The Harder We Fall

by Mina V. Esguerra

  “And yet she’s found watching boys chase a ball.”

  “I know. But it’s important too, by the way. This is still my ticket to the multi-country trip. I need you boys and your balls.”

  He snickered again, and I had to lift my hands up entirely, regrettably breaking contact. But that laugh made me feel good, in other places.

  “Your name is?” he said.

  “Oh god. Daria. Kramer. Sorry.”

  “Just so I can thank you properly, Daria.”

  It took three Band-Aids to adequately patch him up, and I applied each one nice and slow. “Do you go here?”

  “I used to. Graduated last year. I guess you really don't follow our team then.”

  “Yeah but don't take it personally. I stayed away from all kinds of sports.”

  Should I have been more into it? Sports attracted guys with gorgeous, strong backs like this one. Without realizing it I had strayed from the injured part of him and pressed my fingertips against his spine. It tensed along with his sudden intake of breath, and I didn’t move them again, higher, until he relaxed. Higher up this bridge that held together this wall of muscle, higher up toward faint marks of other bad days on the field.

  He was otherwise clear, no tattoos. I could tell, from the touching. And looking.

  “So is everyone banged up like you, or are you just lucky?” I said, close enough to hear the new laugh he suppressed in his throat.

  He didn’t get to answer, because one of his buddies called out to him, and when I looked up, a dozen or so of them were headed our way. Nicholas stood up and pulled out a new shirt from his bag. “Daria, this is Grayson.”

  Grayson I actually recognized, a bit. Maybe he dated someone I knew? Were we at a party together one time? He was massive, intimidatingly so, but the face that came with the body was so little-boy handsome that it was slightly disorienting. He shook my hand enthusiastically and left a layer of grime on my palm and fingers.

  “Daria, it’s a pleasure. I see you’ve taken good care of Monk. That’s great, because he can’t take care of himself on most days.”

  “Oh no,” I said, deadpan, “the pleasure was mine, trust me.”

  “So why have you been hanging out here, Daria?”

  “I have to film the team, make a video about you guys. For a contest. I wonder if anyone told you—I’m with Jordana Salt’s class?”

  Grayson slapped Nicholas’s shoulder. “Yeah, this was the thing. They told us to help you out. In case Monk hasn’t told you, he and I aren’t with the team anymore but we’re back to help raise awareness and funds for the other guys.”

  “We’ve always had to do it,” Nicholas said. “Even when we were on the team.”

  It was getting harder to focus on what they were saying, because the guys had all sort of congregated around us, around me, and were starting to strip off their dirty shirts, passing each other water, towels, protein bars. Just another day on the field, I guessed.

  “Usually, I’m the guy who talks.” Grayson had a startlingly bright smile and he knew it, knew that it would bring my attention back to him. “You’ll need to interview people, right?”

  “Yes, yeah,” I stammered, trying to keep my eyes off the beefcake parade. “Interviews, access to games, anything else you need me to cover? And maybe personal profiles too, background on some of the players?”

  “Done,” Grayson said. “I’ll talk whenever you want me to, just aim a camera at my face.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s because he has no shame,” Nicholas said.

  “Because I’m the beauty in this operation and Monk here is the brains.”

  Chapter 3

  “Not this weekend, sorry. Change of plans.”

  “I can send over the van to have your stuff picked up anyway.”

  “No, thank you, but turns out I need my stuff a bit longer. Need to do another video.”

  “You understand that you’re done, right? You can get out of there. Start working if you want. Actually get paid.”

  “I know. One more thing.”

  “One more thing. It’s always one more thing.”

  “Oh, you just miss me.”

  He did miss me though, my dad. I didn’t have to hear it straight from his mouth, but yeah he did. Ours was a father-daughter relationship I found interestingly functional, and I was proud of that fact because it could have lapsed into cold and distant at any point.

  We were like this because we kept trying, even without Mom, possibly because of her absence. Dad was a smart one too, because he discovered that despite looking like my mom a bit on the outside, inside I was all him. Stubborn, focused, liked to keep the hands and brain busy, if only to better cope with things beyond my control. During the tough first few years without her, he let me be myself, and I ended up growing more into him over time.

  We’d talked about this, right before I went off to college. He asked me if he should have been different, if he should have been more like my mother to compensate for her not being around. I actually didn’t know what to say. Would an extra dose of warm and nurturing kept me from turning out this way?

  At the time I said, Don’t worry. This is really who I am. It was okay to be aloof, driven, impatient. Mostly. I could be more like my mother too, by choice.

  Dad probably wished I didn’t have to prove myself every damn time. It would have meant more time with him, working for him, probably assuring him that his business could one day be passed on to family. Instead I was intent on moving out, working for anyone else, half the world away even.

  “So when do you let me see you?” my dad asked.

  “Graduation, I guess. It’s on the fourteenth. In three weeks.”

  “You know I don’t remember anything beyond next week. Don’t forget to call Sally about it. She’ll tell me what to wear.”

  “Your assistant had it on her calendar since last month, don’t worry. Talk to you soon. Love you.”

  When I turned around, only two fully-clothed rugby players were within range.

  “Boyfriend?” Grayson did the asking, but Nicholas was doing a crap job of pretending not to want to hear the answer. He was looking away, fiddling with something, but that gave me a chance to see how dark and thick his lashes were, and that stirred up something in me again. They seemed so soft and out of place on a face that was sharp angles and hard lines. I turned to the guy who had actually asked me a question.

  “Father,” I said.

  “Awesome. And if you don’t mind my being frank about this, Daria, I’d like to ask you something. Monk and I were about to go get drinks to celebrate Japan, and he’d like for you to join us. You okay with that?”

  “Nicholas can tell me that himself I'm sure. We were talking fine without you,” I said.

  “Were you? I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m the talker, you see, and he’s the silent type. You ever been to Drake’s?”

  ***

  Yes I had been to Drake’s, once, and I hadn't gone back since. It was a small bar behind a garage about five minutes out of Addison Hill, the kind of place that served beer to anyone who looked several years into puberty. No one was supposed to even talk about that.

  It was naturally the busiest place in town.

  Nicholas and Grayson got rock star welcomes as soon as they stepped inside. They had to negotiate through fist bumps, manly hugs, enthusiastic finger-pointing from across the room. We were led to a table at the very end, and Grayson occupied his seat with a satisfied smirk.

  “This is why I love coming back,” he said. “No place like home.”

  Grayson taking the chair meant that Nicholas and I had to squeeze into a small bench built into the wall, obviously meant for one regular-sized rugby player.

  “I’ll find you a chair,” Nicholas started to say, and of course I shook my head.

  “No, no. But let me stay here on the other end, so I don’t get crushed.”

  When I said that, I was thinking Better if I sit beside him, so
I don’t keep looking at his face. Grayson was nice to look at, all sunny and blond, and maybe looking at him would keep me from jumping his friend’s bones. It was also so I could make an exit, in case I needed to. In case something about being pushed up against Nicholas made me feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. But there was none of that, and even though I dangled my leg over the edge of the bench as if I was half out of there already, the rest of me wanted to stay. He had retreated out of courtesy, curled up into himself as much as he could in the small space, but that didn’t prevent us from connecting at various points from torso to hip.

  Which should be nothing because I’d already had my hands on his bare back, so.

  I looked at Nicholas, and he did the same, and when my eyes darted over to Grayson, he was looking at us, amused.

  “I will get the drinks,” he announced, before standing up with a flourish. “No need to tell me what to do.”

  “He’s got some brains too, as you can see,” Nicholas said.

  “I’m glad. You jocks don’t deserve your reputation.” I nudged him a bit as I said that, hoping he’d know I was kidding.

  God, I hadn’t flirted in so long. I was pulling classic high school tricks here. The only thing I hadn’t done yet was the hair flip, and only because I lacked appropriate flipping space. The ache that was building up inside was new. I last had sex in junior year, with a sort-of friend, and it was regrettable, did not work out at all. That person I knew. This one I didn’t. I told myself to ignore the attraction. Step on it, strangle it before it grew.

  But I liked his smell.

  It didn’t remind me of anything. I assumed it was his scent, because it wasn’t me, yet it had been on me since the sponge bath I gave him, and was still on me as I looked up at the grimy ceiling and then fixed my eyes on the TV playing some game (rugby, apparently) over the bar. I took a deep breath, and detected that, and peanuts, and cigarette smoke, and car exhaust. But also him.

  “We’re here often.” Nicholas had seen me checking out the game on the TV. “It’s where we take visiting teams playing against us.”

  “Is that a thing?”

  “Yes it is. They do the same for us, when we visit. Usually. So, I was thinking,” Nicholas said, “about the video you’re making.”

  Every time I had to look sideways at him, I’d notice those lashes again. “Yes. Of course. Which is what we’re supposed to be talking about. Don’t you want to wait for Grayson to come back?”

  He shrugged dismissively. “I’ll tell him. I was thinking, I’ll help you with everything. Access to games, the team, anyone you need to talk to, any place you need to shoot. You can film me, talking about rugby and stuff. In exchange for a copy.”

  I blinked at him. “A what? A copy of the video?”

  “The finished video, and any footage of me.”

  “I ask questions,” I warned him.

  “I expect you to.”

  “I got the impression that you don’t go for that. I might get personal. And Grayson seemed to want his on-cam time.”

  “He can have some. But I’ll talk. Ask whatever you want to ask.”

  “And you just want the footage?”

  “A copy.”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable request. The video, once I had edited it, would be posted on YouTube at some point anyway. Any other footage of him could easily be copied and transferred to any device he had on him, whenever he wanted.

  But it wasn’t just that. The gears in my head started spinning, about what this could mean for me.

  I didn’t want to be an investigative journalist and cover war or politics. That wasn’t what drove me, and it was also why I didn’t see Salty as my mentor. The UNICEF project internship for example was something I knew how to do, and had spent considerable time making sure I could prove it. By now I had the skills needed to stitch video together and not even think about it, but I needed to care. It was better every time, if I cared.

  Salty threw rugby into the hat, along with those other random topics, because she wanted everyone out of their comfort zones, me included. What could we do with something we didn’t automatically know how to sell?

  Maybe if I asked the right questions, I’d find the heart of this piece after all. Something about this tough sport that could make anyone a little bit of a softie.

  Short of exploiting it, of course. That was the personal rule.

  “I can ask you anything?” I repeated.

  Nicholas had not changed his mind. “As long as I get a copy.”

  Unless this was a ploy of his to spend more time with me, in that case fine. Who was I to refuse?

  “Deal,” I said. “So...what does ‘celebrate Japan’ mean again?”

  “I got into a club team there,” Nicholas said. “I start training with them in June.”

  Oh. Oh. Japan. I wondered for a second if there was a Japan over in the next county, maybe an hour’s drive, but of course that was not what he meant.

  “That’s far,” I said, softly. “But congratulations. Grayson too?”

  “Thank you. And no, he’s staying local. Does this change things? Do you want him to show you around instead?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean that.” I remembered to smile, like nothing was the matter, and instead looked over at the TV again.

  And that is what you get, Daria, for getting horny when you’re supposed to be working. Shut it down and focus.

  “Because he’s perfectly capable,” Nicholas was saying, “but you shouldn’t. You know. Trust someone who’s all teeth like that.”

  I let a laugh escape my lips.

  Chapter 4

  We met on Monday, and they had a game on Wednesday.

  So what I did for most of Tuesday was read up on rugby, watch a few games online. And I confirmed that Nicholas wasn’t kidding. It was the very definition of “contact sport” and what happened to him, twice on the first time I saw him play, was the kind of thing that happens every few minutes to someone else.

  “Are you watching porn?” my housemate Steph asked. She had just come in from her morning jog, and as usual found me in my pajamas at the kitchen table, watching something from my laptop. Not usually watching porn, and that wasn’t even the case now.

  “Almost,” I said. “Coffee’s still warm.”

  “Send me the link if it’s good porn,” she said, skipping up the steps to the second floor.

  And that was the kind of interaction we usually had, Steph and I, on any given day. Although dorms were an option, you didn’t have to live in one, so I didn’t. Addison Hill was built on land that used to be a lemon grove, and the school had retained the small village within the property as faculty housing. There were small houses that, once they became available, were rented out to students if they were willing to split the rent three or four ways. Steph and I met because we had a shared concern about space, wanting our own bathrooms, and not minding cleaning up a slightly larger floor area.

  She would probably be my best friend, if I knew her more than the five minutes I spent interacting with her every day, and if we didn’t repeat the exact same conversation every time. We’d been living together three years though, and the accumulated minutes were enough for me to learn that she’d had two boyfriends, never missed a jog, drank her coffee with sugar, and was probably one of the most gifted artists in the fine arts program.

  My dad was not comfortable with knowing I essentially lived with a stranger. He offered to pay for all of my rent, but the point of the roommate who didn’t encroach upon my life wasn’t about the savings—it was practical. You know, so there’d be someone to call 911 in case something happened to me in the middle of the night. And if I ever brought someone home, he’d think twice about trying anything crazy.

  And Steph was usually awesome. We weren’t besties, but this was the best arrangement for both of us.

  The next thing I did was learn more about the Addison Hill Rugby Club. Not a lot to go on, for a team that had been around for a
lmost ten years. For one, they weren’t considered varsity, so they didn’t even get to be called the Addison Hill Rangers like all the other university teams. Of the dozen or so articles archived, three had been written by Grayson Price, and four by Nicholas Cevasco.

  Well, hello, sir.

  I read the articles by Nicholas first, because...because. He wrote about the beginnings of their seasons, and games they won (not a lot). He was listed as a business major, which to me revealed nothing more about him than say, finding out he was male. And I knew he was male. The articles were pure news, and I couldn’t glean anything from it but numbers and where they played.

  But it did tell me that these two guys had it tougher than most of the college jocks. While the others had camera crews at their games, and their very own cheerleading squads, and an entire press row, Nicholas and Grayson had been doing their own heavy lifting on this, pitching as PR agents for their sport for as long as they’d been playing it.

  And then I pulled out my notepad and started writing some questions.

  ***

  Nicholas was serious about getting me access to everything.

  “The game is where?”

  “St. Francis State.”

  “I know where it is. I can drive.”

  “No,” Nicholas said, pulling the strap of my gear bag off my shoulder. “You’re riding the bus with us.”

  Oh. Of course I was.

  “How long do you think this’ll take?” I asked him, letting him take the bag.

  “We should be back before six.”

  “No beer with the boys after?”

  “No plans, but if something comes up I said they’d have to find their own way back. Do you have somewhere to be?”

  “Batteries,” I said. “I think I have enough.”

  I started filming from the point I boarded the big bus. I was definitely the odd one out, by being a bright spot in lime green and jeans amidst the black shorts and blood red shirts. The bus smelled of sweat and old leather, and I was going to have to find a way to work that into my script somehow. Nicholas had yelled into the bus for everyone to shut up, and then told them who I was.