The Comeback Season

  Ryan knocks down the kickstand of the bike, draws her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and lowers her chin as she walks up the path to the front door. As she passes the window, she can see Emily telling Kevin a story, leaning forward on the dinner table and gesturing with her fork. Once she reaches the door, Ryan kicks at the ground, shoulders hunched.

  “You can’t just disappear without letting me know where you are,” Mom says, shaking her head so that a strand of dark hair comes loose. This is new territory for them, Ryan’s tendency toward flight. Out of a combination of boredom and restlessness, she’s lately begun escaping to odd places at odd times—the beach near their house before school, the playground after dinner. But this is the first time she’s actually cut class, and if there was any hope that Mom hadn’t yet realized this, it’s now gone. She looks at Ryan with a mixture of anger and worry. “You can’t just run off like this,” she says, then presses her lips together. “I need to know you’re okay.”

  She seems different somehow, softer in a way, and Ryan wonders whether it’s because of the new baby. Had she looked this way for the past weeks, and nobody noticed? Or did this faint glow only come from the knowing?

  When Dad was killed, Ryan hadn’t cried until she heard the news, and a part of her is still—will always be—upset that she didn’t somehow know the exact moment it happened, the precise second he was gone. It seems to her that time should be more forgiving than that. She wishes it were possible to somehow take back those lost hours between the river and the nurse’s office, the forgotten minutes between the accident and the telling of it, when nobody was missing him yet. Because that gap is what still hurts the most, a loneliness that presses down hard against her chest each night when she switches off the light.

  Now Ryan bites her lip, refusing to meet Mom’s eye. From inside, she can hear the high peal of Emily’s laughter, and she shoves her hands into her pockets.

  If it took only five years to forget this day, then how long until he’s gone completely? How long does it take for someone to disappear?

  “I get it,” Mom says, moving a step closer. “You’re sorry.” She places a hand on her belly and frowns down at Ryan, who is suddenly and unexpectedly anything but sorry. Everything she’d felt all day at the game is gone now. Standing here in front of their little brick house, she feels suddenly deflated.

  “I went to the game,” Ryan says quietly, and Mom’s face softens. “It’s Opening Day. Or did you forget that, too?”

  They stand watching each other without speaking. Down the street, the hollow sound of a basketball sets a dull, pulsing rhythm, and as evening falls deeper into night, the garage lights come to life. Neither says anything, and Ryan blinks at the ground.

  This silence between them is not anything like the others. It’s not pleasant or awkward, not trying or simple. Even now, five years later, it seems somehow determined to last, as if it might be this way always: the two of them out on the stoop, each doing their best not to drift too far. It occurs to Ryan that if there really are all sorts of silences, then maybe death is nothing more than the longest of these; and this, nothing more than the empty space left behind by her father.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING AT SCHOOL, RYAN IS STANDING BY HER locker when she feels herself spotted by her two former friends. It is an actual physical feeling, a slight bristling, and when she turns her head to confirm it, there they are: Sydney and Kate, hurrying down the hall together like some sort of blond two-headed monster.

  They’d made it longer than most, their little crew, surviving the unsurvivable—junior high—before high school did what high school tends to do. Standing with her cafeteria tray on the first day at lunch, Ryan had been astonished to see Sydney and Kate sitting with Lucy Barrett and an assortment of vaguely sneering blond girls, the same ones they’d spent all of junior high alternately envying and fearing. She stood and she stared; she swallowed and she blinked. This was not just a momentary sense of confusion. This was a dramatic shift in all that she knew to be true, a slow and fumbling tilting of the way things were supposed to be. Lucy Barrett—blond and cold, hawklike and calculating, with a collection of bracelets that jangled up and down her arms like a warning bell alerting people of her approach—had not figured into Ryan’s equation for the first day of high school.

  Completely unsure of what to do, she paused a few feet away, wondering whether she was allowed to do the unthinkable—just waltz over to the table on her own—or whether this required some sort of summoning. Ryan knew even then that this was probably one of those moments that decides more than just lunch, more than simply seating arrangements. But still, she just stood there, her tray quivering in her hands.

  When Sydney finally glanced up and met her eyes, instead of calling out, she looked away, and the moment was like the soft rip of an eraser across their shared past. Ryan backpedaled until she bumped into a scowling football player, then wheeled around, scanning the cafeteria for some sort of refuge. She could, of course, have still gone over. She could have sat down with them as if nothing had happened, ignored Lucy’s raised eyebrows, eaten her lunch and carried on with her day. But there had been something in Sydney’s look that made her feel cold all over, and so she moved away blindly, eventually finding an empty seat at a table occupied by a handful of bored-looking kids with headphones.

  Later, Ryan would make a habit out of eating upstairs in the hallway near her locker, the door propped open beside her to create a small space of her own on the cold tile floor. But on that first day, she kept her head down and ate quickly, unable to look over to where her so-called friends were inching their way toward something that didn’t appear to include her.

  It was true that things had started to change long before then. This shouldn’t have been entirely unexpected. But how could Ryan have guessed that the recent differences between them—the subtle shifting of their priorities, the lengthening gaps in conversation—would signal the end of a lifelong friendship?

  It was suddenly as if the years leading up to this one had never happened: the sleepovers and secrets, the childhood fights and the long, shaky months after her father died when they’d been so quick to close in around her. Soon, it became clear there was a new set of rules to be followed, an etiquette dictated by one of the flinty-eyed girls at the table Ryan would never be invited to sit at in the cafeteria.

  She chooses to believe she didn’t make the cut because she didn’t want to, because she could see through all the hair-flipping and backstabbing. But this is really only because she has an instinct for self-preservation.

  The truth is that although Ryan knows she’s pretty enough—she has, after all, been asked by boys to school dances and kissed during the slow songs—it’s in a simplistic way, the kind never appreciated by other girls. Which is to say that she doesn’t care about makeup or jewelry, and has grown used to getting the once-over for her lack of fashion sense, an up-and-down stare reminiscent of the way her mom studies produce at the grocery store. Ryan prefers ponytails to curling irons, the soapy smell of her shampoo to the fruity ones all the other girls use. She feels most put together when wearing jeans, and she would never trade her flip-flops for a pair of heels.

  And mostly, she’s okay with this.

  But although she’s now survived nearly the whole year without friends, it still hurts. Even after all this time, the sting of rejection has not quite gone away, and this is just one of the many things Ryan carries with her to school each day.

  She eyes Sydney and Kate now with a great deal of wariness, lingering beside her locker and trying to guess whether they might stop and greet her in the overly nice, pitying manner they have lately adopted, or else rush by without bothering to acknowledge her at all. Either way, math class starts in three minutes, and either way, she’ll have to sit in front of them and listen as they make plans without her in barely concealed whispers.

  “You missed class yesterday,” Sydney says, once
they’re both assembled beside Ryan’s locker. She plays with the end of her ponytail and looks down the hallway with an air of boredom. Kate stares at her feet, and Ryan feels a bit sorry for her. Sydney—tall and blond, utterly certain of herself—was always more likely to be roped in by the popular crowd. But Kate is less secure in the ways that count to these types of girls, prone to second-guessing and worrying, and to Ryan, it seems like an awful lot of effort to keep up.

  Sydney raises her eyebrows, waiting for a response, and Ryan tries not to think of how they’ve forgotten about yesterday, the terrible anniversary. But then, why should this be different than every other day of this awful year? She hadn’t exactly expected they’d go for ice cream together—as they had all the other years—or linger afterward, sharing stories from when they were younger, speaking in great looping circles around those things Ryan found hardest to voice, as if childhood memories might somehow bring her father nearer.

  She knew enough not to expect that anymore. But she had hoped for something more than this: the same unbearable coldness she’d been enduring for months.

  “So, what,” Sydney asks, “did you ditch or something?”

  Ryan shakes her head, unwilling to go into the details of her excursion. This morning’s breakfast wasn’t yet far enough behind her, where she’d had to listen to Kevin lecture her on trustworthiness, responsibility, and—at the very least—calling home as a courtesy when plans changed. When she’d left for school, Mom had stuck her head out the front door and called after her. “Straight from home to school, then school back home,” she’d yelled. “Got it?”

  Ryan had only shrugged as she wheeled her bike down the driveway. She hated this sullen version of herself, but lately, her mood had begun to feel like quicksand: alarmingly easy to sink into, with little hope of scrambling back out.

  Now, she pushes shut her locker door and sighs. She’s almost late for math, and in no mood to tell anyone about her afternoon yesterday, least of all Sydney and Kate. And so, with a small, satisfied smile, she spins around and heads to class on her own, leaving them feeling good and ignored, a surprised duo of open-mouthed girls unused to being on the receiving end of this particular tactic.

  When she sees Lucy Barrett leaning against a row of lockers near the door to her math class, Ryan’s first instinct is to do a U-turn and find an alternate route. There’s something about Lucy that makes her feel overwhelmingly tired, and she’s always been happy to avoid the layers of people that seem to form around her. In general, Ryan isn’t the type to pore over yearbooks or memorize the starting lineup of the football team, so it’s no great surprise that she usually doesn’t recognize most of the guys who flock in Lucy’s direction. But standing among them now—the big-shouldered lacrosse players and the wiry quarterbacks—Ryan sees, with a small shock, that Nick is there too.

  She stares at him, surprised and embarrassed. He looks as he does anywhere else: lanky and loose-limbed, offhanded and disarmingly casual. But among all the other guys, in that sea of square jaws and baseball caps where everyone is trying just a bit too hard, there’s an easy confidence that sets him apart. Only last night, Ryan had fallen asleep thinking about all the possibilities of this new friendship. She’d actually imagined herself offering him a seat at lunch—this new kid, this skinny guy with a cast. And she, Ryan Walsh—who was nobody—would help him, would be nice to him, would rescue him.

  A few more guys join the group, and one of them claps Nick on the back. Ryan wants to move, to dodge into class before someone notices her, but she feels heavy with disappointment. Seeing Nick laughing so easily among the very people she finds so intimidating is completely unnerving, and her mind works frantically to revise her impressions of him from the day before. It had been so long since anyone had been nice to her like that, and she’d been stupid enough to get carried away—to think she might not always be so lonely—when really, yesterday had been nothing more than a friendly gesture at a baseball game they both happened to be attending.

  The last bell rings out, signaling the start of class, and Ryan realizes a moment too late that her feet have failed her. She’s standing stock-still in the center of the hallway—the easiest prey of all—as the group begins to scatter with obvious reluctance. And she’s still there, her ears already burning a bright pink, when Nick looks over. His face breaks into a crooked grin when he sees her, and he lifts a hand in an echo of their parting gesture from the night before. But it all feels different now. Last night could have been weeks ago; yesterday, years.

  She ducks her head, alarmed that Lucy might look over, then forces herself to edge around the last few stragglers lingering near the water fountain and slip into class without looking at Nick. Once inside, she sits stiffly in her seat. Sydney and Kate strut past to find their desks behind Ryan, but still, she stares purposefully at her notebook, suddenly intent on the numbers before her.

  When Nick sits down just a few rows over, she can feel his eyes on her, but she presses her pencil hard against her paper, scratching out a meaningless equation and refusing to look up. Mr. Davis walks in a moment later, round-shouldered and shuffling, and Ryan sighs. She knows he’ll assign a new project today—the last of the year—and it will almost certainly be about variables and integers, a ballet of numbers for which Ryan has no rhythm. Because the class has an odd number, Mr. Davis had—much to her embarrassment—added her as a third wheel to different groups throughout the year. Even Nick, who was new, had managed to partner with another late addition to the class last time, a scrawny kid who’d been out with mono since Christmas break.

  She steals a look in Nick’s direction, and sees that he’s dangling his pencil between two of the fingers that poke out of his cast. It occurs now to Ryan that the cast is probably still white not because he doesn’t know enough people to sign it, but because he’s too cool for that sort of thing. Without the Cubs hat, his hair is just a little bit long and curls slightly at the back of his neck. Ryan can see the cap propped on the floor beside his backpack, and she feels a small jolt of happiness at the memory of yesterday’s game, before reminding herself that it is only that: a memory.

  While Mr. Davis begins outlining the terms of the project on the chalkboard, the room has begun to buzz in anticipation of pairing off. Still unable to look up, Ryan flushes a deep red. Worse than not having a partner, worse than not even having a friend, would be for Nick to realize all that. Yesterday had been a welcome pause to her life, a slice of time where Ryan was nothing more or nothing less than herself. And now, here in math class, she’s back to being the odd man out.

  “The point is to center this around a real-life application of the mathematics,” Mr. Davis is saying, waving a piece of yellow chalk in the air. “I want you to show me how to put these numbers to work outside the classroom.”

  Ryan tenses, waiting for the frenzy of activity as fingers are pointed and partners are claimed. She stares at her notebook. She braces herself.

  She waits.

  “Hey,” she hears, and she curls her fingers around the edge of her desk in a white-knuckled grip. She twists, just slightly, to see Nick leaning across the aisle. This is the first time she’s allowed herself to meet his eyes, and she’s unable to keep from grinning.

  “Want to be partners?” Nick asks, and Ryan manages to nod. Mr. Davis wipes the chalk dust from his hands and then motions for them to get started, and all around them, chairs are scraped back as their classmates look to pair up.

  But Ryan and Nick sit still, both smiling.

  “I already have an idea,” she says, realizing it’s true as she says it. Nick scoots his chair closer in order to hear over the noise of the classroom. She can feel Sydney and Kate watching, but she suddenly doesn’t care.

  “Baseball?” Nick suggests, and Ryan grins.

  Just like that, it’s settled.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  THERE’S A NIGHT GAME ON—THE SECOND IN THE SERIES against the Cardinals—and so Ryan does her
history homework on the floor of the family room, her eyes creeping from her notebook to the television despite her best efforts to pay attention. Emily’s helping Mom make chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen, and although they’re the kind that require virtually no skill or preparation, it’s become an enormous undertaking, complete with matching aprons and oven mitts. Kevin’s tucked away in what had once been her father’s office, paying bills and flipping through golf catalogs.

  Ryan’s mind is far from World War I and the death of the Archduke. The Cubs are losing three to one in the sixth inning, and their second best pitcher was taken out with a jammed finger. She bends her head over her work, trying to concentrate on the maneuverings of the Balkan states, but she finds herself drifting toward another sort of history. During the commercials, she scratches out statistics in the corners of her notebook, her eyes darting up to the game when the voices of the announcers return. On the floor beside her, she’s propped open a book of Cubs facts and is already transferring them onto the page.

  She thinks ahead to tomorrow afternoon, when she and Nick have plans to start their project at his house after school. Already, she’s looking forward to it, and even before she glances up at the television to see that the Cubs have tied the game with a two-run homer, Ryan is thinking there might still be hope for the season after all.

  She’d arranged to meet Nick the next day at the bike rack after last period, but she’s running typically late, hurrying down the hallway when she brushes by a group of sophomore girls. As they disappear around the corner, Ryan overhears one of them make a crack about being late for batting practice, and the group dissolves into laughter. She glances down at what she’s wearing—a jersey shirt and a pair of jeans—and then straightens her shoulders and shoves open the door.