Page 20 of Free Fall

The crowd starts off as a volcano, grumbling and grunting, little spurts here and there of fire, but when Reid gets on the field, it fucking erupts.

The energy in the air settles into my stomach, making my nerve endings fire. Last year, I would’ve been front and center in the bleachers with my school colors on with those cheap plastic pom-poms. Today, I’m wearing someone else’s gym clothes, pale skin, and might have spots of gravy in my hair that I didn’t wash out completely. Who knows?

Lex takes me behind the player bench and sits me down in the grass, my back against the fence that sections off the crowd from the team. I’m pretty much between two worlds. I don’t belong with the football team, and I don’t belong with the crowd either. This is just a reflection of my real life.

Without another word, Lex joins the team in calisthenics before the game. While they’re doing that, the other team comes out onto the field. There are a spattering of people in the small “away” stands across the field from us. I know without looking behind my shoulder that ours is filled. People will start lining the fence soon, but hopefully no one stands directly over me. Creepy.

Down the field a little, I hear Sasha start her cheerleaders up with a rousing cheer to get the crowd going. The smells from the concession stand, the busy nothingness and excitement fills me just like it used to. I suppose I shouldn’t complain though because I am getting out of detention for this.

Which, when you think about it, is a crock of shit. Who can go demand that someone serve detention with them instead of with a teacher? I roll my eyes just thinking about it. Like, how is this Reid’s real life?

He’s going to have a big fall one day. I don’t know when it will be, but at some point, he has to realize he won’t be treated like this his whole life. He won’t get special athlete attention and the come hither looks from girls, or the people wanting to be around him. At some point, he has to be just like the rest of us. That goes for both Cade and Lex, too.

The referee blows the whistle, and the captains from both teams move to the middle for the coin toss. We win. Reid jogs back to the sideline with a huge smile on his face. I bite my lip, noticing just how good looking he is in his football jersey and pads. The shape the tight pants give his ass.

But then I remember he can also be cruel, so I focus on the game as a whole instead of one person.

It takes a lot for me not to clap and cheer along with the rest of the crowd. I almost fall into old habits, so instead, I chew on my thumb knuckle and watch each play go by, trying not to think about my brother lying in the middle of the field, unconscious and lifeless. The vision keeps poking up now and then. Every time someone is slow to get off the field, it’s hard not to notice. During halftime, I pull out my cell phone. I automatically text my mother that I’m at the football game. I don’t know why I do it. I haven’t been so forthcoming with information for her lately, but I just feel like I need her right now. I remember her talking to Dad the other day at dinner, wondering if they should make an appearance here. For all I know, she’s somewhere up in the stands, and maybe I just want to feel that connection with her. Is she upset too? Does she feel like her heart is twisted in her chest, not knowing what to feel?

I don’t get a response back from her, so I look through my past messages with Ezra. We haven’t talked much lately. Both of us are lazy in responding to the other. For myself, I feel like I have too much stuff to worry about. I’m either being bullied by my brother’s best friends or feeling sorry for myself. I don’t know his exact excuses, but I know he’s back to school too. He’s probably doing homework or out with his friends. What’s going on between us now isn’t like what it was when we were messaging all summer.

The whistle blows again, taking my attention once more. I put the phone away and stare back out at the field. Lex is walking to the bench in search of a water bottle when he glances up to make sure I’m still there. I lift my chin at him, and he looks away automatically, keeping his head in the game and all that.

Spring Hill is winning, but the other team must’ve gotten a surge of energy because the second half is a lot closer than the first. There are harder hits, bigger plays. There’s some damn good football going on right in front of me. The other team’s quarterback throws a ball toward the receiver on our side of the field. It’s just out of reach. The ball and the player fall and roll, the former rolling right at me. I stop the ball with my foot and the player runs up to me to get it. When he sees me, he smiles. “Wish I could’ve caught that and looked like a badass in front of you.” He winks and then jogs away.

I’m almost taken aback by what he said. I read the name on the back of his jersey as he runs in the opposite direction. Winthrop. No one has been nice to me lately. And I mean no one. Except for this morning when I was wearing the dress, no one has looked at me with interest either. I can’t keep myself from smiling while watching him cross the field either. It may have something to do with his tight pants. Though his ass is far skinnier than Reid’s, it’s still nice. Plus, he was nice to me, so that makes it even better.

When I look around again, I notice Reid has turned his head to glare at me. His sopping wet hair is matted to his forehead. He has two black lines underneath each eye, his helmet sitting by his side on the bench. When he sees me looking at him, he looks away, watching the other team out on the field. I swear I can’t do anything without getting dirty looks from Reid. The guy talked to me, it’s not as if I could help it. Plus, I liked it.

I guess it’s just the things that make me feel good that piss Reid off right now.

The clock ticks down the minutes in the second half. There’s really no danger of the other team coming close to winning. We nail them to the wall, and then Reid even puts the punctuation mark at the end of the game when he throws a Hail Mary perfectly to one of our wide receivers. My breath catches when our guy easily catches it and walks into the end zone.

My stomach lurches. Any other year and that would’ve been Brady. He and Reid were a terrific duo. They could read one another like no one else. It should be Brady scoring that touchdown. It should be Brady still breathing, still living, still playing.

The world in front of me goes out of focus. It’s weird when grief hits you sometimes. It could be out of nowhere, and you don’t know what triggered it, but I know exactly what triggered it this time. It’s seeing the real-life absence of him. I blink rapidly, trying to get the tears to go away. When I do, I see Reid out on the field. Everyone else has run up to the player who caught the ball. Not him. He watched long enough to know that they’d made the play, but now he’s turning, looking back toward the sideline as he makes his way over. His eyes immediately find mine, and I don’t know, I think I see the same grief in mine mirrored in his.

Maybe he’s thinking the exact same thing.

Maybe he’s not heartless after all…

9

At the very end of the game, after Coach talks to the team out on the field, the three of them—Brady’s best friends—huddle together, helmet against helmet against helmet. I’m not privy to what they’re saying, but the rest of the guys on the team leave them alone. The crowd’s dissipating too. The students know where to find the guys now—at the after party. The adults don’t care. They leave the field and the high school behind.

I won’t be doing that tonight, no matter how badly I want to.

As soon as Reid and the guys break up their huddle, they start toward the locker room, Reid with a full-on scowl on his face like they didn’t just win a great game. I hear Sasha calling his name, but he either doesn’t hear her or ignores her. It’s Lex who comes over and gets me. He reaches his hand out. His skin is glistening with sweat, and when he pulls me up, my hand slides up his slicked arm. I remember thinking that boys who sweat are gross, and maybe it’s because I’ve done things with Lex, but it makes my mind go somewhere else this time. It makes it go to exertion and force and a certain physical activity.

He holds on to me for too long, his brown eyes staring into my own, and I know he’s thinking about the same thing.

Finally, he lets go of me, but asks me to follow him toward the locker room. I hear Sasha say, “What the hell?” behind us, but I don’t pay her any attention. Lex is so big, he stands over me, especially in his football gear. Everything about him is accentuated. His shoulders, his hips, his calf muscles popping just under the hemline of the tight football pants. He makes me feel so small. I’ve been feeling that a lot lately. Like everything else in this world is bigger than me. I think that’s natural after someone goes through a death, but even though I feel small next to Lex, it’s only in stature. He doesn’t make my shoulders curve in or my insides start to constrict. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

He makes me come alive. These feelings are batting back the empty hole Brady’s death left. The in-your-face moment I just felt of Brady not being here is slowly receding. I don’t know whether to jump up, grab Lex, and thank him, or run away.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Lex says as we approach the locker room door.

I shake my head. That was not anywhere near where my mind was at. “I’m sorry, what?”

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