Page 35 of Spring Awakening

“Yeah. They keep upping their offer. It’s my fault, though, because I haven’t told them you don’t do sponsorships.”

“Why not?”

Mali shrugs. “What if they don’t invite me to the photoshoot?”

This makes him laugh louder than she’s heard him laugh before, and she’s possibly obsessed with him. He lets his arms drop to the table.

“Perv,” he says, and his body stops shaking as his laughter calms down. “I’ll think about it. It’s kinda scary.”

“I’m sure.”

“My last team found out. Well, a few of the guys caught me making out with a dude in some sketchy alleyway.” He pulls hislower lip between his teeth, but this time, her stomach doesn’t flutter—her heart aches. “It was hard because the team didn’t have my back. We were all mates before that but, I don’t know, that seemed to disappear the moment they saw me.”

“I’m so sorry, Zach.”

He shrugs. “So, obviously, when I was hounded by the grackles in the stands, I was called all sorts. I was used to it because it was a white town, and I had no other black players,” he says, with a light scoff. “It sucked at the time, but I didn’t have a team like the Titans. Now, no one there likes me either.”

She reaches her hand over the table and hooks her fingers around the back of his hand. “I like you.”

He smiles like maybe that’s enough. “You like everybody.”

“So?” she replies, and he laughs, looking towards the ceiling as he manoeuvres his hand. She thinks he might drop her hand, but he holds it more securely.

“Not to be annoying…” he says, looking guilty. That fucker is going to say he’ll do the Blyke sponsorship she just spent weeks making sure he’s not in.

She watches his throat bob. “You’re not annoying.”

“If you wanted, I could do the Blyke sponsorship. I mean, if it makes it easier for you.”

Mali shrugs, but they’re going to be ecstatic. She’ll probably be able to double the budget. “It’s already done, but if you want it, I’ll change it for you.”

Zach shakes his head. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“You’re not trouble.”

“No?”

“Not to me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Zach hits his headon the ceiling of his mum’s attic for the third time before deciding he doesn’t need whatever is left in these boxes anyway. He grabbed most of the stuff that’s been filling up the small loft space the other day. Then he dropped a box on the floor and broke his favourite childhood mug. He’ll blame Devon.

“Bruv,” Devon shouts up to him. Zach clenches his teeth. He’s not sure when they went from being best friends to this. Devon’s only two years older than him, but it always used to feel monumental when they were younger. Zach used to run after him at the park, and he was always so desperate to go out with him and his friends. He used to pretend not to notice when they smoked cigarettes, and he felt guilty not telling their mum, but he would do anything that meant Devon didn’t make him stay at home.

There was something magical about having an older brother. Zach thought he’d already done everything, seen everything, even though he was barely a teenager himself. He never thought Devon was in trouble, because he was good at hiding if he was.Their mum used to shout, she’d cry, she’d run after Devon in the street, and Zach never understood why. He just wanted to sit at the park on the benches and watch Devon light small sticks on fire.

Zach remembers being happier as a child. Having more love and wonderment. He remembers wanting his life to amount to more than this. He doesn’t think it went away entirely when he started hanging out with Devon, but Devon sure helped shift it along. Zach stole something for the first time at thirteen. Just a cheap phone. Well, it’s cheap now; it wasn’t cheap at the time. Devon had been pressuring him to do it for weeks, and Devon and his mates had laughed and whooped and hollered, and Zach had cried himself to sleep.

He told his mum the next morning, and she hugged him, kissed him on the forehead, and told him there was a space on the local rugby club. It was close to her second job, and she used to pick him up on her way home.

Zach still tried to go out with Devon on his own. He asked Devon if he could help him with his homework, or if he wanted to come watch a match, but it fell on deaf ears. Zach wonders if Devon ever really liked him. He likes to think he did, once. He always made sure Zach had a sandwich for school, and he never stole his pocket money.

Something shifted when Zach started doing well at school. Never English or maths, but he excelled at the physical classes. It’s why they stopped eating microwave meals—he was able to put a half-decent meal together for cheap. It’s why he grew into his lanky legs. Zach chose to spend his time on the rugby field, not down at the park, and that was the end of any relationship between them.

Zach always tried to get that back, but he thinks he was aiming for a dream rather than reality. It’s why he signed a contract he could barely understand at fourteen. Devon told him it was goodfor him, for the family, and Zach had trusted him. Now, he’s the one still hurting from it. Zach didn’t understand what a lifetime contract meant then. He gets it now.

“What’s up?” Zach asks, manoeuvring down the ladder with the last of his boxes. Zach has never moved somewhere he felt comfortable enough to bring the last of the things from his mum’s place. He never feels like he’ll be somewhere long enough to bother getting old action figures and books out, so what’s the point? It feels different this time, and it’s barely been a month.

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