The Bro Code

by Elizabeth A. Seibert

  “Yeah.” He was right, that I’d been making soccer a lot more about my dad than about me. Maybe that was just a way to take the pressure off. Like if I failed, it wasn’t really my fault. But then if I didn’t fail, it wouldn’t be because of me either. They were both right: super unfair.

  “At least your old man gives a crap,” said Austin.

  “Seconded.” Carter coughed through a swig of juice.

  Like me, Austin lived with both his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Banks were really nice, but Austin was the youngest of four boys, and with five years between him and his next brother, as his parents described to the entire neighborhood, he was “unplanned.”

  “I need some air.”

  “Take as long as you need,” said Carter. We were still getting used to the whole feelings thing. As weird as it was to really talk to them about my dad, some of the stress had definitely disappeared.

  I strolled to Eliza’s room. The Wicked soundtrack blasted on her speaker system. Her open door revealed her sitting at a steel, paint-splattered drawing table with charcoal in her hands. Maybe I was just using her as a distraction. But a distraction had never made my knees so wobbly.

  “Yo.”

  “Hey, Nick. I hoped you’d make it down here.”

  Eliza’s room was the same size as Carter’s, but instead of filling it with movies and video game consoles, it had antique furniture with a lot of artwork: a desk with fancy drawers, a bed that matched her orange walls and held about a million stuffed bird-animals, and the drawing table. The latter wasn’t supposed to be splattered in paint, though. That was the result of one of my and Carter’s pranks gone awry—which was why we’d never pranked her art stuff ever again.

  Sitting in the swivel chair at her desk, I leaned back and swiveled in fast circles.

  “What are you making?”

  “You’ll see . . .” She frowned at the printer paper–sized drawing.

  “Can’t wait.” My shoes tapped to the music while I rapped my finger against the chair. Eliza’s bright orange walls were covered in her own artwork—mostly charcoal drawings with a few splashes of color, and abstract watercolor paintings.

  “Finished.” Eliza’s sweatpants brushed against my soccer shorts as she came to sit sideways on my lap. “What do you think?”

  If she’d been any other girl, I would’ve taken that moment to run for the hills. And given how much hill-sprinting practice I did, I could’ve been out of the house and two towns over in minutes.

  Because it was her, my voice went weak, the drawing shaking in my hands. Each line she’d drawn, just for me, mesmerized my eyes. My arm wove around her back.

  I really hope Carter and Austin are still playing video games.

  Etched in black and white were a boy and girl. They stood on a dark roof that overlooked a grass soccer field. Dressed formally, they were masked by shadows from a cloud-covered moon. Still, the stars lit up the field and the girl’s long dress.

  Wow.

  “Do you like it?”

  “You sure your name’s not Vincent?”

  “I’ll have to check my birth certificate.”

  A new feeling decided to enter my arsenal of emotions. It flashed through my fingers, swelled in my legs, and even made my jaw feel weak. I yearned to take her all in: the fact that I sat beneath the sweetest girl.

  Eliza placed the drawing on her desk. She laced her arms around my neck, and I held her so close that the chair teetered on the edge of flipping over. Three . . . two . . . one . . . I leaned in and kissed her with everything I had. Remember me.

  RULE NUMBER 12

  A bro shalt not talk to a chick on the phone unless she is his relative or girlfriend.

  The next couple of weeks flew by in another whirlwind, but not a stressful one. Or, not an entirely stressful one, thanks to how much I got to see of Eliza. Which turned out to be a lot, given how often Carter, Austin, and I play video games at the OCs’.

  Then that morning at the end of October came—that morning so early it was still dark out, the sun a distant memory to the shedding trees. The morning of the long drive to Clarkebridge University.

  “Snacks?”

  “Check.”

  “Tunes?”

  “Double check.”

  “Dorm address and that guy’s phone number?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I said to Carter.

  “Perfect.” Carter climbed into the passenger seat of my rusty Mustang. “Six hours of driving start now.”

  He set my phone in the holder on my dashboard and played with my GPS. “Clarkebridge University. Arrival: 12:03 p.m.”

  Our suits hung on the back windows, our soccer bags were in the trunk, and the rest—snacks, portfolios, other clothes—lay in a packed reusable bag at Carter’s feet.

  The dark-gray morning sky taunted me as my engine sputtered. Not even the birds were flying around yet.

  “I still don’t get why we have to leave before sunrise,” I said, as I pulled out of Carter’s driveway, “Tryouts aren’t until five.”

  “Don’t want to hit traffic, okay? We can’t miss this.”

  “Yup. Traffic.” I gestured to the empty roads.

  “We’re gonna hit it once we get to New York,” he said.

  Carter smoothed out his track pants and played with the window opener, either nervous or excited.

  “Can’t believe we both might get to go there,” he said.

  “Might? Bro, you’re basically in. Isn’t this interview, like, a formality?”

  “I guess. Double alumni doesn’t hurt either.”

  Keeping my eyes on the road, I punched him in the shoulder. “Wish my parents had gone somewhere I wanted to go.”

  “Downside is it’s kinda far away,” he said.

  I tensed. Crap. How was that only just occurring to me? I felt like I’d forgotten to do a class project worth 70 percent of my grade. The big project was being a decent guy for once, and the class was Carter’s sister.

  “She’ll be fine . . .” I said, trying to convince both of us. “She has your mom and lots of friends. And Josh Daley would never let anything happen to her.” I joked, though even I didn’t think that was funny.

  “Great. Thanks for giving me that image.”

  “No problemo.”

  “I dunno, I want to be there for her.”

  The plan, since we were fourteen years old, had always been for Carter and me to go to Clarkebridge together and play soccer. Carter had a next-level version of that dream where he’d be pre-med and on track to be a superstar doctor. I was still focused on getting accepted. Clarkebridge wasn’t a “safety” school for anyone, especially me.

  What hadn’t factored into either of our plans was Eliza.

  Brush it off, bro. This isn’t about her. It’s about you.

  I almost believed it.

  The drive to upstate New York consisted of seeing how many gummy bears we could fit inside our mouths, listening to sports radio, heatedly debating which video game was the best, and of course, girls. Thirty of forty times, Carter had tried to text, inconspicuously, when he thought I wasn’t looking. Carter texting a lot was normal—but the messages always popped up in our group chat. So far, all I’d received were reminders from my mom about having fun and reminders from my dad about keeping my legs warm. Carter firing quick messages every time I changed lanes on the highway was both totally hilarious and completely sad.

  “Who dat?” I tried to keep it casual.

  He hesitated. “Hannah.”

  “Booty call?”

  “You’re jealous because you can’t get any.”

  My jaw dropped to the absolute floor of the car, and then through the floor to the highway and earth’s outer core. He didn’t deny it, which meant one thing.

  “It was?! Dude!” I held out my fist, but he declined to pound
it. “Ouch. Why you gotta leave a bro hanging?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said.

  “You’re not exactly, like, staving her off,” I said. “Isn’t that the stuff you always call Austin and me on?”

  “I’m not leading her on,” Carter groaned.

  “Why aren’t you going for it? Hannah’s great! Robert knows it’ll never happen anyway, and he’d understand if she got with you.”

  Carter slid down in the seat. The car jolted as I pumped the brakes—not realizing we were going 92 mph due to my excitement. Luckily, the road was clear and speeding hadn’t been too dangerous. Of course, with a clear road it’s almost a given that cops will pull you over for doing 60 in a 55. I flicked on cruise control, just in case.

  “Look, man,” he said. “You’re my best bro, so don’t take this the wrong way.”

  I turned down his pop-hits playlist to give him my full, undivided attention—as much as I could while keeping us in a straight line.

  “So, Hannah is my sister’s best friend. And my dating her would mean that I’m dating my sister’s best friend. Obviously, I told you that . . .” he mumbled, “I’m trying to say that me dating Hannah would be kind of hypocritical because I don’t know if I’d be okay if it worked the other way around, with my sister dating my best friend, which,” he said quietly, “would be you.”

  It took me a minute to work out what he’d said, my sister’s best friend . . . what? When I got there, it hit me like a sock to the red zone of my manhood.

  Not a great time for Aretha Franklin to be ripping us a legend in the background.

  “Bro, I’m not saying I necessarily want to date your sister, but what’s the issue? I’m a great guy, we all know that. Purely hypothetical situation here . . .”

  “You know, Nick, I can’t really rationalize it. I think part of it is that she’s my sister, and I wouldn’t really want her to date anyone at all, and then there’s that track record you have . . .” He didn’t need to say it.

  “For crying out loud,” I said, my foot pressing back on the gas as my distraction grew, “this Nick Maguire is a player extraordinaire thing is really starting to get annoying.”

  “Why?” asked Carter. “You usually take that as a compliment.”

  We flew past a cop car, and I held my breath. Seventy in a 55 would be an expensive ticket. After a few seconds and no sirens, I exhaled.

  I understood why Carter wouldn’t trust me with his sister. For whatever reason, his sister wasn’t another girl. Even I knew, however, that being trapped in the car with him for another million hours wasn’t the place to divulge that information to him.

  “Sure is a lot of traffic for six in the morning, eh?” I sighed.

  “Asshole.”

  By the time we’d driven through all of upstate New York and arrived at Clarkebridge, I’d mostly succeeded in pretending the tension between us no longer existed. As far as I was concerned, what to do about Eliza was a problem for future Nick. And before I could get to that, there would be tryouts for the Clarkebridge team, a campus tour, and our admissions interviews. Big things on the horizon, to put it lightly.

  As potential soccer recruits (fingers double crossed), we were set up to bunk with two current freshmen on the team: Luke and Tyler. Since we got to Clarkebridge well before the tryout, Luke and Tyler were happy to show us around. Their recruitment tour started with the dining hall (very important) and ended with the science center, since Carter had specifically requested it. The campus hosted about fifteen thousand students and was filled with high-rise dorms and towering academic buildings. It looked new, it looked legit, and it looked like it had one heck of an endowment.

  Luke and Tyler were cool too. Luke was from L.A., had a man bun, and wanted to go into nursing; and Tyler was from Florida, had short hair like Austin, and majored in finance. Like us, they’d both been recruited to try out in high school and had wanted to go to Clarkebridge since well before that.

  “Clarkebridge pre-meds have a 100 percent acceptance rate to med schools,” Luke told us, but mostly Carter. “If you decide to come here, you’ll be in good hands.”

  “We’re one of the only universities that let undergrads research at the Cancer Center,” added Tyler, “which is a big part of it.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome.” Carter snapped a picture of the center, like he’d snapped pics of every building we’d stopped at.

  It was more than a center. It was an entire section of the campus, with three of its own buildings and its own courtyard. The crowning glory was a holographic statue of DNA in the main building. Luke and Tyler kept insisting that it wasn’t a school for rich kids either.

  “You go here to get rich,” Tyler had said. “Lots of us come in on scholarships.”

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “What’re these buildings?” Carter asked. “The map has them named after people.”

  “You’ve got your physical sciences right here.” Luke pointed to the main building, which was made entirely out of glass and looked like it had four floors that consisted of only lab rooms. “Like chem, physics, et cetera.” He nodded to the next tower. “Then you’ve got your life sciences. You know, bio, geology, environmental.” The third tower looked identical to the other two but was the farthest away from the parking lot. “Then you’ve got your physiological sciences—we’re talking neuro, kinesiology—this is where the PT program is too.”

  “Bunch of guys on the team are in that,” said Tyler.

  “Like physical therapy?” I asked. I’d known Clarkebridge had a robust sports training department. That was the extent of it.

  Luke nodded. “It’s kind of a weird one. It’s a six-year program, where the rest of Clarkebridge is four.”

  “But you graduate with a doctorate, basically,” said Tyler.

  “Wait that’s awesome.”

  Tyler chuckled. “There are some hard bio and physics classes,” he said, “and anatomy is a nightmare. But the guys love helping other people move better. And recover from injuries or whatever.”

  Carter nudged me.

  “Probably have to be at the top of your class to get in, though?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  Tyler shook his head. “It helps, though the professors actually prefer students with a personal connection. Helps you not fail out.”

  “If you’re interested,” Luke said, “there’s a separate app you can fill out. I think you need to pass the AP bio test too. I can send you the info if you want.”

  “Same thing for pre-med,” Luke said to Carter. “So many people apply here, it’s another way to show you’re committed.”

  “Easy,” I joked.

  Carter clapped me on the back, his way of helping me relax. “Study buddies, bro.” He held out his fist for me to pound.

  To try out for the Clarkebridge soccer team, you had to be invited, but they didn’t try out all the potential recruits together. Instead, Carter and I joined the existing team for a practice session, and we’d be evaluated at their caliber. Kind of like how Spider-Man got to join the Avengers after he helped them save the world. The stakes of this tryout felt just as huge. Two other high schoolers joined as well.

  Rather than feeling the pressure, excited energy fueled my every breath. Since it was already starting to get dark, we played under bright stadium lights that made it hard not to feel like a celebrity.

  Carter and I were each given Clarkebridge practice pinnies (white on one side, blue on the other) and paired with one of the team captains—our drill partners for the evening. Kyle Kohl, a six-foot-five senior from Ohio, started easy on me.

  “You’re usually a forward?” he asked.

  “On my high school team. On club I played mid. I can do whatever.” Though I hate defense.

  “I like it,” said Kyle. “All right, in a few minutes we’re going to join the team for a dribbling d
rill. First, you and I will do agility.”

  He led me to a course of orange cones and I rubbed my hands to stay warm. Even with long sleeves under my pinny, the end of fall was no picnic to be outside. I could see my breath as I panted and had to put extra energy into staying warm so my legs didn’t cramp. “We’ll do it first for a warm-up, then for time, then a practice go with the ball, then with the ball for time.

  I nodded. Around us, the Clarkebridge team was running a similar drill, but their coach didn’t have a stopwatch out. On the other side of the field, Carter stood before an identical course.

  “It’s high knees to the first cone, backpedal to the start, then full sprint to the second cone, turn and butt kicks to the first cone, side shuffles to the third cone, other side shuffles to the last cone, then full speed back to the start. It’s a different drill with the ball, don’t worry.”

  “No problem,” I said. I did a drill like this with my dad every morning. Kyle did the practice with me, his strides so big he finished in a few steps. He then held back to evaluate me from the sideline.

  “Ready, set, go.” Kyle clicked his stopwatch.

  I sprinted through the cones, fast and agile on the college turf. I stayed light on my toes for the backpedal, and lowered my center of gravity for fast, form-perfect shuffles. When I hit the last cone, my legs pushed for the finish line like lightning flying through water. It had been, maybe twenty-five seconds?

  “Eighteen, congrats,” said Kyle, jotting it on his clipboard

  With my hands on my head, I already started to catch my breath. “What do people usually get?”

  “Recruits? Generally between twenty and twenty-five. Guys on the team? Around seventeen to nineteen. One guy can do it in fifteen. We think he’s part android.” He clapped my shoulder. “Let’s do it with the ball.”

  After the agility course came a dribbling and shooting drill with the team. We lined up to dribble through another set of cones, then shoot at the goal—pretty standard soccer drill. Except this one had cones tighter than I’d ever seen, we had to shoot twenty meters from each goal, double what I was used to, and we had to shoot at a random angle, determined by the coach, who stood next to the goal.