Page 19 of Free Fall

His shirt is still buttoned up. His tie still in place. Nothing about him says he’s about to apologize to me for what happened earlier and the shit he’s pulling, so I hike my bookbag up on my shoulder and wait for him to say whatever he’s got to say. It must be important if he came to talk to me before football. Though, I guess the game can’t start without him. He is the quarterback, after all.

“You’re coming with me.”

I blink up at him. “Um, what?”

“With me. Now.” He grabs my arm and starts walking me down the hallway toward the locker rooms.

I pull my arm out of his grip. “Stop grabbing me. Christ. I have detention, Reid. I can’t just go with you.” I realize those are awful strong words for someone who was just about to bail out of detention, but I hate that he keeps ruling over my life. Telling me what to do. What to wear.

“Actually, you can. I told them you’d serve your detention with me.”

“With you? But you have a football game.”

“That’s exactly where you’re spending it.”

I stop in my tracks, my heart dropping to the hall floor. “No, Reid. I can’t do it.”

I wasn’t there when my brother passed out during practice and was taken away in an ambulance, but I have plenty of imagination to know what it looked like. When I think about football now, I think about poor Brady who was dying from an aneurysm that no one knew about until it was too late.

“Don’t worry. You won’t get in trouble.”

He goes to reach for me again, but I slip out of his grip. “I can’t do it, Reid,” I seethe. I don’t want to say the words, but I feel like he’s going to make me.

He steps up in my face again. I’m becoming used to this position with him. “Youwillfucking do it because every time one of us isn’t right by you, bad shit fucking happens.”

“Bad shit happens when youareright by me, asshole. And you deliver it.”

He blinks. “You’re going to the fucking game, and that’s that. You’re going to sit your ass on the Goddamn sidelines and cheer us on because that’s what Brady would want you to do.”

My heart skips a beat. It skips a beat for so long I feel its absence and wonder if there’s a hole in my chest where my heart should be pumping right now. Brady loved football so much. Not to get too sentimental, but if it’s at all possible, he’ll be watching this fucking game from heaven or whatever there is on the other side. He’ll be rooting for his friends. He’ll—

“Come on,” Reid snaps, giving me a sharp tug on my hand.

The only thing making me move with him right now is the thought of my brother. I don’t know if I can handle this. I told myself I wouldn’t go to another game for the rest of my life. I’d feel Brady’s death too much. I’d feel his love of the game overwhelming me and remember everything that he’s missing out on because he’s not here.

Walking numbly behind Reid, I barely notice when he pulls me right into the boys’ locker room. The guys all cheer when we walk in, which is what brings me out of my cathartic stupor. “Shit. Reid.” I immediately shield my eyes at the amount of skin and muscle showing.

“You guys don’t mind if Brady’s sister hangs out here with us, do you?” he asks, though it’s not a question at all. His statement is approached in a way where no one would dare contradict him.

He sets me down in a row of lockers no one uses. I sit there with my bookbag between my legs, listening to the jock talk going on. There’s talk about the game, but there’s also talk about hot girls, who’s easy, and of course about the celebratory party they’re going to have tonight to commemorate their win. I always wondered why they bothered. They always win.

When Coach Jackson walks in, things get serious. He probably doesn’t even know I’m in the back. He talks strategy. He talks about their opponents. I find myself enthralled in the way the game is discussed. He doesn’t just give a go out there and play your hearts out speech, there’s real playmaking and decision talk going on.

I know, being the sister of a guy on the team, I should’ve known. I knew how much hard work Brady put into football, but I guess I always just thought it came down to pure skill in the end. If you have it, you have it. If you don’t, you don’t. Hearing Coach talk, I know there’s a lot more that goes into it.

I run my hands through my hair. I must’ve been sitting here for an hour plus already, but it doesn’t feel like it. The time goes by in an instant. My heart is happy, I realize, sitting back and listening to them. It’s almost as if I can hear Brady’s voice right alongside the others. No wonder why he fit in so well here.

Their win chant breaks me out of my reverie, and then Lexington Jones the Third peeks around the row of lockers. He’s dressed in his football jersey now, all padded up. He’s holding his helmet in one hand and reaching out to me with his other. “Come on,” he says. “It’s show time.”

It’s unsurprising Lex is the one who comes to get me. It’s just so like Reid to bring me here, but make Lex actually do the grunt work of making sure I follow them onto the field. We pass Coach, and I swear the guy doesn’t even blink. He pats Lex on the back and tells him to keep his head in the game, and then we’re walking toward the field and the stands which are already bursting with people.

Football is a major thing here. It always has been. My decision not to go to tonight’s game was the opposite of most other people’s in Spring Hill. Football is the only trophy we can carry from one year to the next.

“And where exactly does Reid want me to sit, Lex? On the bench with the other players? On his lap?”

Lex’s muscles bunch. “I’ll find a place.” He looks over at me. “Once I set you there, can you please stay where you are? It’s football, Briar.”

The way he says it, I know he means business. He isn’t forceful like Reid would be, but I know how important these games are to all three of them. They won’t be able to concentrate if they think they have to look out for me too. “No promises,” I tell him, but then I smile, so he knows I’m just kidding.

---