by Scott, Emma
I shifted my bag. “Okay.”
“When I read your work, I sense a young man with deep fires burning within and a cold wall around him.”
Professor O’s stare was relentless but I didn’t look away. My head moved in a faint nod.
“A guy with poetry in his blood,” the professor went on. “But he keeps his blood from spilling where anyone can see. He sits in the back. Doesn’t talk. All the while, words pile up inside. And to a mind and heart like his, all that emotion is hard to take. It’s too much. Dangerous. It hurts.” His eyes bored into mine. “Doesn’t it?”
No one had ever talked to me this way. As if he were trying to pry open my chest, and get at what I kept locked up. The words and thoughts I kept to myself. My instinct was to walk away. Or run. But a deep well of longing stirred inside me to stand in the presence of someone who had crafted a life out of writing. A reality I could reach out and touch too, if I wanted.
I shifted my bag again.
Professor O’s smile returned. “I see you, Mr. Turner. And I want to hear you. For this Object of Devotion assignment, give me your blood and guts and fire. Give me everything.”
“Everything?” I smiled nervously. “That’s all, huh?”
He touched a hand to my shoulder. “I know you have it in you.”
After classes, I went back to the apartment to drive my piece of shit car to the Panache Blanc bakery-café for my pre-race routine: carb-load with a big sandwich the night before.
My car was a fifteen-year-old silver Dodge Stratus I’d bought when I graduated high school with some of my tuition money. The Drakes had tried to buy me something better, but I’d refused. It was old, it took three tries to get it to turn over in summer, ten or more in winter, but it was mine.
At our apartment, it was parked next to Connor’s brand-new, chick magnet, eight-billion-horsepower Dodge Hellcat.
A Tale of Two Dodges, I thought, as I climbed into my old sedan and turned the key. After three tries and a belch of smoke, the engine came sputtering to life.
At the Panache Blanc, I sat at a corner table with a sprout and cucumber on wheat and a side of fruit, contemplating an empty notebook and the give-me-everything poem I was supposed to write in it.
Professor Ondiwuje had X-rayed my damn soul, missing nothing. He knew I wrote my feelings instead of speaking them. Speaking out loud felt like weakness. I’d loved my dad. I’d told him in my own voice, and screamed it after him as he drove away. He took that love and tossed it away like garbage. Never again would I let myself feel that naked and exposed. Not out loud, anyway. Writing was different.
It hurts, doesn’t it?
Too fucking much. Which meant I had plenty of blood, guts and fire to write about.
I put my pen to paper. Let’s do this, motherfucker…
Five minutes later, I had doodled an impressive Bruins logo.
I turned the page and let my mind wander. Lines about coppery red hair and eyes like gemstones started appearing on the page.
“Hell, no. We are not going there.”
I scribbled those out and tried again. My pen doodled and then a sentence emerged.
Her eyes were the season, personified…
I tore the page out and balled it up.
For the next hour, customers came and went around me. A slow, lazy weeknight. Edmond, the big Frenchman who sang opera and recited sonnets on the regular, wasn’t there, but Phil lounged over the counter, scrolling his phone.
I finished off half the sandwich, and took up my pen again.
Pick a fucking subject that’s not her. Running. Write about running.
Safe. Easy. I could describe the adrenaline that coiled in my muscles right before the starting gun fired. Or what it felt like to fly over a hurdle. Or that last leg of the baton race with my lungs on fire and my legs driving to the finish line…
Where Autumn waited for me to wrap her arms around my neck, not caring if I was all sweaty, and she’d kiss me…
“Christ…”
I was about to call it a night when my Object of Devotion walked in the door. With her red hair and green dress, she looked like a handful of rubies and emeralds. My stupid heart took off at a gallop and then nearly stopped short when her exquisite face lit up to see me.
“Hey,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes drinking her in as fast as they could before looking away. “Small world.”
“Small world? I’ve been working here for two years and I’ve never seen you.” She started to sit in the chair across from me, then froze. “Oh. Are you busy? I’m just here to pick up my schedule. I won’t bother you.”
“You’re not bothering me.” I moved my shit from her half of the table so she had room. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
Autumn sat sideways in the chair, her purse in her lap. “Most mornings, and a double shift on Sunday.” She glanced at my plate with the half-eaten sandwich. “Carb-loading for your meet tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“I remember Connor mentioned it at Yancy’s.” Autumn’s cheeks turned pink. “God, I was a mess that night. I didn’t say anything terrible, did I?”
You said I had ocean eyes.
“Nah, you’re safe.”
“Thank God. When I drink I have no filter and amnesia,” she said with a laugh. “The worst combination.”
Which meant she probably didn’t remember saying I had ocean eyes. Or much of our conversation about poetry and music. Erased by booze, and all that was left was laughing and playing pool with Connor.
Disappointment bit at me, but I brushed it away. Better that way. For her.
Her glance landed on my doodle-filled paper. “Working hard or hardly working?”
“I have a…paper due.” I flipped the notebook to a clean page. “Advanced Macroeconomics.”
“That’s right, you’re an Econ major. Do you have an emphasis?”
“Not yet,” I said, and struggled to fill the silence; to give her something so she didn’t have to drive the conversation. But the girl left me damn tongue-tied while my brain was firing off a thousand thoughts a minute.
The paper due is about you, with an emphasis on how beautiful you look in every light. In sunlight, in a bar, in a dim café. The object of my devotion. I’ve only been in your presence for a handful of minutes, and the only fucking thing I want to write about is you.
“…tomorrow?”
I blinked. “Sorry, what?”
“How many races do you have tomorrow?”
“Three.”
“Three in one day?” she said. “Is that hard?”
“They’re spread out so I have time to recover. Two are short—the 60-meter and 110-meter hurdles. Then one baton relay.”
“How long have you been running track?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“And Connor’s been cheering you on the whole time?”
“He comes to every meet,” I said. “Hasn’t missed one. He’s had my back for a long time, actually. Since prep school, when other kids gave me shit for…lots of things. Not having any money.”
Connor did all that for me because he’s my best friend and he’d never screw me over. Not over a girl, not for any reason.
“He’s a good guy, isn’t he?”
“One of the best,” I said.
Autumn blushed prettily at this and propped her chin on her hand. “What was prep school like?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
Her shoulders rose in a shrug. “Can’t help it. Like Einstein says, I have no special talents. I’m just passionately curious.”
“I doubt that.”
“You doubt my Einstein?”
“I doubt you have no special talents.”
Autumn’s smile softened. “That remains to be seen, playing a mean round of pool aside. So. Prep school. Was it as uptight as it sounds?”
“Worse. Bunch of wealthy kids in uniforms. I felt like I’d wandered onto a
movie set by accident.”
“How did you…?”
“Afford it? I got in on a scholarship for that too.”
Autumn reached over and tapped my hand, like a mini high-five. “Good for you. Track?”
I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. Autumn had no clue about Sock Boy and with any luck, he’d stay safely locked in the drawer where he belonged.
“You’ve been running a long time, then,” she said.
Chasing, not running. I’ll be chasing that fucking car until I die.
“Yep,” I said. “Speaking of which…?”
“Am I coming tomorrow?” She sighed. “I’d like to, but…”
I leaned forward slightly. “But…?”
“But this is awkward. You’re his best friend. I just…” Autumn bit her lip. “I don’t know if I should be talking about this with you.”
“Talking about what?”
She tapped her fingers on her chin. “The other night was fun. Ruby, my roommate, tells me fun is what I need. But I don’t know that I should be pursuing anything with someone right now. Especially knowing how I get.”
“How you get?” I raised my brows. “Should I start looking for you in the bushes outside our place?”
She balled up a napkin and tossed it at me. “Yes. I’ve set up camp already. You should remember to turn your lights off when you leave the house, by the way. Saves energy.”
I grinned. “I’ll try to remember that.”
Autumn grinned back, then sighed it away. She leaned her arms on the table, and her chin on her arms. “But for real, you’re going to think I’m such a girl.”
“You don’t leave me much choice.”
She laughed but didn’t look away; held my gaze steadily. “I want romance. I want holding hands and love letters. Fireworks. I want all that and I’m not going to settle. But that’s a lot to expect, so I’m going to try my hardest to not expect anything and just roll with it.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re going to take all this covert knowledge straight back to Connor, aren’t you?”
I smiled, though it felt like knives in my cheeks. “I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t.”
“Which is precisely why you’re the wrong person I should be talking to about him.”
No truer words…
“He likes you,” I said, pushing the sentence past my teeth. “I mean, he’d like to get to know you better.”
Her eyes brightened, showing sparkles of gold in the hazel irises. “He would?”
“Yeah, he would. All expectations aside, Connor’s a good guy. Easy-going. Likes to laugh and make other people laugh. But he’s not a clown. He’s got a lot to offer.”
“You’re quite the wingman, aren’t you?”
Yes, because he’d do the same for me. Without hesitation.
With a war of emotions in my stomach, I asked, “Does this mean you’re coming to the meet tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I am. One, because I want to see you race. Two…”
“Because if you go and Connor’s there, it wouldn’t suck.”
“It wouldn’t suck, and I’ll just leave it at that,” she said, but her blush was back as she stood up and shouldered her bag. “Is it bad luck to say ‘good luck’ in track and field?”
“The worst. You just cursed me. Thanks a lot.”
She grinned. “Sorry. Break a leg.”
“Now I’m fucked. Get out of here.”
Autumn laughed and plucked a sprout off my plate. She tucked it in the corner of her mouth like a wheat stalk, and I had a sudden, desperate wish to see her on her farm; this wildflower that dressed in expensive-looking dresses, but who wore scuffed shoes and carried a bag that had probably been new ten years ago.
“Bye, Weston,” she said with a little wave.
“Bye, Autumn.”
I watched her greet Phil, then go in the back and come out with a folded paper. She gave me another little wave and a smile, then stepped out into the dying light of day.
She’s into Connor.
This was no longer debatable. A fact as black and white as ink on paper.
It hurts. Doesn’t it?
I put my pen to the blank sheet in front of me and began to write.
Autumn
“Let me get this straight.” Ruby said. “We’re here to support Wes, in order to hang out with Connor?”
“And to make a sober appearance,” I said. “I need to make up for getting so drunk last weekend.”
“You weren’t that drunk. You weren’t pee-on-a-pile-of-clean-laundry-thinking-it’s-a-toilet-drunk.” Ruby shook her head. “God, remember that poor girl at Marty’s party last year?”
I giggled. “I think she transferred out of state the next day.”
“Smart move.” Ruby adjusted her designer sunglasses as we walked in the brilliant sunshine toward the track at Richard F. Garber field. Instead of her usual slouchy, weekday wear, she wore jeans and a cream-colored V-neck blouse that revealed just the right amount of caramel skin.
By contrast, I felt a little prim in a baby blue sundress that buttoned up to my neck. But I burned easily and was already wearing enough one million SPF sunscreen to over-power my perfume.
“Anyway,” I said. “I was sloppy at Yancy’s. I need to make a better impression.”
“On Wes or Connor?”
I shot her a look, which she shot right back.
“I ran into Weston at the bakery last night,” I said.
“Oh?”
“We hung out a little while.”
“And?”
“And I like him. I like talking to him.”
“You two did look pretty chummy at Yancy’s.”
“Not my type,” I said. “He’s a little…too dark for me.”
“He looks pretty golden from where I’m sitting,” Ruby said, lowering her sunglasses and squinting over the field.
I followed her gaze and found Weston in his white and purple Amherst gear, warming up with his teammates. The opponents from Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams were scattered in their own groups farther away.
The Amherst teammates talked and laughed, except for Weston, who stood apart, stripping out of his warm-up pants and jacket. Underneath, he wore a white running tank and purple shorts, revealing the long, lean lines of his body. His muscles flexed under bronzed skin, perfectly outlined by the tight contours of his running uniform.
God, he’s beautiful.
“You sure you’re not here for that?” Ruby asked. “Because I am so here for that.”
“Jeez, Rube,” I said, not looking away.
“I’m talking about the whole team, not just Wes. Damn, I just became a track and field groupie.” She flapped her hand at the men stretching long limbs. “Look at them. And soon they’ll be running and leaping and sweating…”
I laughed, grateful for the cool breeze that wafted over my cheeks as my gaze ate up Weston.
“Yep, he’s a looker, that Wes,” Ruby said. “But you’re right—he’s got a pretty good scowl going on. Or maybe he just has a bad case of Resting Asshole Face.”
“That’s not a thing. And he’s a good guy. But he’s—”
“Not Connor.” She grinned. “Speak of the devil. This should be fun.”
I turned to follow her gaze. Connor was taking the bleacher steps two at a time to meet us. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and lightweight jacket that all looked like they’d come straight off a runway.
“You made it!” Connor’s wide-open, carefree smile lit up his entire face. “And wow, you look amazing.”
Vowing not to make a touchy-feely fool of myself again, I offered my hand. “Nice to see you.”
Connor’s hand swallowed mine, and then he pulled me in for a hug.
I lived for a good hug. One that made me feel safe or comforted. Edmond de Guiche had been my longtime hug dealer, but as I was enveloped in Connor’s strong arms, suffused with his cologne and the warm scent of his skin…
Not fair, I thought, as my body started to
melt against his broad chest.
He released me and stepped back to give Ruby a shoulder squeeze. “So glad you came. Have we seen our champ out there?” Connor shaded his eyes, scanning the field. “Ah. There he is.” He clapped his hands together a few times, then cupped them over his mouth and yelled, “You’re my boy, Blue!”
Weston’s head came up and he scanned the crowds. He found Connor, gave him the finger, and then his eyes found me. I offered a little wave. Weston held my gaze a moment then went back to his stretches.
“The old Turner charm,” Connor said, laughing.
“How come he doesn’t hang with his team?” I asked.
“Weston doesn’t work or play well with others.”
I frowned.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Connor said. “Wait ‘til you see him run.”
A warm feeling spread through my chest at Connor’s obvious affection—and proud smile—for his friend.
The Amherst coach huddled up his team. Weston stood at the periphery, hands on his hips, listening but not participating, when the team broke with a loud, “Gooo Mammoths!”
The first race was the 60-meter dash. Weston lined up with eight other racers, one of them an Amherst teammate. I found myself at the edge of the bleacher, biting my lower lip as the runners crouched at their places, working their fingers onto the track. In unison, they straightened their legs, hands still on the ground. The air tightened in that few seconds before the gun went off. When it did, the tension cracked. The runners took off and we cheered them on.
Nine men raced alongside each other, a mass of long legs. Weston pulled out in front immediately, and within seconds the race was over. His teammates clapped hands and swatted butts, but only one said something to Weston. He nodded in return, hands on hips and breathing hard but not heavily. I imagined if Connor were on the field, Weston would end up with a bear hug whether he wanted it or not.
The scoreboard lit up with names and times.
Turner, W. AMHERST ………………… 6.97
The second place finisher had a time of 7.14.
“Holy crap,” I said.
Connor beamed. “The world record is 6.39. My boy is fast.” He cupped his hands over his mouth again. “Way to go, T!”