Sidelined

by Kara Bietz

  “Hey, hey, no fraternizing with the refs.” Julian blows his whistle near Camille’s face and laughs.

  Camille whacks him with her flag belt, and her cheeks glow so bright they almost match her neon socks.

  “Welcome to the Crenshaw Annual Powder Puff Battle!” Nate is in charge of announcing the game. “The Guardettes, in pink, and the cheer squad, in purple, have been practicing for weeks to bring you this epic matchup tonight. Who are you rooting for, Crenshaw?” He holds the microphone out to the crowd and cups a hand around his ear. The crowd erupts into chants and cheers.

  A huge smile spreads across my face. “This is wild,” I say to Julian.

  “It’s a spectacle, all right,” he says, but he’s smiling, too.

  Nate explains the rules to the waiting teams and the crowd, and then there is a coin toss. Camille, her PIROUETTE QUEEN jersey proudly tucked into her pink tutu, calls heads and wins the toss. The Guardettes will have the ball first.

  When the dance team huddles, Julian reminds the girls to have fun, and they do a quick cheer before hitting the field with Camille at quarterback.

  “I’ve spent weeks trying to show her how to throw a good spiral that is catchable,” Julian says to me, bending at the waist and putting his hands on his knees. He rubs a hand over his ribs, and I see the hint of a wince cross his face. “She still prefers her method of heaving the ball as high in the air as she can and hoping it comes down into a receiver’s hands.”

  I laugh, but this is exactly what Camille does. As unconventional as it looks, her method is actually working quite well, and the dance team takes an early lead.

  Julian lets me take over the defensive coaching, and I gather the players around me and give them a few tips about reading the plays and anticipating the movement of the offense before the ball is even in the opposing quarterback’s hands. The girls stare at me, unblinking, most of them with pink sparkly stripes or hearts under their eyes.

  “And have fun,” I remind them with a smile.

  The defense all give me hugs on their way onto the field, and I have to laugh. I wonder what would happen if I tried to hug Coach Marcus or Coach Andrews before I headed out on the field before the game on Saturday afternoon.

  “A little different than our games, huh?” Julian asks, watching me wish the girls luck.

  “Maybe a little.” I smile, and he looks down.

  The cheerleaders can’t hold a candle to the dancers, and Camille’s pink team wins the game easily, 28–6. The girls all huddle around me and Julian, jumping up and down and losing pieces of their tutus all over the field. I get wrapped up in their excitement, too, and soon we’re all chanting and hopping in the middle of the field. Julian watches from nearby with a smile on his face, but he seems tired or something. Every so often he stretches to his right and rubs his side.

  The crowd in the stands joins in the chanting, and pretty soon the cheerleaders join us and everyone is hugging and screaming. This is so different from a regular football game, all I can do is laugh. Girls are congratulating one another with hugs and made-up dances while posing for selfies with their opponents. Moms and friends swarm the field with balloons and flowers.

  When the extended revelry finally dies down, the girls head into the locker room and Julian and I are left on the sidelines to collect equipment and clean off the field. There are streamers and silly string and pieces of tutu strewn all over the grass.

  “This makes me excited about our first game,” Julian says to me as he opens up a big trash bag and starts cleaning the field.

  “I’m nervous,” I tell him, grabbing a long piece of pink tulle from the grass.

  “Been a while since you’ve been under the lights in front of a crowd,” he says.

  “You could say that.”

  Thunder rumbles in the distance, and lightning flashes in the fast-moving clouds above.

  Camille is waiting for us by the field house with Bucky, and Darien and Nate are nearby. “We’re headed to Burger Barn! Our fearless coaches are coming, too, right?”

  I look at Julian, whose face is pale. A line of sweat is forming on his forehead, and he’s hunched a little at the waist. “I’ve got a ton of homework I’ve got to catch up on, Camille. You go have a blast. You guys kicked some serious ass out there,” he says.

  “Party pooper,” Camille says. “How about you, Elijah? One of these dorks can bring you home after.” She gestures to Bucky, Darien, and Nate.

  I want to go. I want to do something normal. Something that a seventeen-year-old kid would do on a Wednesday night with his friends. I glance at Julian again.

  “’S’okay with me,” he says. “I’m really just going home to get homework done.”

  Still, I shake my head. “I’d better take a rain check,” I tell Camille. “I’ve got a few classes to catch up on, too.”

  Something about the way Julian is standing makes me worry.

  “You guys were fantastic tonight. Celebrate hard,” I tell her.

  I watch the group of them load up into Nate’s car and wave goodbye as Nate pulls out of the parking lot.

  “You could’ve gone with them. I wouldn’t mind,” Julian says, his voice tight behind me.

  “Don’t think I’m up for a crowd just yet,” I say, watching him pull his backpack onto his shoulder, a slight wince on his face. “Thanks for doing this, by the way.”

  “For doing what?”

  I shrug. “Including me.”

  · thirteen ·

  JULIAN

  We manage to make it almost all the way home before the sky opens up and the rain soaks everything. Our shoulders and hair are drenched by the time I get the door unlocked and we get into the house. My ribs are burning again, and I know I’m going to have a massive bruise in the morning if I don’t already. I can’t believe I managed to get hit in the same exact place twice in one week. What are the odds?

  “Man, what a mess,” I say when we get through the front door. I grab two towels from the linen closet and throw one at Elijah as I head toward the kitchen. “I’m going to go dry off real quick and then I’ll make us something to eat, okay?”

  I head toward the bathroom without waiting for an answer. I run my hand over my side on the way down the hallway, and I know I’ve done some real damage. Just the feel of my wet T-shirt clinging to my ribs hurts. I close and lock the bathroom door behind me and lift up my shirt. A bright red spot is spreading along my left side. The beginnings of a nasty bruise are already starting to darken the skin near my ribs, on top of the healing bruise I got at practice a couple of nights ago.

  I go into my room across the hall, grab a dry T-shirt, and head back into the bathroom. With every step, my side thumps with pain. There’s got to be something else in the medicine cabinet that I can take. Ibuprofen isn’t going to cut it this time. There’s no way I can win this weekend if I can’t even walk without wincing. The only thing worse than missing the first game would be losing it to a team like the Stephens City Spartans all because of my performance.

  I dig through the medicine cabinet and stumble upon an almost-full bottle of Tramadol from Birdie’s root canal a few months ago. I read the directions on the bottle and pop two in my mouth, following it with a swig of water before throwing the bottle of pills onto my bed and heading back to the kitchen.

  Elijah is standing in the kitchen with his wet T-shirt in his hands, the bright yellow towel I offered him earlier slung around his bare shoulders. His hair is loose and tousled, like he just finished rubbing it with the towel.

  “Hey, um… do you want a peanut butter sandwich?” I ask him.

  “Oh. Um. Sure,” he says. “I’ll get us some milk.”

  I set to work on four sandwiches while Elijah pours milk next to me. I want to say something about today, but I’m not sure what. Our conversations this morning about Birdie and my father’s property, and later about Reece and knowing what it’s like to miss people, are all mixed up in my head.

  “You know you can come
in here and make yourself something to eat whenever you want to, right?” I say, sliding a paper towel with two fat sandwiches toward him. “You don’t have to wait for Birdie or me.”

  He shrugs. “It just feels weird, you know? It’s not my house.”

  “Birdie doesn’t feel that way. She’d probably be thrilled if you came in here and grabbed yourself some leftovers some night. It’s really okay,” I say.

  Elijah swallows hard next to me. I don’t know if it’s because I put too much peanut butter on the sandwich or something else entirely.

  We eat in silence for a few minutes. I watch the moths attack the screen door.

  “I’m really sorry that all of this was such a surprise for you,” Elijah finally says, his voice thick.

  My heart sinks. I want to be angry with him. I want to lash out and tell Elijah that I think the way he left me three years ago was shitty and that showing up on my doorstep now is really making a mess of things. But then I look at him, this big, giant hulk of a guy eating a peanut butter sandwich and trying to be so small. So quiet. So indistinct.

  “Thanks for the sandwiches,” he says, rolling up his paper towel and throwing it away. He grabs the sponge from the sink and wipes the counter where he was sitting and puts his milk glass in the dishwasher. When he’s done, you can’t even tell he was sitting there.

  “You’ll have to make me a sandwich tomorrow,” I say to him. “As payment.”

  He pauses in the kitchen doorway. “Deal.”

  I clean up my mess in the kitchen and head for my bedroom. I move the Tramadol bottle to the nightstand and lift up the edge of my shirt. I touch my ribs as gently as I can, but they’re so tender I can barely get a finger on them. I stretch in the mirror and hope the Tramadol starts working some kind of magic. Seriously, who gets hit twice in the same spot in one week? How bad could my luck be?

  I pull out the shoebox I keep under my bed and open the cover. I keep the cash I make mowing lawns and dog sitting and doing odd jobs around Meridien in that box. I probably have a few hundred dollars in there now that I’ve managed to save over the years. Camille thinks I’m nuts for not putting it in the bank, but I like to have it where I can keep an eye on it.

  “What if your house gets broken into? Then it’s just gone?” she said to me once.

  “What if the bank gets robbed?” I shot back.

  She laughed until she couldn’t breathe. “Banks are insured, you tree stump. If someone robs the bank, the bank will give you your money back. Jeez.”

  “I still like to keep it close.”

  I don’t want to tell her that I like to count it every so often. I like the feel of it in my hands and knowing exactly how much is in there anytime I want. I put the bills in stacks and count through them a couple of times before pulling out my phone and looking at used cars online. If I wanted a rusted-out hunk of junk, I could almost buy one now. Maybe in a few more months I’ll have enough to buy something that isn’t described in the classifieds as “well-loved” or “It even runs!” I could pick Camille up in the mornings and ride to school in style. Maybe we’d even grab a breakfast sandwich at Whataburger before school.

  I’m thinking about jalapeño cheddar biscuits when there’s a soft knock at the door.

  “Come in.”

  Elijah stands in my door frame. His eyes travel around my room and pause first on the money on the floor and then on the bottle of Tramadol sitting on my nightstand. “I just wanted to check on you,” he says. “That hit you took this afternoon wasn’t nothing.”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him without meeting his eyes. I shove the money back in the box as quickly as I can and push it back under the bed with my foot.

  “I know you’re not,” Elijah says. “You were always a terrible liar.”

  “I’ll be okay. Just bruised a rib or something. It’s nothing.” I stretch my head and lean to my right, trying to loosen the slow tightening on my ribs. I know I just tossed two Tramadol in my mouth, but I’m already thinking about taking another pill just so I can go to sleep. My shirt rises up when I stretch, and I drop my arms as quickly as I can.

  “Holy hell, Julian!” Elijah takes two long steps into the room and reaches for the hem of my shirt.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to pull the shirt from his hands. I twist too quickly and flinch.

  “That is not nothing. Come on, let me take a look at it,” Elijah says.

  I lift my shirt just enough to give him a peek at the forming bruise. I don’t tell him that the red mark extends from my armpit all the way to my hip bone.

  “Was this all from today? From that one hit?”

  “I took a late hit a couple days ago. Then the hit this afternoon.”

  “Two in a row? Man, that’s some luck.” The tips of his fingers gently brush my skin.

  “I told you, I’m fine.” I yank my shirt down and he pulls his hand back.

  “You probably shouldn’t be playing with an injury like this. It might just be a bruise, but what if your ribs are broken? Are you going to have the trainer check it out tomorrow?”

  “We both know I can’t stop playing right now. Our first game is in three days. What would it look like if QB1 was out for the first game? For something as ridiculous as a bruise?”

  He reaches for the hem of my shirt again, and I meet his eyes. He stares at me, lips pressed together, and I don’t pull my shirt from him this time. He lifts it enough to get a good look at the full length of the slowly darkening bruise. His eyes meet mine for just a second before he turns his attention back to my ribs. My skin is warm where his fingers touch. “Does it hurt much?”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly as his fingers travel along the length of my side.

  He drops his hand and looks at me. “You should at least tell Coach Marcus. What if you get hit again in the same spot?”

  “Elijah, I can’t. Scouts are going to start coming to the games soon,” I say. “One game could be the difference between a scholarship to college and living under Birdie’s roof for the rest of my life.” I eye Elijah suspiciously. “You’re not going to tell Coach, are you? God, Elijah. You can’t!”

  He looks at me, then his eyes dart to the bottle on my nightstand for a split second and then back at me. “What is that? What did you take?”

  I bite the inside of my lip and avoid his eyes.

  “Julian. What did you take.” This time it’s more of a demand than a question.

  I finally nod my head and gesture toward the Tramadol on the nightstand, signaling for him to pick it up. Elijah picks it up and reads the label, his eyes widening.

  I sit down on the edge of my bed and hang my head in my hands. “Please don’t tell Coach.”

  Elijah is quiet. He holds the pill bottle in his fist. He puts it in his pocket and lets out a frustrated sigh. Finally, he says, “Does Ms. Birdie have fresh parsley in the fridge?”

  “Parsley? The green stuff?”

  “Yeah. Go get it for me, and a mug. We can make that bruise go away quicker,” he says.

  With Birdie out with Pastor Ernie for at least another hour, it’s easy for me to rummage around in the refrigerator and find the bag of freshly washed parsley. I bring it back to Elijah, who pulls me into the bathroom and closes the door. He puts the leaves in the mug with just a tiny bit of water and crushes them with the end of his toothbrush. The muscles in his neck flex with each movement. I watch him work. His eyebrows knit in concentration; he studies the concoction he’s making in the cup.

  “Lift up your shirt again,” he says, scooping some of the bright green stuff with his fingers. He sits down on the closed toilet seat and gently paints the red skin on my side with the crushed parsley. “Parsley has vitamin K. It’ll help the bruise fade faster. Maybe. Hopefully.”

  I wince a little as his fingers skate softly over my ribs.

  “Sorry,” he says, his breath warm on my skin.

  He gently pulls my shirt down and offers me a tiny smile. “We can do it again in the morning. Some people sa
y cayenne pepper and Vaseline help, too. Maybe we can try that if this doesn’t work.”

  I nod at him. I want to tell him thank you, but I can’t.

  He had the chance to turn me in. To tell Birdie I stole her pills. Tell Coach Marcus that I wanted to play hurt and get me in pretty major trouble. Instead, he crushed parsley with the end of his toothbrush.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says, brushing past me and quietly leaving the bathroom.

  I don’t protest when he leaves with the bottle still in his pocket. I stand and look at

  myself in the mirror.

  He crushed parsley with the end of his toothbrush.

  · fourteen ·

  ELIJAH

  Tramadol? He’s taking Tramadol? Jesus H. Christ. I throw it in the top dresser drawer when I get back into the guest room… my room. He’s not using that big old brain of his, thinking he can play with an injury like that. I mean, I get it, I guess, but jeez.

  Football and grades are all that have ever mattered to Julian, even way back in middle school when nothing but having fun really mattered to anyone else. He’s been talking about wanting to see more of the world since we were really little. Would I play with an injury like that if I knew it meant the world would be at my fingertips? If it was the difference between getting to go to school or not?

  I don’t know.

  I lie down in bed and watch the clothesline sway in the breeze through the open window. I think about Coley. I’ve talked to Frankie approximately seventeen thousand times since I got here a couple of days ago, but I wonder if she’s giving me the real story when we’re on the phone.

  She says “Everything’s fine!” but with a little catch in her voice. It’s that super-enthusiastic “Everything’s fine!” that you say when everything is clearly not fine, but you don’t want anyone to worry about you. She says Coley is great and Ma has been great and I just… I don’t know if I trust her.

  I wonder in the dark if I would continue to play football with hurt ribs if it meant giving Coley and Frankie a better life. If I knew it was the difference between keeping everything the same and possibly having the chance to do something different with my life.