by E. M. Moore
“Oh yeah, I see that,” she says. We both shake our heads. She acts like losing Reid was the worst thing for her, but if it was, why would she be going from one guy to the next? What happened to the lacrosse guy back at Spring Hill?
I pull out my phone and take a quick picture. It doesn’t really prove anything, but hell, it might. The guys said we needed to get dirt on her and maybe if she thinks this proves she’s cheating on the lacrosse player guy, she’ll be more apt to keep the picture she has of me to herself. Maybe I should tell Ezra exactly what happened too. I’ve been grappling with that decision, but in the end, I keep saying it’s not really any of his business. It’s not like we have a relationship, and I don’t want to make it awkward for either one of us. This is Sasha’s fault through and through.
The second half starts, and I’m watching the game with an intensity I haven’t in a while. Maybe it’s just because of how well Reid is playing. It makes me smile to think he’s definitely getting out of Spring Hill. He’s going to go to college on a scholarship for sure. That thought nags at me at the same time though. What about me? What about us?
Why do people my age have to make all these grand decisions that affect the rest of their lives? I’m finally realizing I’m not equipped to make these decisions. I feel like everything I do is going to be wrong.
This is what’s running through my head when I hear the crack that ricochets through the stadium. I blink, trying to make the game come into focus. I hadn’t been paying attention for a few moments. All I know is that SHH had the ball, but now there’s a bunch of players standing together, necks bent at the field.
Jules stands. “Oh shit.”
“What?” I say.
One guy wearing the opposing team’s jersey pushes past the group that’s standing there. He whips his helmet off, a smirk taking over his face. I watch as he runs and sits on the bench, taking a swig of water from one of the many plastic bottles around. It’s the same guy who Sasha was cozying up to.
“What are you doing? Come on,” Jules says, glaring at me. Finally, she takes my hand and pulls. We start moving down the stands as the players drop to one knee.
“What’s going on?” I blurt out.
“It’s Reid. He got sacked. Hard.”
Breath escapes me. If it weren’t for Jules pulling me along, I probably would’ve stopped right where I was. Instead, we run toward one of the gated entrances to the field as shouts rise up and radios go off. Jules claws at the lock that will get us onto the field.
“What are you doing?” the guy standing on the other side of the field asks. He’s wearing a windbreaker and looks somewhat official. “You can’t come in here.”
“That’s her boyfriend out there,” Jules says, pointing to the field.
My boyfriend. Reid.
“Is he hurt?” I ask. I’m numb. I feel like my brain can’t make connections. Reid got sacked. Okay, that happens. I heard a crack. The guy ran off the field smirking.
“Get out of the way!” the guy says, pushing at Jules’s hands.
When we turn, the paramedics are right there, coming down the walkway toward this gate in the fence. There are three of them and they have a stretcher.
“Jules,” I say, voice twisted in disbelief.
“We need to get in there,” Jules says, grabbing ahold of one of the paramedics. “That’s her boyfriend.”
He looks from her to me. “Just stand back. There’s nothing you can do right now. I’m sure he’s fine.”
Then, they all turn away, hurrying across the field. The crowd parts for them and I see a cleat. A fucking cleat and that’s it.
Jules takes my hand and then we’re running toward the other side of the field. “Cade!” she screams. “Lex!”
We’re running and running, and it feels like the world is tilting. It feels like I’ve been here before in my head. It feels like if I’d been there when my brother passed out, this is exactly what it would’ve felt like. A great big fear of the unknown.
This is what I was so worried about.
The announcer overhead says, “Reid Parker, down on the field. Of course, we all hope he’s okay.”
We’re on the other side of the field now. The team, everyone, is surrounding our quarterback. “Lex!” Jules screams again.
He turns back. Everyone heard Jules scream. Her nails dig into me as he turns away from Reid and runs toward us. He whips his helmet off halfway and when he gets to the fence, he grips it like he might fall over. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “I was there. I’m always there.”
“Is he okay?” Jules asks, voice trembling.
I feel like I’m going to throw up. I feel like everything is bunching in my head together, like it’s a beehive buzzing and buzzing, but I can’t make sense out of any of it.
“I don’t know,” Lex says. He finally finds my face. “I heard—” He shakes his head. “It’s not good.”
I try to breathe, but I can’t suck in air.
Reid’s hurt.
Brady’s dead.
“I’ll find out,” Lex says. “I’ll come back.” He jogs away backward. “I’ll be back,” he promises.
He can say that, but can he really promise that? No one can really make any promises about anything. We’re all just spewing lies when we promise shit. I know that now. I finally get it.
29
I don’t stay to watch the rest of the game. We know nothing as Jules and I get in the car to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Lex and Cade stayed behind to finish out the game, our back-up QB going in who has hardly ever played any minutes in his whole entire career at Spring Hill.
I don’t know why the hell I’m thinking about that. I should be thinking about Reid, wondering how he’s doing. It’s almost like I’m too scared to know.
When we get to the hospital, the staff won’t tell us anything because we’re not family. Though, they have told us that Reid’s family has been called. We wait in the waiting room, each of us holding onto the other, though it’s almost as if I’m watching from outside of my body. This isn’t really happening. I can feel Jules’s pain. Hell, I can even hear it. She’s sniffling beside me. But although our hands are clenched together tightly, I still feel numb. I realize that this isn’t healthy. Something’s not right with me right now. I should be breaking down like Jules, especially since Reid is my boyfriend.
Holy fucking shit. Reid is my boyfriend. I—I love him. And he’s in the emergency room right now, and I have no idea what’s going on.
… … … …
Nothing. Fucking nothing! I can think whatever I want in my head, but nothing comes out on the outside. I feel like I’m comforting Jules about her own boyfriend, not dealing with the fact that mine’s been hurt. That my good friend of many, many years is currently inside a room buzzing with doctors. “I have to get in there to see him,” I say.
Jules shakes her head. “We can’t. You heard the lady at the front desk.”
I blink at her. “I don’t really care what the lady at the front desk said.” I swallow. “What if he’s as hurt as Brady was? I can’t just sit out here.”
Jules squeezes my hand, her fingernails biting into me. “Briar, they’re probably working on him. They’re doing what they need to do, so you can’t just go in there.” She looks me up and down. I think it’s then that she notices I’m not crying. I think she notices that my cheeks aren’t red and puffy and that I’m somewhat lucid.
She gives me the strangest look that makes me feel even worse than what I feel for Reid being in a hospital bed right now. I’ve let her down.
I think I’m letting myself down too.
“You just stay with me,” she says, patting my hand. She looks around the room, paying attention to the people walking around in scrubs. “You want something to eat?”
I shake my head. I feel okay. “I’m good,” I tell her, and there’s nothing inside me that says any different other than the fact that I just want to see Reid, make sure he’s still b
reathing. I mean, he needs to still be breathing. What are the fucking odds that two guys from the Spring Hill High team would die within a year of one another?
I go to get up, but Jules pulls me back down. I stare back at her. “I need to see him.”
She smiles at me, her lips quivering a little. “I know, Briar.” Her face is tight when she looks away. She squeezes my hand again. “Maybe I can go see if they’ll let us back. Okay?” Her voice has changed. It’s comforting and condescending at the same time. Almost like I’m a child that has to be dealt with. “Will you be okay? I’m just going to go to the window for a second.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” I tell her, an edge coming out in my voice.
She ignores the hardness wrapped up in my curt words and looks me over from head to toe. Whatever she sees, she must decide it’s okay to get up and go to the window because she does so. When she gets there, she looks back at me and then leans in toward the lady on the other side, speaking softly.
My whole body buzzes. I watch the Emergency Room doors like a hawk. Somewhere back there, Reid is in a bed. I wonder what’s happening. Is he thinking about me? Is he thinking about the hit?
I run my hands through my hair. A nurse comes into view with pale yellow scrubs on. She hits the swinging doors with her backside and then walks in, not bothering to look behind her. I move without thinking. I slip just inside the doors before they swing in and out again.
Miraculously, there’s no one in the hallway in the Emergency section of the hospital. I tiptoe down it, stealthily but also with an air like I’m supposed to be walking here. I peer into the open doorways. Ahead of me, the Emergency Room doors burst open and a stretcher gets reeled in. I press myself against the side of the hallway while a scream rips through the air. The hospital staff run the stretcher right past me. Bloody bandages are strewn all over it and the minute it wheels past me, nurses and doctors follow. Shouts rise up. Orders are given.
As soon as the guy in the stretcher is in a room, I walk down the hallway a little more slowly. Literally everyone is with that other patient right now, leaving me free to do what I came here to do. There were times I wished I was there when Brady got hurt. I wanted to be able to see him. Instead, by the time I was told, he was already gone. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Everyone assured me I wouldn’t have been able to anyway. As soon as he got knocked out, he was never cognizant again. It was like he just fell asleep. And then from being asleep, he was dead. Not even the other players got to talk to him. They all just thought he had a concussion, but no, it was much, much worse than that.
I grit my teeth and walk a little further in, still peeking in doors with my mind in the past. I peer inside one and almost move past it, but it’s the dirty cleats sticking out of the bright white bedding that draws my attention. It’s him. Brady.
I shake my head. Reid. I mean Reid.
Brady’s gone. There’s no way he’s in a hospital bed because we buried him months and months ago even though sometimes it still feels like it could’ve been yesterday.
I look around, making sure there’s no one in the room with him. When I find it empty, I step inside. There’s a beeping going on in the corner. He’s already hooked up to some machine. The only grateful thing I feel about that is the fact that the beeping means he’s still breathing. I mean, people don’t die from tackles, right? That would stand to reason. Maybe he has a broken bone or two. But that’s probably exactly what they thought about Brady and look what happened.
It’s like I’m watching a movie in front of me. They have his pads and jersey off. The sheets come up to hide his chest, his hands on either side of him. Reid doesn’t sleep like that. He sleeps all haphazard like, as if he’s struggled to get into a comfortable position all night and the one he ended up in just happened to be whatever position he was in when he couldn’t ward off sleep any longer. Sometimes he’s on his stomach with one hand up by the pillow, the other stretched out over the bed. Sometimes he’s on his side with his legs spread wide. Sometimes on his back, one knee out with both his hands under his pillow. Never have I ever seen him laying like a mummy in bed, all straight lines. No, he was posed like this.
I sneak in a little further. Now, I can see his chest rise, another piece of physical evidence that he’s okay. He’s still breathing at least. I wonder how long it took Brady to stop breathing… I don’t think I was ever told.
I hear voices outside in the hall, so I traverse the last few steps to Reid’s bedside in one giant step. I don’t want to get kicked out now, not before I’ve touched him. Not before I’ve seen him with my very eyes. I grab his hand in both of mine, squeezing it. He’s still warm. Still oh so warm, which makes my heart melt a little. For now, he’s okay at least. I pick his hand up and kiss the back of it. “Reid, you’re okay. You’re okay.”
His lips part slightly. His eyes are still closed, but his lips move like he’s trying to say something even though a sound never comes out.
There are more voices down the hall. The screaming from the other guy has ceased, so I know I don’t have a lot of time now. I’m sure Jules has also turned around and realized I’m no longer there.
I kiss the back of his hand again and again. “You’re okay.” I bite my lip. There are so many things popping up in my head, but only one actually seems all that important. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you this yet, so in case I won’t— In case I can’t,” I say. “I love you, Reid Parker. Part of me probably always has been in love with you because I slipped into it so easily. So fucking easily.”
I kiss his hand again, knowing I’m on borrowed time. Someone’s going to come in here any second now and I’m going to get into trouble.
Footsteps start for the room. They echo around the otherwise quiet hallway. It seems like the screaming guy put a hush on everything else, so other sounds echo loudly. “What happened?” someone asks.
Another softer, feminine voice says, “Don’t know. Hurt on the football field, but the EMT’s who brought him in said he kept saying someone meant to do it.”
I still right there by Reid’s bedside. In my head, I replay the things I saw tonight. Sasha talking to the guy on the other team. The guy on the other team running back to his sideline with an almost smile on his face. Is he the one who sacked Reid? Did he try to hurt him on purpose?
I stumble back from the bed, guilt slamming into me hard and fast.
My fingers fall from Reid’s hand. His arm is outstretched beyond the sides of the stretcher now. His fingertips are just dangling there with no life. No life.
I turn around and head right back through the door. Instead of taking a right and going back toward the waiting room, I take a left. “Hey,” a voice says.
I ignore them. My head’s pounding. My heart’s in my throat.
Did Reid get hurt because of me? Because I didn’t want anyone seeing that stupid picture of me?
I trip over my two feet, but then right myself afterward.
“Hey!” the voice comes again. “You can’t be in here.”
The doors at the end of the hall swing open again and two paramedics walk through from outside. I slip to the side and make my way out. The sun is low in the sky, but it’s still shining. I hold my hands over my eyes, blocking out the bright rays. All they do is ricochet off the darkness I feel in my heart right now.
I think I had it right before…when I ran away. I definitely had it right. No one to care about but myself, and I’m not sure I even care about myself at all right now. Look what happened to Reid because of me.
The hospital is on a hill, so I climb up it, putting as much distance between me and Reid and me and the rest of the world as possible. People walk by me in business suits. Cars honk their horns. I hear the beep, beep of the intersection crosswalk, telling people when to go. I mix in so easily with the people walking around the city. That was one reason why I liked it so much before. Everyone’s so busy going to where they need to go that no one notices what’s going on with you. I can hide. And
if no one’s asking me what’s wrong, maybe I’ll forget too.
Maybe I’ll just forget everything.
I keep walking and walking and walking, leaving this life behind once more.
Maybe I had the Spring Hill blues worse than Brady my whole life. Subconsciously, I probably knew I’d always leave.
30
A week later…
This room is so musty it makes my nose run. I’ve gone through all the scratchy tissues the motel provides and something tells me it’s going to be difficult to get another container, especially considering it looks like these were purchased in the seventies with the puke green paisley pattern printed on the outside of the box.
I stretch back on the bed, fully clothed with my hands behind my head. The TV is on, but I can’t really hear what it’s saying. I’ve already seen this episode of Supernatural a bunch of times. I know I need to get out on the street, see if I can’t drum up some more money to pay for another night in this place. People just like giving money to young kids my age. They all want to help, especially when I look as sad and confused as I feel all the time.
But at least I’m not home right now. At least I’m not at school worrying about what’s happening with Re—. I shake my head. Nope. Won’t think about it. I left that life. It’s gone. What I need to do is find a permanent job instead of begging on the streets. I should probably hit up the local diners and see if I can’t get a bussing job or even a waitress position even though I have zero experience.
A knock comes on the door. I bite my lip. It’s probably the owner of the hotel. She’s been pretty good to me. I owe her for last night and tonight. I’m sure she’ll understand.