Shutout (The Core Four Book 4)

by Stacy Borel

  The back door slammed shut and it sounded like a heard of elephants trampling through the house. Three rambunctious boys came racing into the kitchen huffing and puffing. It was Dodger, Marvin; Dodger’s best friend, and Wrigley. My breath caught in my throat and I watched him with rapt attention. He was wearing a pair of black gym shorts that hung to his knees, a dark red t-shirt that read ‘Hang ten’ with a hand giving a shaka, and a black baseball cap that was pulled low over his eyes. His dark hair peeked out from the edges and flipped up around his ears. I let out a little sigh and couldn’t help how gorgeous I thought he was. He was tall for his age. Most of the ten year olds were still my height, but Wrigley hit a small growth spurt during winter time and he was two inches taller than most of the boys in our grade.

  He had yet to notice me as he walked over to the island and started to pick up a deviled egg. Donna caught him before he could touch it. She slapped his hand away.

  “No sir, have you even washed your hands yet?”

  “No ma’am.” He dropped his head but I could see his grin from under the brim of his hat.

  “Don’t be rude. I know I’ve taught you better than that. Our guests get to dish up first. Has your dad finished the burgers?”

  “Yes. He told us to come in and let you know it will be just a couple more minutes.” Dodger answered.

  “Okay, thank you.”

  My mom had moved to the opposite side of the island from where Wrigley was standing and she was laying out napkins and utensils and making sure there was plenty of lemonade and ice water to be served. You couldn’t pry me from her side as I watched Wrigley sneak a couple olives off a tray. Dodger’s friend, Marvin, giggled at him and did the same. Just as he popped one in his mouth, Wrigley looked over and saw me.

  “Hey, Hadley. I didn’t see you.”

  I felt my cheeks get warm and I looked down. “We just got here.”

  “Nice. After lunch we are playing tag if you want to. We are going to do teams of four.”

  “Okay.”

  I could hardly get any words out. They were stuck in my throat. I was disappointed that there was no special reaction from him like there was from his mom. He didn’t pause or stumble to speak when he saw me. There was no appreciation over the fact that I had tried to be beautiful for him. But then again, maybe he was only acting like it wasn’t a big deal because he was around his brother and Marvin. Boys did that all the time. I knew because my dad talked about it before. Boys, at this age, liked to be busy and other things were cooler than girls or school. They liked sports, playing outside, and video games. Now I understood.

  “Hey Wrigley.” Claire sidled up next to me as if to showboat herself. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

  Wrigley blinked. “Hi, Claire. I didn’t know you were here.” He nearly choked on a carrot stick.

  She batted her lashes at him. “My mom dropped me off. I’ll play tag with you, but only if I’m on your team.”

  “That’s cool.” He was trying to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but I could totally tell it was a big deal.

  I made a pathetic attempt to try and ignore the way he was looking at her, but failed. I had no clue that Wrigley liked Claire. I should have known better. All of the boys in our class liked her. She was one of the girls whose moms let them shave their legs, put on make-up, and nail polish whenever they wanted. She often wore clothes that were bought from Forever 21 instead of where I still shopped, Justice. Claire wasn’t any taller than me, but looked like a fifteen-year-old who’d just stepped out of a Tiger Beat magazine. I was feeling completely inferior.

  There were about fifteen people gathering in the kitchen when Donna spoke. “Okay everyone, I’ll have Paul say grace, and then we can all load up on food. Thank you all for coming. I’m sorry I’m not feeling one-hundred percent, but, hopefully, the food still tastes great. Happy Easter!”

  There were a few Happy Easter’s exchanged and mumbled before Paul began his prayer. Lunch went by slowly. Instead of a formal sit down, we scattered throughout the first floor and outside to eat. Wrigley scarfed his food in the living room with two of his brothers but then he ran outside to keep playing. I had a brief moment of glory when Claire scowled at him for ignoring her in favor of going outside. She had stayed in the kitchen, stuck talking to one of the other neighborhood moms, during lunch. I was grateful for it. My mom chatted up Donna, and I stood at the island, quietly eating my food.

  I was working up the bravery to peel myself away from my mom’s side when Wrigley came in looking for me. “Hey, we are starting a new game of tag, you done eating?”

  It was just what I needed. It felt great that he’d come just for me. I set my plate down and gulped the last few drops of lemonade from my glass. My mom wasn’t paying any attention, so I stood up and said, “All finished. Whose team will I be on?”

  “Marvin’s.”

  Ugh, really? “What about Claire?” She went outside right before he came and got me.

  “She’s on my team.”

  We were walking outside and I was trying to resist slapping the back of his head for being so stupid. First of all, Claire Dunaway didn’t give a crap about tag. She cared more about the color of her lip gloss. Second, she sucked at tag. He was only letting her on his team because she was flirting with him.

  When we got outside Dodger, Marvin, some kid from down the street I hardly saw, and myself were one team. Wrigley, Claire, and two kids from Dodger’s class were banded together. For the most part, we were pretty equal. Dodger announced the rules, then we were off. I was small so I could hide easily and jump out when I needed. Claire was the first one out in each round. We played three rounds total before she’d decided she was bored and wasn’t doing it anymore. Good, go back in the house.

  I was grabbing another cup of lemonade that Donna had brought out, when I saw Wrigley standing by himself. Was this my moment? Claire had disappeared and I didn’t want to go home without letting him know I liked him. He was standing by the grill on the patio, while I was slightly around the corner by the pergola. He couldn’t see me, but I could see him.

  You can do this, Hadley. You prepared, you know your speech. You know you’re cute and you have proven you can play with the boys. This is your shot. My internal pep talk gave me the bravery to begin to approach him, but then the kid from down the street ran up to him. I went back to my spot and listened. Dad told me that eavesdropping was rude, but I wasn’t listening to be nosy, I was listening so I knew when I’d get my chance again. Something they were talking about caught my attention. They mentioned my name, and I listened harder.

  “So that Claire girl, she in your class?” the boy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool. She seems to like you, Dude.”

  Wrigley tried to play it off. “I guess. But she likes everyone that’s on the baseball team in my class.”

  “Well, she’s pretty.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Hadley?”

  “What about her?” Wrigley questioned.

  “She’s totally into you dude.”

  “No she’s not.”

  The kids laughed. “Oh please, she’s more obvious than the other girl. She twirls her hair when she’s around you and looks at you with googly eyes. Girl practically wants to make out with you.”

  Wrigley made a face of disgust. “Gross! Hadley isn’t going to kiss me.”

  The kid made some kissing sounds. “You sure about that? She’s here an awful lot.”

  I could tell he was getting annoyed, as he poked at his dad’s fire pit with a stick. “Look Dude, Hadley is just a girl down the street who comes here with her mom all the time. She’s annoying and I wouldn’t let her kiss me even if she paid me a million dollars.”

  The kid raised his hands in the air in surrender. “Okay okay, you’ve made your point.”

  I didn’t want to listen to anymore. My heart had just been ripped out of my chest, thrown on the ground, where it was kicked ar
ound and stomped on. He’d called me gross and annoying. He was only nice to me because his mom was making him. I backed away quickly and quietly, but I needed to leave. I knew I would get in trouble for running home without telling my mom where I was, but I was panicking and could feel the tears pouring down my face. My stomach was churning and I could feel the food from lunch wanting to come up. I got to the gate at the side of the house before I bent at the waist and let everything out. I heaved, and gasped for air. I didn’t know how someone who I’d grown up with and been around so much, could be so mean. I’d never heard him speak so cruelly. And it was aimed right at me. Opening the gate, I darted out in the front yard and hit the sidewalk running as fast as my feet would let me. My lungs were burning and I was sobbing by the time I made it to my own yard. My dad was on the front porch lifting a hammer in the air about to hit a nail when he caught sight of me. He dropped the hammer and raced to me.

  “Hadley? Hadley, baby what’s the matter? Are you okay?”

  I could only tuck my face into his chest and cry. My whole body shook. Never in my life had I cried this hard. My nose was stopped up and cheeks were soaked. Words wouldn’t come out and I didn’t want them to. What would I say? ‘No Dad, I’m not okay. Wrigley hates me and I love him.’ That sounded just as stupid in my head as it would out loud.

  “Hadley, I need you to tell me what happened. Where’s your mother?”

  Nothing was working on me. My arm wouldn’t even rise to point to down the street. A loud sob bubbled up my throat and it made my dad squeeze me a little tighter. It was like he was trying to hold the pieces of me together before they all fell apart in the grass. The biggest piece was left behind at the Brooks’ residence. My heart was shattered and it would never be the same again. My mom always told me that I was an old soul and I felt things deeply. I was an emotional child, but I understood people in a way most kids my age didn’t. This was one of those times that I knew I had been damaged beyond repair. I should have never opened myself up to being hurt like that, but I was just a kid so what did I know.

  My dad stood up and carried me into the house. I had my arms and legs wrapped around his neck and waist. He was the only man that I knew loved me. My dad was my rock. He was the center of my universe and was someone I wanted to find in another person as I got older, so I could marry them and be as happy as him and my mom were. But why didn’t he tell me it would be so hard? Why didn’t he tell me that boys were stupid and I shouldn’t even try till I was like, thirty? He should have warned me.

  He sat me down on the couch and pulled my arms from around him. “Sit right here. I’m going to call down to your mom so she knows where you are, okay? I’ll bring you back a glass of water.”

  I was certain I was a mess. I just looked down at the hardwood floor and stayed silent. My eyes burned, and I used my arm to wipe snot away from my upper lip. Anger flared in me. Now that’s what’s gross Wrigley Brooks. It was nasty to look at. The wet glistening on my arm from something he caused. I was not gross. I was a person. He was the only boy I’d ever liked, and he ruined me. I never wanted to go to the Brooks’ house again. I straightened my back and took a deep, ragged breath. My body quivered from the crying. I was thanking my lucky stars I’d never really told anyone I liked him. How embarrassing would that have been if I showed up at school and people asked me how it went?

  Dad came back with some water and tried asking me a few more questions. I just nodded my head yes or no, instead of speaking. I didn’t feel strong enough to let words come out without the need to cry again.

  “Dad, can I go take a bath?” I didn’t want to feel so dirty and ‘gross’ anymore.

  “Of course, Princess. I wish you would tell me what happened.”

  He was looking at me with pity in his eyes. I got up from the couch and dragged my feet as I climbed the stairs. My stomach felt empty, my body felt soar and lacked energy. When I was in the bathroom, I could hear my mom had come in downstairs. She was talking quietly with my dad. She mentioned something about calling Donna to ask the boys if something had happened. I wanted to race out and scream ‘no don’t’, but I stayed put. They wouldn’t even know what happened. They never even saw me. Wrigley never saw me. He never saw that I tried to be pretty for him. He never saw that I always did a little extra to get his attention. He was blind to me. He only noticed girls like Claire. The ones who weren’t deserving of attention because it’s all they ever got from boys.

  In the mirror, I watched a tear stream down my cheek. I let it go without wiping it away. I never wanted to feel this way again. I never wanted to like another boy. I never wanted to feel the cruelty of words from someone I cared about. I never wanted to try to be prettier for someone that was so mean. Wrigley Brooks was nothing like I’d thought he was. He was a faker. He was an actor who played how his mom wanted him to and when she wasn’t there, he was someone that fit in with all the other boys who teased girls and the nerds in school. He was nothing like I thought he was. I climbed into the water that I’d started and let my body sink down and watch it fill. I let the water get as high as covering my lips before I used my toes to shut it off.

  Now…I wondered how long it would take for me to erase Wrigley from my heart so I no longer felt this emotion towards him.

  BUZZ…BUZZ…BUZZ.

  “Hadley, if your phone goes off one more time, I might flush it down the toilet,” Aurora growled from her side of the room.

  “Hmmm?” I was lying face down and wasn’t paying attention. I was having the most bizarre dreams. Something about knights, jousting, and men hitting each other with baseball bats.

  Buzz…buzz.

  Aurora slung her covers off and jumped up. She speared me with an angry gaze...clearly not a morning person. “I’m not kidding Hadley, whoever that is has a death wish. It’s freaking seven in the morning on a Saturday. Nothing is that fucking important to keep messaging you.”

  My phone was going off? I looked down where it was sitting on the floor and saw the light on the screen just before it shut off. Holy crap, did that say two missed called and five text messages? I blinked, my brain not ready to wake for the day. Aurora got up and padded to the bathroom. When she shut the door, I reached down and picked up my phone. What in the ever loving hell… all of the notifications were from Wrigley. I rolled over and brushed my hair out of my face.

  Wrigley: Wakey wakey come find the snakey.

  Wrigley: Ok wait! That didn’t come out the way I meant.

  Wrigley: I’m starting to think I’m not as funny as I think.

  Wrigley: Hadley, wake up!

  Wrigley: I’m going to call.

  I must’ve just missed his call when Aurora had woken me up. Was he crazy? His first text had my mind going places it definitely shouldn’t be going. What did he expect me to do with all of this? When he said he would text, I didn’t actually expect him to. It was too early for this crap. And he wasn’t supposed to follow through with the things he said. The water was running in the bathroom and I felt like I needed an IV drip of coffee. I sat up and set my phone down, choosing to ignore the texts for now. I saw no reason to respond. He never cared before, I didn’t expect him to keep trying.

  Getting up, I went to the coffee pot, but I wasn’t the one who normally made it. I was pretty sure I might be able to figure it out and not ruin it. Besides I watched my parents do it all the time, how hard could it be? I filled the coffee urn up, but when I got to the part with scooping the grounds into the filter, I had no clue how many scoops I needed. Going on a whim, I dumped seven scoops and shrugged my shoulders. Good enough. My phone buzzed again. My eyes widened and I held perfectly still as I looked at the offending object on my bed. It was like I had stepped on an IUD and triggered a pressure plate. If I moved so much as a muscle, the whole building would go up in smoke.

  I heard footsteps beside me. “What are we doing?” Aurora whispered as she looked at my bed with me.

  “Shhh.” I hushed her.

  “I think I’m
missing something.” She spoke out of the corner of her mouth, holding just as still as me.

  “I said shhh, it’s going to happen again.” As if on cue, my phone buzzed. My eyes grew wider. “That!”

  She dropped her arms that she had been holding up just to be dramatic. “You got a text. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is I don’t get texts.”

  I knew she had rolled her eyes at me as she walked over to the coffee pot. The smell of the fresh brewed coffee filled the room and she smiled as she poured herself a cup. When she started coughing up a storm, I twisted around and watched her gasp for air. She dumped the cup in the sink and stuck her mouth under the running faucet to get the taste out of her mouth.

  “Hadley, what the fuck did you do to the coffee?”

  “Too strong?”

  She was holding the pot up to the light trying to see into it. “Uh, yeah. I’m pretty sure I got a mouth full of grounds.”

  “Oops.” I said sheepishly.

  She dumped it and started to make it the way she always did. “So, what’s the deal with the text messages?”

  I peered at my bed over my shoulder. “It’s from Wrigley.”

  She set the pot down loudly on the counter and water sloshed around. “What?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t get it. It’s like he’s on some sort of pity mission to be my friend or something.” She didn’t know the details of our chat yesterday because she’d wanted to give me every detail about the blond guy she was interested in.

  Aurora was looking at me like I’d sprung a second head. “He’s not doing it for any other reason other than you got his attention.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She walked over to my bed and picked up my phone. I cringed when she opened the messages and read them out loud. She giggled at the first one. “Hadley, he’s flirting.”