He worked his lips this way and that and then he gave me a deep look. “Thank you. We thank each other a lot. You ever notice that?”
“Maybe because we mean it.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But I’m thanking you far more. Doesn’t that seem unfair?”
“I’m not keeping tabs, Bishop.”
“That’s the problem,” he grunted, the bell ringing. He got to his feet. “I’ll see you later?”
I smiled, liking that idea. “Yep.”
He glared at my lips, mumbled something under his breath, and then took off. I felt slightly better than I had all day, joining in with Henny and Laurie’s gossip on our way to our next classes. I was able to get into my role during rehearsal in drama class. It wasn’t until after school and I was walking to my locker to meet Bishop, did I realize how startlingly lonely I was. It was like he set it free. Opened my eyes.
Made me look around at the forced smiles I gave all day. The waves to people I didn’t mean.
What about that boy made it all right to be honest with myself and admit that things were not all right?
“Let’s go get shakes,” Laurie said, saddling up to my side. “I don’t have practice and I’m starving.”
“I can’t.”
She sighed dramatically. “Let me guess? Mommy wants you home where she can smother you?”
Her comment hurt. It wouldn’t have before last summer, but now it did because it was no longer true. I walked faster. “No.”
“No?” She laughed lightly. “Okay then, does your daddy want you home so he can smother you?”
No, I thought acerbically, my dad moved out and isn’t coming back home. Thanks for reminding me. I walked even faster.
“Hey, slow down!” she called. “Ava!”
Bishop leaned against my locker, eyes staring numbly out into the crowd. A few girls passing him gave him flirty smiles and smoothed their hair down, giggling when he frowned at them. I stopped where I was and watched him. His black hair was mussed from the day, but still somehow stylish. His blue hoodie and jeans fit him perfectly. Not too tight and not too loose. He had one hand in his pocket and the other was hanging at his side. His all-black Converse’s stood out on the white linoleum of the floor.
His blue eyes were glowing in his pale, chiseled face.
His presence, his looks—they stood out like a statue you wanted to stop and ogle.
But his insides were bruised, so once you got close, his eyes, which were beautiful on their own, showcased a much different story.
“What’s your problem?” Laurie gasped, catching up to me. She grabbed my arm and turned me to face her.
I shook her off. “Nothing. I gotta go.”
“Okay…” she said, trying to get a look at my eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
I forced a smile and nodded. “Fine.” The part that hurt the most was that her face relaxed at the sight of it. She believed that fake smile. How many of those had I given? How long had I been faking it?
“Cool. Text me? Henny and I were going to the library. We’ll all meet up.” She bent to kiss my cheek, skipping away without a care in the world.
When I turned to where Bishop was standing, I dropped my smile and approached him. He had what looked like a gym bag on the floor between his feet.
“You okay?” he asked, studying me.
I forced a smile and nodded. “Fine.”
He glared. “You’re a crappy liar. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Everything? Nothing. You ready to go?”
“Dad still gone?”
I hugged myself. “I heard my mom talking to my aunt about how he isn’t paying the mortgage anymore because he’s busy paying rent somewhere else.” I stepped close to him. “He’s really gone.”
He looked down at me, his eyes unreadable. “Your mom did say something to me before I left that morning.”
“What?”
“She said: Don’t bother coming back if you’re just going to let her down.” He scrubbed the toe of his shoe against the floor, looking at that as he talked to me. “Did I let you down?”
My heart squeezed. My mom’s heart was breaking. The man she thought she loved had abandoned her when she needed him the most. He was abandoning me, too. How could someone who loved you so much one day, decide they don’t need you anymore? What if we still needed him?
“I don’t know yet,” I told him, my voice small as the cacophonous chatter of school ending drowned it out.
He shrugged away from my locker. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
We walked side by side in the hallway. Normally, that wasn’t possible. But the boys kept a wide berth between him and them, and the girls were too busy trying to get his attention, which he either didn’t notice or absolutely did not want. I bit my lip to hide my smile and led the way to my car.
“You want to drive since you know where it is?” I dangled my keys.
He scooped them up. He bypassed the driver’s side door and went around to the passenger side, opening the door and looking pointedly at me. “Get in, Ava.”
I scurried to that side and sat down, pulling my door closed as he went around and got behind the wheel. He drove in silence. I guess at that point I wasn’t surprised, but it was so hard to be quiet. I didn’t like quiet the way he did. I wanted to ask him stupid questions. Anything to fill the silence.
The ice hockey arena wasn’t that far from campus, but it would have been a decent walk in the cold. He parked around back and reached behind my seat to get his gear bag.
“You want to come inside? Practice can take up to two hours.”
“Will there be other girls there to talk to?”
“No,” he said, like I was ridiculous.
“So, I’m going to be by myself watching you play hockey?”
“Yes,” he answered slowly, like I was using every ounce of his patience.
“That sounds boring.”
He leaned back, offended. “Boring? Hockey isn’t boring. It’s exciting.”
“Ah.” I made a face, trying not to laugh at his outraged expression. “It’s a bunch of men pushing a little black disk around on the ice.”
“Ava,” he warned.
“Okay!” I grumbled. “I’ll endure it. But only if you owe me.”
He gave me a blank face. “I’m in your debt. Now let’s go. If I’m late, Coach will chew me out.”
“Will it be cold?”
“Well, there’s a lot of ice, so yeah, I think so.”
“Don’t be cute, Bishop. I don’t like being cold.”
“Ava Mackson, so help me, if you don’t—”
I got out of my car, laughing at him over the hood. “You’re too easy. Keys?” I wiggled my fingers at him, and he dropped them in my hand. I opened my trunk and pulled out a blanket I kept back there when Henny and I watched Laurie practice on the grass.
He led me through the back door and then to the rink itself. He told me to pick a seat and then took off for the locker rooms. I smoothed out the blanket on the bench and then looked out over the ice. Not all of the lights were on in the stadium. Just the ones over the ice. Cold air blew from my lips and I shivered. Not soon after, a door opened, and the Minnesota Loons Hockey Team came out, led by a burly man wearing a sweatshirt, a whistle, and a clipboard.
He was talking, and though his voice boomed, I couldn’t hear everything he said. Finding Bishop wasn’t hard. He was one of the tallest on the team. His helmet hid most of his face, and what little was visible was shielded by his facemask, but I knew the moment I found him because his eyes found mine. Even through his mask I saw the startling color blue of his irises.
“Warm up the ice!” the coach bellowed, and then blew his whistle.
All the players took the rubber protector off their skates and tossed them aside. They took to the ice, one right after the other, skating in a tight figure eight around the ice. I was immediately mesmerized by the sharp glide of their skates on the smooth hard su
rface. After a few minutes, the coach whistled, barking another order.
The team split into two sections. The side on the right, Bishop’s side, had slightly different colored jerseys on. Within minutes, they were running plays. My eyes followed his tall body as he cut through the ice like he was more comfortable on frozen water than he was on land.
I’d never been so close and personal to a game before. They were rough with each other, sending them so hard into the glass wall I gasped a couple times. One of those times, I gasped too loudly. A few of the team looked over, their lips moving but I was unable to hear them. Which was undoubtedly good. It wasn’t until Bishop was one of the players slammed into the glass wall in front of me, did they figure out who I was there for.
He hit so roughly, I was shocked the plastic didn’t shatter. I gasped, shooting to my feet. Bishop was quick to recover, shooting me a grin with his mouthpiece between his teeth. He lifted his stick to show he was okay and then stole the puck like it was his. A few of his teammates stopped to stare at me like I was an alien.
Every time he crashed into the wall, I could hardly watch. They were animals! At one point, his facemask collided, and I saw the blood on his lip.
“Ahh!” I screamed, flinching. “You’re bleeding. Are you okay, Bishop!”
Everyone froze. Even the coach looked over at me like I was insane. And then they all erupted in laughter.
“Bishop, tell your girlfriend to relax,” one of the players said, skating past me with a grin.
I sank down, blushing so hot I was afraid I’d melt the ice. I caught his eyes, finding them shimmering with mirth. He winked, skating into the thicket. He was way more confident on the ice, that was for sure. He wasn’t afraid to get hurt. He smashed through their defenses every time, sending the puck into the net. On the ice, Bishop wasn’t afraid to exist.
“Hit the showers!” the coach bellowed after what felt like forever; my butt was numb.
Bishop skated over to where I was, his mask lifted over his head. His cheeks were flushed, and he was dripping sweat, blowing clouds of cold steam from his lips. He lifted his practice jersey to wipe his mouth off, flashing me a glimpse of his sweaty abs. “I’m going to shower and be right out.”
I nodded, unable to talk.
He skated off, taking my breath with him.
I closed my eyes, trying to center myself.
But I couldn’t.
Because Bishop Manfield was so freaking hot.
The thought was so sudden and deep, I felt the validity of it settle in my subconscious. I would always think that now. Even if I didn’t want to.
He came out probably fifteen minutes later, hair damp from his shower, smelling thickly of male soap: clean, crisp and with a hint of cinnamon. He whistled and waved me over. I gathered my blanket and met him near the back door, trying to get a look at his face.
The cut on his lip was in the corner, and he wasn’t being nice and giving me a clear view of it.
“Is it always so violent?” I asked, walking close to him to the parking lot.
He smirked. “You think that was violent? You should come watch a real game. Those were my teammates. Our opponents don’t care if they hurt me. They want to.”
I cringed. “I don’t know… I almost had ten heart attacks.”
He snorted, but before he could quip back, his stomach growled like a monster. That sound snapped his lips closed and his face closed off.
There was something the matter with him and food. Either he wasn’t getting enough, or he couldn’t. He’d mentioned that he’d never met his parents. At the time, I didn’t know him enough to pry. I probably still didn’t know him that well, but I wanted to know who was taking care of him. Because whoever it was, was doing a crap job.
Athletes needed to eat. Boys in general were hungry all the time. A teenage boy who’d just played hockey for two hours was no doubt starving.
“What happened to your car?” I asked when I handed him my keys.
“Ran out of gas.”
My next question would be why can’t you buy more? Obviously, if he could afford gas, he would, which meant he couldn’t. My mom had given me a gas card and let me fill up whenever I wanted. I felt guilt so immense, my stomach hurt. “If you want, you can hitch a ride with me until you’re back up and running?”
“No,” he said, so absolute there was no room for argument. “Where are we going to study?”
“Bishop,” I murmured softly. “I want to help you.”
“Well don’t,” he snapped, eyes cold.
I narrowed mine at him. “But I want to,” I mumbled petulantly.
He rolled his eyes. “Where are we going, Ava?”
He tried to cover up the subsequent growl from his stomach with a cough and a shift in the driver’s seat. Lunch was a long time ago. Even I was getting hungry. “Hold on.” I got my phone from my backpack and called my mom.
She answered on the fourth ring, mid-laugh. “Hey, sweetie.”
I smiled, too. “You sound happy.”
“I’m at Minnie’s. She’s reading Facebook posts to me from her co-workers. Hilarious stuff. Facebook should come with an online therapist’s referral number. Anyway, what’s up? You home yet?”
“No, I was wondering if you were.”
“Probably won’t be anytime soon. Work was… it wasn’t fun, so I needed to unwind.”
My mother was a secretary for a divorce lawyer. Before she and dad were rocky, I didn’t think her job bothered her at all. Now, I think all those women going through divorces freaked her out because soon, she would be one. “Okay. Is it cool if I have a friend over?”
“Does this friend have a penis?”
“I think so, but I’m not comfortable asking.”
She laughed. “I guess that’s okay. Just know that I can turn on the camera’s any time I want. Keep that in mind.”
I felt a rush of nostalgia. She sounded like my mom. Overbearing—although she never would have let me have a boy over—she was at least cognizant of her old ways. “There aren’t any mommy cams in my room,” I reminded her.
“Ava,” she said in her mom voice. “Do you want me to come home and hover?”
Yes. I missed her hovering. But one look at Bishop watching me, I decided against it. “No. We’ll do it in the living room so you can watch the whole thing.”
She screeched. “Ava Marie Mackson, you are not funny.”
I giggled. “Just kidding, Mom, sheesh. We’re just going to study.”
Aunt Minnie said something muffled on the other end and Mom came back a few seconds later. “Hey, Ava, do you think you can handle being alone tonight?”
“Why? What’s going on?” On the other end, I heard the sound of a wine cork popping. Oh. That’s going on. “Yeah, I guess.” No! I wanted to scream. I hated, loathed, sleeping alone in our house. It was too big and scary, and I’d never sleep on my own. The solitude was unbearably deafening.
“You sure? I can come home if you want.”
If you want meant: please don’t make me come home to that depressing husband-less house. “No, it’s okay. I’ll leave all the lights on and make you pay the bill.”
“Turn the alarm on,” she said, like that would stop any bad guy.
“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.” She kissed the phone. “Bye, baby.”
Maybe I was being a baby, but this sucked. She didn’t ask me how my day had gone, what happened at school. For all she knew I’d dropped out and joined the freaking circus. I sighed, stuffing my phone back in my bag. “Onward bound to my house.” I pointed.
He shook his head at me and then did what I’d said, pulling out of the hockey stadium’s parking lot.
“Why do adults think all we do is have sex when they’re not looking?” he grumbled.
“I know, right? Like I have nothing better to do than to be a horny toad.”
He startled me by laughing breathlessly. “A horny toad?”
“Yeah.
”
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s someone who thinks and wants sex all the time. Also, not to be confused with a horned lizard. They’re not related, and I can’t speak to the sexual desires of a lizard.”
He gaped at me, his mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Whatever you say, Ava.”
I sighed theatrically. “If only.”
“Your mom always that chill?”
“No,” I said pointedly, taking a page from his book. My tone said: and that’s that.
He nodded, taking the hint. Only Bishop’s hint was to lapse into a deep state of quietness. How did he stand it? I squirmed, glancing at him and then out of the window. Fall in Duluth was a nice way of saying we’re just going to slide right into winter and hope no one notices. I turned my heater on, peeking, yet again, at him.
Suddenly, his lips quirked, and he let out a small chuckle. “You can’t stand it, can you?”
“Can’t stand what?”
“The quiet. It’s eating you up.”
“Oh, Bishop! It’s torture. Talk to me.”
He laughed through his nose, a breathless, sort of uncomfortable laugh. It was cute. He was cute.
“About what?”
“Everything?” I suggested.
“Everything?”
“How was school?”
“You were there.”
“Only for a little of your day. How was the rest of it, you know absent of the horrible war you call hockey practice?”
He took a few seconds to answer, almost like he really didn’t want to do this. “It was the same as it was every day. Boring but hard at the same time.”
“Why was it hard?”
He shifted in his seat. “Hard to explain why it was hard. It just is. Keeping my grades up so Coach won’t kick me off the team is hard. Worrying about things I can’t control is hard. Stressing about money and stuff.”
Money and stuff felt like the real stressor, but he’d padded it with things I couldn’t pry into. “Do you have any friends other than me? Like guy friends? I never see you hang out with anyone.”
“No, Ava.”
“So, we are friends?”
Realizing he’d fallen for it, he blinked rudely at the road. “Next question.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The Rarity of Falling Page 6