Page 68 of The Sun
“Would Thomas have done that to me if he knew? Ben? Would Ben do that?”
“They’re your friends. They wouldn’t—”
“They’re Brandon McClure, the straight guy’s friends. They aren’t mine.”
The floor indicator beeped a few times before I finally spoke. “It’s bullshit.”
“I don’t even care anymore. I just want to make it through the year, so I can get signed to a team. People can beat my ass, call me all the names in the book. I just don’t want my chance to play college ball taken away.”
The elevator doors slid open to the stark-white lobby.
Brandon was one of the most genuine people I’d known, and I felt desperate to help him, the same way I felt desperate to love Elias. Why should both of us be forbidden to be with the person we felt was right for us? “All you need is an alibi,” I said. “And I think I make a pretty good, doting girlfriend if I do say so myself.”
He stopped midstride, his brow creasing while his eyes searched mine. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I like you.” Inhaling, I swept my palm over his cheek. “And because I’m so hopelessly in love with a boy I can’t have, I couldn’t fall in love with someone else if I wanted to.”
“Damn.” Brandon opened my car door. “I guess that’s one thing you and I have in common. Falling in love with people we can’t have.”
19
Sunny
October 1999
Some places in the world have four definitive seasons. Fort Morgan, Alabama, does not.
In autumn, the temperature swings from unbearably hot to bearably cool, and the weather forecast is inaccurate eighty-four percent of the time. The night of our homecoming game, the weatherman got it wrong. He promised a low of seventy-one. It was sixty-three at best.
Much to my surprise, Daisy had spent the past month as Ben Jones’ actual girlfriend, while I had spent the last month as Brandon McClure’s pretend girlfriend. Thirty days of holding hands in the halls and going to parties together. Thirty days of dropping him off at Travis’s house when we told everyone we were going on a date.
Bats dove in and out, catching insects buzzing around the stadium lights. An army of red and white helmets with a hammerhead emblazoned on the side hustled onto the field.
Daisy leaned over the chain link fence and whistled at Ben. He blew a kiss before bending into a stretch. “God, look at his ass.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Okay.” She swatted me. “Look at your man’s ass then.”
Instead of looking at Brandon, I watched Elias lunge side to side in a stretch.
“What gives with you two anyway?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You guys just seem more like friends. I swear, sometimes he seems more into Ben than you.”
“That’s not funny!”
Daisy nudged me in the ribs. “I’m just joking. Geez.”
The cheerleaders lined up, tossing their red and white pompoms to the ground before slipping out of their jackets.
Brandon jogged over with his helmet tucked under his arm. “Hey, you.” His eyes crinkled at the corner when he smiled, and I thought how I could absolutely-maybe love him in that way if he were straight and Elias didn’t exist.
“Good luck.” I leaned over the fence and gave him a peck on the cheek before he ran back to the team.
Daisy shook her head. “On the cheek? You kissed him on the cheek, Sunny?”
