Cassie shuts the laptop before I can start typing again. In contrast to the panic that consumes me, she seems perfectly calm. Maybe she’s relieved to have gotten her feelings toward El Pueblo off of her chest. “Tell Mr. Raia your computer crashed. I’m sure he thinks you’re a little shining star, just like Mr. Riley.”
“But–”
“It’s fine, Savs. I do it all the time.” She tucks the laptop into my backpack before I can protest.
And look how well that’s going for you. I swallow back the thought.
As I approach the entrance, trying not to run while Cassie saunters, her words about El Pueblo echo in my mind. Not a place for a girl like you. She said it so certainly. To her, Juliana is one kind of girl and I’m the other–the can-handle and the can’t.
Well, not anymore.
THROUGH THE REMNANTS of caffeine and “working on my lab report” in AP Chem, I manage to finish a semi-coherent essay where I may or may not have referred to Hamlet as a fishmongering rapscallion for his treatment of Ophelia. It’s complete, I’ll give it that.
Going to the art room. Try not to make out in the stacks, Cass texts me when the bell rings for sixth period. That’s her version of giving me her blessing.
I arrive at the library first and open my laptop. When I click on my math folder, my fingers slip on the track pad and open a photo file instead.
Emery and I stand with our arms around each other at the end of practice. Four inches taller than me, her biceps ripple even while at rest around my shoulders. Her green eyes are half-closed as she laughs at something I’ve said. Both of our cheeks are smeared with chalk and our hair falls loose from our ponytails. We’ve just finished the final practice before Regionals, and my smile in the photo says it all. Confident. Focused. Determined.
Lessons in Falling Page 5
