I shake my head. “I think that’s the last place I should be.”
“Oh come on. He won’t even be playing. Besides, Dallas and I could use some new girl friends. We’re kind of drowning in testosterone at the moment.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her.
I DO END up going to the game.
Because something I’m discovering about my new nonshell self . . . I’m a bit of a masochist.
Besides . . . I’ve never been to a college football game. I’ve never been to a football game period. I go with Stella, Dallas, and Matt to a pregame tailgate party, wherein I see a lot of very drunk guys with painted chests and faces acting like idiots. I find them obnoxious, but Stella assures me it’s a classic football tradition. I don’t ask whether she means the body paint, the drunkenness, or the acting-like-idiots part. I assume it’s all three.
When we finally make it into the stadium, the sun has set, but it’s still suffocatingly hot in the bleachers while we wait. Dallas brought blankets that I don’t understand until she lays them down on the hot metal seats so we can sit down without feeling like our butts are on a George Foreman grill.
And while we wait, the three of them teach me about football. And I try my best not to connect everything I hear back to Silas.
Dallas begins: “So each team has offensive players and defensive players. Obviously, the offense’s goal is to score, and the defense’s goal is to stop the other team from scoring.”
“I think you can skip past the commonsense stuff. I’m not completely hopeless. Just tell me how to know when things are going well and when they aren’t.”
“Okay. Well, on offense, the team has four chances, which are called downs, to either score or move ten yards from their starting point, which clears the slate and lets them start over again with four more downs. That’s called getting a first down. So, ideally, when we’re on offense, we’ll continue to move the ball enough to keep starting over until we’re within scoring range and can run or throw the ball in the end zone. Defensively, the goal is to stop the other team from getting first downs, and we want to do it as far away from their end zone as possible. Following me?”
“I think so. So, Carson is the quarterback, right? He kind of leads the offense?”
“You got it,” Dallas says.
Stella cuts in then: “Silas is a running back. He’s on offense, too.” I try not to wince at his name or look too eager. I think Stella is trying to get us back together because she keeps not-so-casually slipping his name into conversation.
Matt tags on: “If Coach Cole sticks to his game from last year, they’ll be in shotgun with Silas, or I guess Silas’s replacement, positioned by Carson ready to either take a handoff or block for him.”
I hold up my hands. “Whoa. Whoa.”
Stella rolls her eyes. “Shotgun? Really? You thought she’d follow that?”
“Fine. Silas or some running back will take the ball on occasion, and he either has to be fast enough to run through open holes in the defense before they catch him, or he has to be strong enough to run over the people in his way.”
“Okay. Fast. Strong. Gotcha. What about the other positions?”
I want to know about Silas. I do. But I can only handle it in small doses.
They keep going, explaining the different positions and their purposes, and Stella helps me connect the people I know to their spots on the team.
“Wide receivers are typically the flashy guys. They get the big, exciting plays and catch the ball for bigger advances than Silas or Carson can usually get running. That is, if they actually manage to catch the ball. One guess which show-off you know is a wide receiver.”
“Torres?”
“Ding ding! We have a winner, folks.”
Dallas cuts in: “He’s also one of the idiots who does his own little dance when he scores a touchdown.”
“Hey,” Matt says. “I like touchdown dances.”
I snort. “You would.”
He holds up his hands. “I will not feel guilty for enjoying the wonders of tight football pants. I also enjoy the way the cheerleaders jump up and down when we score. All in all, I’m a big fan of when we score.”
Stella stands and goes to sit on the other side of Matt. “I’m watching the game with this guy. He, at least, knows how to enjoy the sport.”
Dallas rolls her eyes.
“You don’t like the game, right? But you come for Carson? And your dad?”
She says, “I’m getting used to it again. I’ll like it more once fall rolls in and it’s not so freaking hot.”
I agree with her there. I keep looking at my watch, thinking about how long the game is going to be, and considering buying one of those nerdy handheld fans with a water spray that they were selling at the souvenir booths on our way in.
Time passes a little faster once the game starts. I follow the group’s lead and hold up my hand in a claw shape and scream as the other team runs and kicks the ball to us. Dallas keeps up a running commentary for me, pointing out Carson as one of the big guys on the line tosses the ball back to him. In the beginning, it goes well. Torres and Brookes both make a catch each for back-to-back first downs.
(I feel so accomplished when I say “first down” out loud and actually know what I’m talking about.)
Then Carson runs the ball instead of passing, and the student section around us goes crazy. I see a few of the half-naked, painted guys down on the front row, screaming at the top of their lungs.
They start chanting something about bleeding Rusk red (which ick), but for a little while, I manage not to think about Silas, and I just have fun with some new friends.
Then on the next play Carson hands off to a shorter black guy, and he gets laid out when he tries to run through a hole. People around me wince and groan and I ask, “What? Was that bad?”
Dallas explains. “You know at the start of the play how the guy tosses the ball back to Carson?”
“Yeah.”
“Because they’re tossing the ball backward, they’re losing yards, which usually isn’t that big a deal as long as they make it past the starting point during the play.”
“And we didn’t that time?”
“No, we didn’t. So we essentially just moved backward instead of forward, so now we have to get more than ten yards for a first down.”
Ah. Hence the groans.
Stella leans around Matt to say, “And the dude who just choked is Keyon Williams. He’s a freshman, and Silas’s replacement.”
For the first time, my eyes find Silas standing on the sidelines. He’s not dressed in his uniform like the rest of the players, so he’s not hidden behind pads and a helmet. And my gaze fixes on him, unable to look away, even when another play goes badly and Matt curses next to me.
A few minutes later, I pull my eyes away to watch the game, but they keep going back.
Silas’s replacement gets one decent run, but the four after that are just like his first. They stop giving him the ball. Carson either runs it himself or throws it. But the defense seems to be coming down harder on him now that it’s clear Keyon isn’t as much of a threat. It’s common sense, really. The defense focuses their effort on the players who are statistically the most likely to cause damage.
And as things get worse and worse, I watch Silas pace on the sidelines. He runs his hand through his hair again and again each time the offense fails.
With three minutes left in the game and Rusk behind by thirteen, people start streaming toward the exits. We stay, along with the painted guys and a few more pockets of people in the student section. Stella plops down on the bleacher with a groan. Dallas stays standing, biting one of her fingernails and flicking her gaze back and forth between Carson and her father.
Then time runs out. And we’ve lost.
Silas squats, resting his elbows on his knees and covering the back of his head with his hands. And he just looks so . . . small.
And I know he’s feeling that way, too, and I
ache for him.
Boyfriend or not, he holds a bigger piece of me than any guy ever has, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get that back.
I’m not sure I want it back.
Chapter 27
Silas
I‘m restless all night after the game.
I barely sleep. My thoughts bounce between the team and Dylan. Keyon and Dylan. My mom and Dylan. And I wonder how long this shit will last. How long will the memory of her stay under my skin, in my thoughts, in this bed?
After a few scant hours of rest, I do the only thing I know how to do to quiet my thoughts.
I pull on some clothes, do a few fast stretches, and then set off on a run. Levi and I picked this house because it’s on the side of campus where all the athletic stuff is located. We’re about a mile from the athletic complex, so that’s where I head. I figure I can squeeze in some weights, and then run home, try to focus on the things in life I can control.
What I don’t expect is to find the weight room already occupied on a Sunday morning after a game.
Keyon has two of the larger dumbbells and is doing lunges across the weight room. His back is to me, and for a moment I consider leaving, but instead I watch him. His head is down, and he’s moving at a fast pace. He’s focused. Determined.
“Your strength isn’t why you can’t break a tackle.”
He drops the weights and whirls around to look at me.
He’s immediately tense and defensive.
“What do you want?”
“For this team to win games.”
Keyon scowls and waves a hand at me. “I get it. I ran my mouth and now it’s your turn to give some back. Go ahead. I can take it.”
“I’m not here to cut you down, man. I came here to work out, same as you. But I’m serious. Strength isn’t your problem. It’s your pad level. You’re getting laid out because your body is too high, and you can’t fight them off when they come up underneath you. Hasn’t anyone ever told you the lowest man wins?”
“Do I look like an idiot? Of course I know that.”
“Then why aren’t you working on that instead of being in here lifting weights?”
“I am working on it. Stronger legs can stay lower longer.”
“I told you strength isn’t your issue. It’s your head. And muscle memory. You need to get used to staying low.”
“I’m trying.”
I’m probably going to regret this. I don’t even fucking like the guy, but I think back to how I felt watching that game, like the only thing I had left was slipping through my fingers, but I didn’t have control over my own hands to do anything about it.
Seems like I’m feeling that way a lot lately.
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s go for a run. I think I might know something that can help you out.”
I grab a football from the locker room, and tell him to follow me.
Sometimes to switch things up, I run away from campus instead of toward it. So, I know the neighborhood behind ours is mostly families. Professors who want to live close to campus, grad students who are married and have kids. When I run that way, I always end up passing this park with a cool, modern playground.
Williams looks confused as fuck when our run ends up there.
“Is this some kind of joke? Hazing or something? Because if so, you suck at it.”
I laugh. “No joke, man. We could have done this with some of the official stuff on campus, but I don’t have a key to the equipment closet, so we’re improvising.”
“On what? The merry-go-round?” I step up into the playground area, deserted this early on a Sunday morning, and feel my feet sink into the soft wood chips that cover the ground. That’s going to make things even more difficult for him, but that might be a good thing.
“Anyone ever make you run arches?”
He shrugs.
“They look like giant versions of those metal croquet things you hit the ball through. You know what I’m talking about?”
“Not a fucking clue.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I’d never heard of it, either, when my high school coach mentioned it. It’s a rich-people thing, I think. Or old people. Both probably. Anyway, they’re small enough that you can’t run through them upright, and they’re narrow so that you have to keep your arms in close, the ball tucked tight against your body. Run through those long enough and it becomes second nature to bend your knees and stay low.”
“But we don’t have those.”
“No, we have this.” I place my hand on top of a long set of monkey bars, made for kids. I’d guess it’s about five and a half feet tall, maybe a little more. Point is, it’s low enough to make it hard for guys like us to run underneath at full speed. I toss him the football and he automatically holds it tight against his stomach the way we’re taught. I walk to the end of one set of the monkey bars and look down the length of them. It’s a little less than ten yards, so not ideal, but I think we can make it work. I decide to have him work on his feet at the same time, too.
“Let’s do it like this.” Slowly, I show him what to do, running beneath the bars with my knees bent and my body hunched. There are three sets of bracing on the sides of the monkey bars that also serve as miniature fireman’s poles, and I use them like cones, popping out from underneath the bars to weave around one pole and then back under the bars until I weave around the next fireman’s pole on the opposite side. I round one more pole, and then circle completely around the ladder at the other end of the monkey bars before ducking underneath them and repeating the same process on the way back. It’s a little lower than the practice arches we have on the team, but he’s not wearing a helmet or pads, so I figure that evens out the difficulty level.
He follows my lead, moving through it once at half speed to get a feel for it, and then he tries it at full speed. After rounding the second fireman’s pole, he knocks his head going back under the monkey bars and drops to one knee.
He curses, and I do my best to hide my smile.
“I don’t want to be a dick,” I say. “But I told you that you were running too high.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a dick?”
“It comes naturally. I’ve learned not to fight it.”
“Well, if it’s so easy, you do it.”
He tosses me the ball, and I try not to look too smug as I walk over to the starting spot. I might be a dick now, but high-school-me was an outright asshole. That’s what happens when you don’t have a parent around to put you in your place: You become pretty damn certain that you know what’s best about everything. Coach Cervera, my football coach the last two years of high school, had no problem showing me how wrong I was. The guy made me run arches every day until, I swear to God, I was walking around bent and hunched even outside of practice. I take a deep breath, blink to make sure my vision is completely clear, and then I speed through the course as fast as I can. My feet slip a few times on the wood chips, but I don’t think Williams noticed, at least not based on the suspiciously blank expression he has when I’m done.
“Fine. Give me the damn ball.”
I do smile then, tossing it like he asked.
I lose track of time while we work. Football does that to me. Dylan is the only other thing that has ever been that way. I could listen to her talk, watch her sleep, run my fingers through her hair . . . anything. I could do that all day long, and never get bored.
Fuck.
That’s over. Done with.
I shake my head and focus back on the task at hand.
Keyon is now good enough that he’s running the drill five times in a row before stopping, rather than just the one lap. He’s still not quite at full speed, he’s too unsure of himself, but he’s already much better. I think the quick turns around the fireman’s pole are helping to train his vision, too. It’s a good start. And he doesn’t need me anymore. Not for this.
As we wrap up, I tell him, “I know a couple more drills that would help if you want to meet up this week before or after practice
.”
He finishes out the loop he’s on and says, “Wait.” I hadn’t even moved yet, but I raise my eyebrows in question. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. I want the team to win.”
“But I’m your competition. What if I end up taking your spot?”
“If a few hours of drills makes you that much better than me, then you deserve to take my spot.”
“You’ve still got to miss another game, though. What if I show you up?”
“I’m not exactly sitting on my ass doing nothing, Williams. Besides, if you’re good enough, maybe Coach will look at going to a two-back offense. You, me, and McClain? We could be pretty damn impressive, I think.”
He nods. “Cool. Yeah.” He holds up the football. “You need this back?”
“Nah, you keep it. You could stand to do this, oh, another thousand times.”
I start jogging back in the direction of my house.
“Still being a dick!” he yells behind me.
“See you at practice, fish.”
Chapter 28
Dylan
On the next game day, I agree to get lunch with my parents because I’m not sure I can handle watching another game with Stella mentioning Silas every few minutes. The masochism has to stop sometime.
But before I’ve even finished setting the table, I know this was a mistake. Mom has brought up Henry three times. She thinks maybe we should invite him and his parents over for dinner . . . since I’m not dating anyone new.
She gives me a look when she says that last thing, and I know I didn’t fool her at that party.
Ironically enough . . . I no longer need to fool her. Because Silas is so beyond done with me.
There’s that masochism again. Rubbing salt in my own wounds.
As we take our seats for lunch, and Mom passes around all the perfectly plated dishes, I struggle to keep my mind off him. I struggle with all the things that used to come easy. The pleases and the thank-yous. Dad notices.
“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”
“Hmm?” I look up from the food I’d been pushing around on my plate. “Just have a lot on my mind, I guess. Sorry.”