Dangerous Play

by Emma Kress

  Liv knew. She knew for herself and she knew for me. And I didn’t listen.

  I call Liv, but she doesn’t answer either.

  I check my phone for updates about Kups, but I’m not his friend. My friends aren’t friends with his friends.

  I call Liv that afternoon. “I love you. You were right. About everything.”

  “Zo,” she says, the line crackling with pity. “I love you too.”

  And I can’t bear the pity, can’t bear that I fell so hard, so I make an excuse and hang up.

  * * *

  That night, the doorbell rings. Dad’s in bed and Mom’s working so I drag myself downstairs. It’s Eileen. She’s holding a bag. I follow her into the kitchen. She starts unpacking it. There’s a container of pulled pork. A bag of rolls. A steaming container of collard greens. Uncle Bob’s ice cream. Apple pie.

  I start to cry.

  “Oh honey,” she says. “Come here.” She wraps me in a hug. This woman who I’ve treated like shit since day one wraps me in a hug. “It’s just pulled pork. It’s nothing to cry about.”

  I give a half laugh and wipe my eyes. I was so wrong about her. She was never huffy or whiny. She was just trying to help—help Uncle Bob spruce up Scoop Dreams, help my dad by sending him videos of my games, help me right now with dinner.

  “Thanks, Aunt Eileen.”

  She draws back and I see it hit her that it’s the first time I’ve called her that. I can’t believe I withheld this thing, this one simple word that links us. All this time, I’ve been looking for the rifts, not the ties. That’s why I had no idea that hurting Kups would hurt me as much as it did. My cheeks feel hot and wet and my head is killing me.

  She lifts my chin with her hand. “It’s okay to ask for help sometimes, you know.”

  I nod. I force myself to concentrate on her. “One day,” I say, “I want to hear all about what it was like to play for SU.”

  She smiles. “I’d like that a lot. Over ice cream.”

  I manage a smile. “Obviously.”

  After she leaves, I take Dad a plate. But I’m not hungry, so I get back into bed.

  It may be okay to ask for help but I’m pretty sure I waited too long.

  * * *

  Wednesday, I stay home again. But my body is too restless for my mind. So I run—no, sprint—on the lake trail.

  This Friday, we’re supposed to play in the state semifinals. At the Dome. The fact that they’re in Syracuse was supposed to be fate. Fate that we’d win. Now I can’t imagine winning anything.

  I fucked up everything. In one night. Ava and Liv asked us before we did it: Are you willing to risk it? And I’d laughed. What was there to risk? I had no idea.

  I run harder. I want my legs to hurt. I want my feet to bleed.

  I’m heaving when I get back, my heart so large and fierce that it shakes its cage.

  It’s nice to know it’s still there.

  That night, Mom comes back later than usual. She sits on my bed.

  “I stopped by the hospital tonight.”

  I throw back the covers and look at her. She had the night off.

  She looks at me, concerned, and then shakes her head. “I thought you said you weren’t friends with that boy.”

  “I’m not.” It’s true. I could say I hate him. That would be true too.

  Her eyebrows wrinkle. “Okay. But you want to know how he is? Is that what this is about?”

  I nod, and the tears come all over again, and I’m biting my lip to keep everything from pouring out.

  “He’s going to be okay.”

  I sob. I sob. I sob.

  Mom gets into bed and wraps her arms tightly around me, and I’m so grateful to be contained because I might just dissolve without her. Slowly, my tears ebb and my cheeks dry, but she still holds tight. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t shush me or tell me everything’s going to be okay. She’s just here, wrapping her arms around me, smelling like Mom. And I cry all over again. I remember when I was little, when I’d skin my knee or scrape my elbow, how she could make me feel better with just a hug. That it didn’t matter that she was a nurse and knew how to stitch me up or even which Band-Aid to choose. It was the fact that she was my mom and she was hugging me better. Just like now.

  * * *

  I go early to school on Thursday to meet with teachers, to make up for the two days I missed. I’ll stay after too, and stay late at practice. I’ll do whatever it takes to get ready for Friday.

  None of that matters because Kups is going to be okay.

  But when I get to school, all anyone is talking about is the gang that attacked Kups. It’s the same gang, they say, that attacked Jason Stimple. The same gang, they say, that showed up at the cemetery party. We’re under attack, they say. We need to protect ourselves, they say.

  Never mind that this whole thing started because we were the ones who needed protection. But that feels like a lifetime ago too. I can’t imagine being that girl anymore either.

  The police arrive. They set up in the conference room off the principal’s office. Kids get called out of class all day, and the main office becomes a revolving door of scared.

  “Nobody wants to admit to drinking,” Kiara says.

  “Besides,” Dylan adds, “no guy will admit they could’ve been beaten by a bunch of girls.”

  Maybe I’m safe. Maybe not.

  After class, I wait for Sasha, but she lingers too long with the teacher. I try again, but I just miss her. Quinn and Bella go scarce too. I pass the others in the hallway, and our smiles are tight like our knuckles as we grip our bags.

  Grove gets called to the makeshift police station in the main office too. I try not to look at him, but I do. His head is down. People say stupid stuff like “Oooooh” and “Give ’em hell.”

  “What’s this about?” Mac says, but nobody fills him in, and he just starts in about the Bill of Rights.

  Michaela, Liv, and I exchange a look. We’re not the kind of kids they’d question.

  I don’t think.

  I wonder if they have the right to ask anything. I wonder if we have the right to lie if it’s for the greater good. But I don’t even trust myself to know what’s good anymore.

  In the hall, Dylan whispers that they called her in. Of course they did.

  “They just asked if I was at any of the parties ‘in question.’” She uses air quotes. “I said no.” She raises her eyebrows. “I mean, I’m not lying. I wasn’t at the parties. I was near them.”

  Liv and Ava smile and look sympathetic because they’re not feeling any guilt at all. Just worry. But it’s the sort of detached worry you feel for a neighbor. Like, whatever’s happening, however bad, it’s not happening in your house.

  If I’d been a better person, it wouldn’t have happened in my house either.

  I get bumped from behind by a group of tenth graders walking in a pack, all pushing around the same gossip about this unknown gang terrorizing Kups. And how Kups is getting justice. Which, fine, maybe he should. But we learned our lesson.

  Shouldn’t that count for something?

  And what lesson did Reilly or Jamison learn?

  They’re not feeling a thing right now. They have no idea how much a part of this they are.

  A group of girls whispering at the lockers looks over at us. I know they’re not talking about us.

  Probably.

  I’m in a glass box. The walls press against my skin, but I can’t look like I can’t breathe can’t move can’t think.

  Because everyone will see.

  THIRTY-THREE

  MY EYES OPEN TO MY UNC poster. Tonight, we’re supposed to play in the state semifinals, and if we win—when we win—we’ll play the following night in the actual New York State Field Hockey Championship. And UNC’s recruiter will be there.

  Even though my room is dim in the early morning, I know exactly what my UNC poster looks like. I know the thick blue ribbon along the bottom that reads Carolina Tar Heels. I know the crisscross
ing diamond design on either side of the words Field Hockey. I know the eight girls clumped in the center, sticks obscuring faces, arms looped and threaded, all wearing Carolina blue. Their hair is caught in imperfect flyaway braids, bands, and ponytails. Sweat shines their muscles. None face the camera, so I see their smiles only in the silhouettes of their round, high cheeks. This is the moment their team won Nationals.

  I push myself up to sitting. I roll my neck, the ligaments and tissues and bones and muscles grinding against one another. As always, my hips and back ache, but so do my shoulders, thighs, and feet. I don’t know if I even slept last night.

  I look back at the poster.

  I remember Ava’s words at Sasha’s bedside: I don’t think we can win States without you.

  It’s not just about me getting to UNC. It’s about Ava getting her dream. Nikki and Cristina getting the senior season they deserve. The triplets getting scouted. Kiara’s bragging rights over her dad. Michaela getting to be valedictorian and state champ. And it’s about not letting Liv down. Again. Somehow I have to pull it together.

  And we still have to make it through today at school.

  Maybe the police don’t work on Fridays. Maybe Santa and the Easter Bunny go clubbing together.

  I don’t think we can win without you.

  It should feel like a compliment.

  I scrunch my bare feet against my carpet and stand. I walk to my door, through the doorway, down the hall, down the stairs. Each step like lugging five hundred pounds.

  At the bottom, I’m hit with Dad’s singing and the smell of waffles.

  I’m pulled right back to the Before, when Dad could celebrate big days and first days and birthdays.

  When he was the one taking care of me.

  I step into the kitchen, lights bright, waffle iron on, batter stuck to the side. And Dad. Dad turns, with his big smile, his apron tied around his middle, flour on his cheek.

  “Dad,” I say, finally. “You didn’t need—”

  “I didn’t need to celebrate the world’s greatest daughter?”

  If he only knew.

  “I didn’t need to celebrate the stylins’ of the world’s greatest field hockey player? The captain who took her team to the Dome? The girl who took her team further than any field hockey team in school history?”

  His words should feel like balloons. Like unpoppable balloons that only inflate and fill and rise.

  They shouldn’t feel like corkscrews. Twisting.

  I manage a smile. He’s trying so hard. I need to try harder.

  He gestures with a flourish at the plate waiting at the counter. I move to the stool and sit. He’s given the waffle a face with clumps of blueberries for eyes, a half-strawberry nose, and whipped-cream bushy eyebrows and wide smile.

  “Wow,” I say. “This is…”

  “Amazing? Food Network–worthy?”

  “Exactly that,” I say.

  He turns around to get the next waffle out. I look down at my plate. The blueberries bleed blue into the whipped cream. The strawberry stains the waffle red.

  Dad dances over to the sink.

  I don’t have the energy to tell him not to.

  The fork feels heavy. I slice off a hunk, careful to get some whipped cream, some blueberries. It tastes delicious. I know it does. But somehow it doesn’t feel like it does.

  Dad cries out.

  I look up. He’s braced himself on the sink, his face twisted in pain.

  My fork clatters to my plate and I rush to his side. I wrap my arm around his middle and wish my arm were longer, wish I were stronger, wish he’d never got out of bed to make waffles for me, wish he’d never fallen off that damned roof.

  I’m pulling up as hard as I can.

  But I’m not strong enough.

  “I think,” he says, breathless, “I need to get back in bed.”

  “Okay, Dad,” I say. “Can you hang here while I run and grab the walker?”

  He nods, his lips tight.

  I race downstairs to grab it and try hard not to bang the walls as I rush back to his side.

  We walk slowly out of the kitchen, to the stairs. The walker butts up against the bottom step with a jolt. He looks like he’s going to throw up.

  We both look up, the stairs stretching before us.

  “Maybe just get me to the couch.”

  “No,” I say. “We’re getting you to bed.”

  “But—”

  “Mom!” I shout. “MOM!”

  “No, honey,” Dad says. “She didn’t get home till—”

  “And whose fault is that?” I snap.

  “Hey,” Dad says. He looks dizzy. Like he’s about to fall and I am not strong enough to catch him.

  “MOM!” I shout again.

  She comes out of her room, sleep-disheveled. “Zoe, what is—”

  But she stops talking as soon as she sees us and runs down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

  “He needs your help,” I say.

  “Okay, okay. I’m here,” she says.

  I want to say, About fucking time.

  We maneuver the walker so he can slowly turn and get ready. He grabs both railings, and Mom and I position ourselves a step behind on each side. Slowly, we make our way up the stairs, Dad’s breath short, Mom and I trading “You can do it” and “You’re doing great” and “You got this.”

  We get to the top and I run down and grab the walker and we help him to bed. And then I leave them to go back down the stairs, down the hall, into the messy, bright kitchen, my waffle barely touched on my plate.

  I sink onto the stool and I think it might break from the weight of me.

  I take another bite of waffle but I can’t even make myself swallow it. I scrape it into the trash and go upstairs to get ready.

  I always liked that I couldn’t really see the faces of the Tar Heels girls. That way I could replace their faces with mine. I could pretend that I was in that huddle, that I had just won Nationals, that I belonged with them.

  But right now, their backs just feel like a wall without a door.

  Downstairs, Mom’s leaning against the messy counter, sipping her coffee. She looks tired. She looks like she thinks she has a right to be tired.

  “Good morning, Zo,” she says.

  I push past her to the carafe. It’s empty.

  “Oh,” Mom says. “I thought you’d already had yours. Dad must’ve had more than usual when he woke up.”

  “I make the same amount each night,” I say. “Every night, I measure it out. I fill the water. I set the alarm. Every. Night.”

  “Okay, Zo. I get it,” Mom says in a stilted voice that doesn’t sound like she gets it at all. “I’m sorry I drank the coffee you so kindly made.” She holds out her cup to me. “Do you want mine?”

  “I want you to be the one who makes the coffee! I do the cooking, the cleaning, the—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I do everything while you escape.”

  “Oh, making coffee means you do everything?” Her mouth is so tight her lips disappear. “You do not get to talk to me like this.”

  “Oh please, Mom. It’s not about the coffee.”

  She throws up her hands. “You’re the one who said it was. I’m just—”

  “Don’t you get it? Dad needed you this morning and you were lazing it up in bed. Like always. For all I know you were tired because you were living it up with the Rebels. Like always.”

  Her mouth hangs open and she’s shaking but nothing’s coming out. “I. Was. At. Work,” she finally says.

  “Oh, you mean the place where you go take care of other sick people instead of helping Dad?”

  She slams her coffee down on the counter, some of it spilling. “I’m going to go upstairs before I say something I’ll regret. You’re welcome to drink my damned coffee. I don’t want it anymore anyway.”

  She turns.

  “Great. You run away now. Like always.”

  She stops and her shoulders rise like she’s
going to say something, but then she just keeps walking.

  I turn to her coffee, take a sip, and spit it right into the sink. She’s ruined it with too much sugar. Typical.

  * * *

  At school, I turn a corner and see Kups. He’s standing by the lockers with his crew, all guy-thumping and pounding. He lifts his eyebrows at me, and his eyes travel down my jersey to my kilt and linger on my thighs.

  I want to fucking scream. After everything? After all we risked, all we did? Nothing’s changed?

  I swallow my rage, clutch my books to my chest, and hurry to class.

  * * *

  In AP US History, my phone buzzes. While Mr. Mac turns his back to write on the board, I look down to see a text from Dad:

  DAD: Mom just called in tears because you think she hasn’t taken care of me?

  I glance up, but Mac is still writing on the board.

  ME: She chooses work or Rebels over u every time. And y wasn’t she up this morning?

  DAD: She’s taken extra shifts at work to take the pressure off YOU getting scholarship.

  Wait. What? She’s been pulling extra shifts for me? That can’t be right.

  “Alamandar.” Mr. Mac’s hands are clasped in front of him. “You need me to take that phone?”

  I look up at him and back at Dad’s text. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mac. It’s my dad. There’s—”

  “Do you need to step out in the hall for a minute?”

  I nod.

  “Make it fast. I’ve got to get you edumacated.” He turns back to the board.

  Liv tucks her car keys in my hand.

  I look at them, then at her.

  Go, she mouths.

  I just stare at her.

  “Go,” she whispers, more insistent. “It’s your dad, Zo. I’ll cover for you.”

  I rush out the side exit to the parking lot. As I drive, I keep seeing Dad’s text in my head. That can’t be right. She never said a thing. No. She’s not working for me. She’s working to avoid me, Dad, and everything at home.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “DAD!” I CALL, TAKING THE steps at a run. I burst into the dark room, the gray Syracuse daylight a thin frame around the shade-drawn windows.