Dangerous Play

by Emma Kress

“It’s a concussion.” Red strands of hair stick to the sides of Mrs. Dobson’s puffy face. “Concussions are nothing to mess around with,” she says. “No, no.”

  I’m not even sure she’s talking to us anymore.

  In the darkened room, I rest my hand near Sasha’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” I whisper.

  “Hurts.” Her eyes stay closed.

  A nurse brings in some dark glasses and places them on her face. Even though her eyes remain closed, the wrinkles ease across her forehead.

  None of us wants to say it out loud, but we’re all thinking the same thing.

  “How long until she can play again?” Ava finally asks.

  “Too soon to tell,” the nurse says. “Two weeks if we’re lucky.”

  Ava and I look at each other from across the room.

  In one week, we play Sommersville in the sectional semifinals. Somehow we have to get through it without Sasha. Because I refuse to let our season end here.

  I look at Mrs. Dobson, clutching the shoulders of Quinn and Bella as they look at Sasha, and I feel guilty for thinking of sectionals at all. I don’t know Sasha like I know Quinn and Bella.

  I don’t know Sasha’s favorite color. I don’t know her favorite teacher. I don’t know if she takes photography like Cristina or studio art like Nikki. I don’t know where she wants to go to college. I don’t even know if she has a crush. She’s not out there like Quinn or grounded like Bella. She’s just … Sasha. She knows all the words to every Disney movie and can down a thousand roasted chickpeas in one sitting. She’s quiet, but her laugh is always ready. She’s the right forward to Quinn’s center. She traps smooth, jabs strong, and drags just right. She loves flipping upside down on the playground because, she says, it gives her a new perspective.

  And seeing her this way gives me a new perspective too. I grab Ava’s hand and pull her out into the hall.

  “I’m sorry. About the bridge.”

  Ava looks at me for a second, then nods. “I know.” She looks back into Sasha’s room. “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”

  I look at Sasha in the bed. It’s weird how still she is. “I don’t know. I feel like most people are back on their feet after two weeks. But then you hear about others…”

  “Yeah.”

  We’re quiet for a minute, just watching through the window like it’s on Grey’s Anatomy. Except it isn’t.

  “It’s not just that you went too far,” Ava says, and it takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. “It’s not even just that I’m worried about you—because I am.”

  I wait.

  “It’s that you forgot that what you do affects the rest of us, on and off the field. And I don’t think we can win States without you, you know? I need that scholarship to SU just as much as you need yours.”

  Coach’s words from forever ago come back to me: You have power with this team. When you’re down, everyone’s down. I just wish Ava would understand I wasn’t trying to pull everyone down. I was trying to fly us up.

  “Besides,” Ava says, “I don’t want to win it without you.”

  I don’t want to play without her either. Even if Jason deserves to be tossed off a thousand bridges, I’d never choose him over Ava, or the team.

  “And now,” she continues, “Sasha’s hurt and I have no idea how we’ll win without her either.”

  I squeeze her hand. “We’ll do it.”

  She looks at me. “Don’t flame out on me again, okay?”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  * * *

  On Monday, everything’s messed up. Practice just doesn’t work without Sasha. Bella and Quinn’s rhythm doesn’t work with just two. Our forward line is off beat. Anna, her sub, tries hard to pick up the slack, but she can’t. Nobody’s where they need to be. The ball ducks under sticks and between cleats. Usually, our moves and bodies interlace into a tight web that the ball can’t escape. But today, we’re all holes.

  After practice, I brace myself for one of Coach’s angry rants or a fifty-mile run. She has every right to school us. There’s no way we’re going to make it to the sectional finals playing like this.

  Instead, Coach pulls us together in a circle. She places herself between Quinn and Bella. “Hold hands.”

  Ava widens her eyes at me across the circle, but I have no idea what’s coming either.

  “Girls, it’s painful when someone you care about gets hurt. I want to teach you something that we say in AA. You’ve probably heard of it,” she says. “It’s called the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

  I can feel the heat in my palms from the girls around the circle.

  “There’s nothing we can do about the fact Sasha got hurt. So we accept it. But that doesn’t mean we stop.” She releases Quinn’s and Bella’s hands and wraps her arms around their shoulders instead. She squeezes them until their shirts wrinkle, and they fall into her. “You can decide that this team is simply a group of girls playing field hockey. Or you can decide that this team is bigger than any one of you, bigger than all of us together. You worked so hard this year to get to this point. What will honor Sasha most? Losing because she isn’t here, or winning to honor all the hard work that she—and all of you—did to get us here?”

  We’re quiet. Coach lets the silence sit, lets the breeze move the trees, lets the sounds from the football practice drift toward us.

  “We should play. To win.” Quinn’s voice is quiet but sure.

  Bella nods.

  I nod too. “Then we need to figure out how to win without her.”

  “Agreed,” Coach says.

  “What if we shuffle the positions?” I say. “Maybe if everyone is in a different spot, we’ll all play differently, all stretch more to cover the loss. You know?”

  “Great idea, Captain,” Coach says.

  * * *

  It’s hard to walk through the halls without Sasha. We’re quieter, tighter. Somehow I’m less aware. I trip three times. Liv steers me away from a swinging locker door.

  In Mac’s class, Liv kicks my leg, and I realize I’ve just been staring at Grove for who knows how long. Even weirder, he’s staring right back. I redden as I try to refocus on Mac. Liv gives me this confused look like I’ve forgotten to fill her in, but honestly, I have no idea why I was staring at him.

  Except that … it’s like there’s been a seismic shift without me noticing, a line separating my time with Grove from what happened with Reilly. Our time on the boat comes back and Reilly’s there, waiting, but it isn’t poisoning the memory with Grove like it did before. Instead, the memory of us—me and Grove, kissing, on the starlit lake—frees itself and floats to the surface. Which, of course, makes me stare—and redden—again. Then Liv answers something Mac asks, and she’s probably being all smart like always, and I have zero clue because all my smarts left the building weeks ago.

  After class, we meet up with the others, though we don’t talk much. Without Sasha, I crave our team even more now.

  Then we see Kups. Everything about him takes up too much space—the way he leans, the way he talks, the way he stares, the way he laughs. I wish I could shove him off a bridge.

  I keep my eyes down. For once, it’d be great if he just didn’t notice us. Goodness knows he doesn’t notice most things that matter.

  “Hey,” he calls to Bella, “I heard about your sister. Too bad. You think she could use some cheering up? She’s been a vegetarian so long she doesn’t know what she’s missing.” He laughs. “Hey, you’re like a vegetarian too. All bush, no sausage.”

  “Disgusting,” Liv mumbles.

  My nails dig so hard into my palms I think they might bleed. I look down at them. Snake scales. I wonder what would happen if I really was a snake. If I could just shed this skin, slither over, and finish Kups for good. Finish all of them.

  We turn the corner, their ugly laughs at our backs.

/>   “One of these days,” Quinn says, “we’re going to have to get him back.”

  “Yeah.” Dylan’s voice is hard. “What good are we if we can’t even get Kups to shut the hell up?”

  I catch Nikki’s eye. Exactly.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I WOULD LOVE NOTHING MORE than to toss Kups from a bridge, but there are no bridges nearby and Kups is too much of a beast to toss. Instead, I decide I need time with Nikki. And Nikki needs time with Aunt Jacks.

  So after a few texts, and a stop at the vending machine for Twizzlers and Rolos, we’re all set to drive to Syracuse after practice. Even though Nikki’s driving, and we’re in her car, she only knows we’re headed to the Westcott area, near SU’s campus.

  “You’re such a control freak.”

  “As my Aunt Maya says, there’s no such thing as a control freak as long as the right person is in control. And in case you were wondering, that right person is obviously me.”

  Nikki laughs. “What’s up with you and your five million aunts again?”

  “They’re just my mom’s best friends.”

  “That’s cool,” Nikki says. “My mom doesn’t really have close friends like that.”

  She’s quiet while she merges onto 690. I’ve never really thought about the fact that other people’s lack of aunts is about their mom’s lack of friendships. “You want to get off at Teall Avenue.”

  “Yeah. I come to Westcott sometimes.”

  We exit the ramp and have to sit at the light. She looks over at me. “Can we talk about how much we hate Kups and how we want to toss him off a bridge?”

  I look at her.

  The light changes and she turns right. “I gave you space because I thought you needed it. But the team was being ridiculous.” She puts on her left turn signal.

  “Just keep going straight.”

  “Nah,” she says. “Imma teach you a shortcut, Miss Control Freak.”

  I smile.

  She takes us past a concrete factory. The dust from the concrete and gravel lifts around our windows. Then, just like that, we’re past the factory and headed up a hill.

  “Anyway,” she says, “you pulled an action-hero move and because of you, that girl got away.”

  I sink back into the seat. It’s amazing to hear her say that. We cross East Genesee onto Westcott and I know where I am again. Every other tree along the street has a hot-pink flyer stapled to it. Probably for some university band’s gig. I give her directions.

  “And if you ask me,” she goes on, “we should absolutely go after Kups. And Jamison. And Reilly. And any other predatory prick who walks those halls.”

  “That’s exactly what I want too.” I point. “It’s up here on the left. The yellow bungalow. Park on the street.”

  She parks and we both get out. It’s a cool evening and I grab a hoodie out of my bag.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” I say as we cross the street. “I don’t want to jeopardize the team. I’ve got scholarships to worry about. Ava has scholarships. The tripl—”

  I can finally read what’s on all the bright pink flyers flapping in the breeze.

  Speak Out Against Sexual Assault

  Saturday, November 1

  Schine Student Center, 8 p.m.

  Stand Up. Speak Up. Be Heard.

  Heal.

  We just stand there staring while the pink paper ripples angrily in the wind. Like it’s shouting. All down the street, all these pink pages, flapping in people’s faces.

  “What is that?” I finally ask.

  Nikki shakes her head. “No idea. I guess a thing where people … speak out?”

  “Like people who’ve been attacked?” I can’t imagine saying what happened to me in front of anyone. I could barely tell Liv. I pull my hoodie close.

  “Wow,” Nikki finally says. “That would be…”

  “Awful? Terrifying?”

  She hesitates. “I don’t know. It must not be if people want to do it, right?”

  I shake my head. “The fact that there are enough people for them to make an entire event…” I turn away from the flyer.

  We follow the stone path behind Aunt Jacks’s small house to the large shed in back. The high-pitched whir of the saw masks our steps.

  “You’re not going to saw me up into little pieces, are you?” Nikki asks.

  “Nah. I thought I’d save that for our second date.”

  She laughs. We follow the path until Aunt Jacks’s studio opens before us.

  Nikki stands still. “Wow.”

  I grin. “I know.”

  I cross the threshold. The saw clicks to a stop and Aunt Jacks removes her earmuffs. She gives me a wide smile and walks over in her splattered, dusty overalls. “Hi, Zozo,” she says, giving me a big hug. “Jen’s bummed she had to work. You know how much she loves to shower you in baked goods. She hasn’t gotten to see you since the season started.”

  Jen is Jacks’s wife. She owns a coffee shop and bakery downtown. “Give her a huge hug and tell her I will eat all the baked goods when I see her again.”

  Jacks smiles and turns to Nikki. “You must be Zo’s wood-carving friend, Nikki.”

  Nikki nods.

  “Well, don’t just stand there catching flies,” Aunt Jacks says, waving Nikki in.

  Nikki steps inside like she’s walking into church. Line drawings paper the walls, and wood curls crunch beneath our feet. The air is thick with the smell of paint thinners and wood. Shelves hold a collection of wood planers. A long beat-up table holds chisels and clamps, blades and mallets, and a hundred tools I don’t have names for.

  Aunt Jacks smiles at Nikki. “Want a tour?”

  “More than anything,” Nikki says, and I laugh.

  While Nikki gets the grand tour, I wander free.

  I’ve always loved Aunt Jacks’s studio, though I haven’t been here in months. Several pieces in various stages of completion are scattered around. On one table, there’s a big, round, lumpy bit of wood. Next to it, a printed picture of a tree with a large lump stuck to the base of its trunk. I realize the hunk of wood on the table is the same one as in the picture. I study the photo. It’s like the roots grew up into the trunk of the tree but got caught.

  Like words trapped in a throat.

  I think of the angry pink flyers stapled to the trees outside.

  I gently put my hands on the wood and imagine all the words that might be stuck inside, unable to get free.

  “Ah,” says Aunt Jacks, coming over to me. “I see you discovered my treasure.”

  “What is it?”

  “This is one of my favorite signs of nature’s twisted sense of justice.” She runs her fingers over the bumps and lumps along with me, and Nikki joins in. “It’s called a burl.”

  “It’s a mess,” says Nikki. But she doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing. She says it like a mess is the most beautiful thing in the world.

  My fingers rise and fall so much on the bumps I could be playing the piano.

  “What causes it?” Nikki asks.

  “Technically,” Aunt Jacks says, leaning back to study the thing, “it’s caused by some kind of bacteria or virus.”

  “So basically, it’s a giant snot ball?”

  Aunt Jacks laughs. “Kind of. They think that when the tree is attacked, it sends all this help to that one spot and the growing goes haywire. Burls don’t seem to hurt the tree.” She pats it. “But this tree had to come down anyway. I just got lucky.”

  “Lucky?” I ask.

  Aunt Jacks raises her eyebrows and smiles. She goes to the back of the workshop and lifts a wooden bowl off a shelf. “This is a bowl I made out of a burl—a much smaller one. I couldn’t bear to part with it even though it’s worth a lot more than my other bowls.”

  She’s left the sides of the bowl uneven. Inside, the grains don’t run in parallel lines like they usually do. Instead, they’re a jumble, a tangle. The color is uneven too—slashes of dark twist into bits of light.

  “It’s the most
beautiful mess I’ve ever seen,” I say.

  “I know,” Aunt Jacks whispers.

  Nikki rubs her hand over the uncut one on the table. “Will this look the same?”

  Aunt Jacks shakes her head, her hair spilling out of its tie. “Nope. It’s a secret waiting to be released.” She loops her long hair up in another messy bun. “I have to let it talk to me a while longer so I can figure out what it wants to be.”

  Nikki smiles. “I like that.”

  “Why’d you say it was ‘nature’s twisted sense of justice’?” I ask.

  Aunt Jacks winks. “You know me, Zo. I just like it when anything rebels.” She places her hand on top of the burl. “A deadly bacteria came along and tried to take this tree. And the tree said, ‘Nope. Not only are you not going to take me down. But you’ve just made me more valuable than ever.’”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SATURDAY MORNING, SASHA AND HER mom come to the parking lot to see us off. She’s healing well, the doctors say. But even beneath the baseball hat and sunglasses, she’s squinting.

  “You look like a movie star,” Cristina says.

  “Darkness is my friend.” Sasha’s voice is quiet. “Sorry I can’t come.”

  We fold her in hugs. I think of her healing and us winning, and I wrap it all in the hug.

  “We’re going to beat them for you.” Bella squeezes her sister. “And then you are going to finish this season with us.”

  Ava walks up to Bella and writes Sasha’s number 19 on her cheek in face paint. “To remind us why we’re winning today.” We all mark our faces with blue-and-green 19s.

  Coach steps off the bus and walks over. “Nice artwork, girls, but you’ve got nothing on me.” She opens her jacket to reveal a neon-green T-shirt with Sticks Chicks written on it in bright blue puffy paint. When I look closer, I realize she’s scrawled all our numbers around the words. It’s perfect.

  The bus ride to Rome feels long. The sectional semifinals are on neutral turf, so at least we won’t play Sommersville on their field. Motown singing in my ears, I lean my head back against the cool seat. The bus fills with the quiet sounds of fingers tapping, heels bouncing against the floor, wheels rolling fast against the asphalt. The windows rattle, and the bus driver hums softly to the radio. All these quiet nothings rumble together into an expectant kind of something.