Playing The Game

by Jeff Shelby

  “She wants to talk about summer plans,” he said.

  “My summer plans are to stay here and play ball,” I said, grabbing my glass of water off the table. “That's it. But I wouldn't expect her to know that.”

  My mother had always been removed from basketball. She thought sports were pointless. She'd tried to get me to learn to play the piano and get me into drama classes, signed me up for lessons and plays when I was in elementary school. But I'd resisted, choosing sports instead. She avoided coming to games, letting my dad handle that responsibility. He loved sports so it was easy for him. But even as I got better and grew bigger and my dad started telling her that I had potential, she would just smile politely and nod and say something lame like, “Oh, good, that's exciting.” She rarely showed up at my games and almost never asked how they went, so there was no reason to think that she understood how important summer ball was. And it wasn't like I was gonna explain it to her.

  He brought the pot of pasta to the table and scooped the rest of it on to my empty plate. He dumped the remaining bowl of sauce and sausage over it. “She says she wants you to come visit.”

  I took a long drink and set the glass down. “Do I have to?”

  He returned to the sink and turned on the faucet. “You're old enough to make your own decisions. So, no, you don't have to.”

  “But?”

  He scrubbed the pot, his back to me. “But she's making an effort.”

  “Big of her.”

  “Easy,” he said, shooting a look at me. “She's still your mother.”

  “Barely.”

  He frowned at me.

  I piled the fork with more pasta and sausage and shoved it in my mouth. I didn't understand why he wasn't angrier with her. She'd had an affair. Asked for the divorce. Moved out. She'd said she couldn't take me even before I could say I didn't want to go with her. I wanted him to be as pissed at her as I was. But he wasn't. He was always even-keeled when she came up, never taking a side, always staying neutral. He was way too Switzerland for me when it came to her.

  “All I'm telling you is that she's going to want to talk to you about it,” he said. He'd finished the dishes and had started fiddling with the tie, pulling it around his neck and slipping it under the collar. “And you should think about it.”

  “You want me to go?” I asked.

  He looked at me as he fussed with getting the tie just right. “Not what I said, Brady, and you know it. I want you here with me all the time. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  “But she's still your mother, no matter what you think,” he said. He bent down, glancing at his reflection in the tinted glass of the oven door. Satisfied, he stood taller. “I know the two of you haven't always gotten along, especially after we split. But maybe now's a better time to figure all that out with her. Now that you don't live in the same house. Maybe it's an opportunity, especially now that you don't live with her. She's not going away, and you can't just ignore her. She divorced me, not you.” He looked at me. “Just think about it.”

  I disagreed, but said, “Okay.”

  He grabbed the keys off the counter. “Need anything before I go?”

  “I'm fine,” I said. “And we got the updated game schedule. I grabbed an extra copy for you. If you want it.”

  “Of course I want it,” he said. “Leave it on my bed.”

  “Okay.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Bed by eleven,” he said. “No girls over. I'll check the trashcan for condoms.”

  “Jesus, Dad. Gross.”

  He laughed, came over to me in the chair, and wrapped an arm across my chest and shoulders from behind. “I'm kidding.”

  “I know.”

  He squeezed me, then kissed the top of my head. He'd been doing that since I was a little kid and I'd gotten so used to it that it still seemed normal even though I towered over him and could drive a car now. If I had one.

  “I know it's hard,” he said. “With your mom. I'm sorry it's hard, and I'm sorry we screwed it all up.”

  I felt the twinge in my gut again. “It's fine. Really.”

  He stood and headed for the door. “I'll be home around two. And seriously. I will check the trashcan.”

  NINETEEN

  Amy was back at school on Wednesday.

  She didn't look right.

  Which sounds like a shitty thing to say, but I knew immediately that something was wrong.

  She was already in her desk in history, before either Jake or I got there. I stared at her. She looked different, not normal. She had on a pair of old jeans and a big gray, hooded sweatshirt. Her hair, normally all styled up and cool looking, was pulled back in a short, nubby ponytail. I didn't know how she'd scraped her hair together to make one. Her arms were folded across her chest, her eyes locked on the textbook sitting on her desk. If she saw me come in, she didn't show it.

  I slid into my desk and dropped my bag to the ground. I'd gotten together with Cam and the game had gone about as perfectly as I'd hoped, but I was still pissed that she'd just bailed me at Ty's. I didn't care about whatever the deal was with Derek, but I was mad that she'd either used me to make him jealous or had played me for some other reason. I still wasn't sure about what Cam told me, but that was almost irrelevant. It had nagged at me all weekend and bothered me even more when she hadn't shown up for school the two days before.

  I swiveled in my seat. “You never came back.”

  She didn't move and she didn't respond.

  “I waited for like an hour and you never came back,” I said. I made a noise, almost a laugh but not quite. “Guess your friend was in real trouble.”

  Her eyes moved slowly in my direction. Normally, they sparkled and flashed, like they were charged with some special kind of electricity that hit me head-on every time she looked at me. But now? They were flat. Lifeless. They settled on me for a couple seconds, then shifted back to the book.

  “So now you're not talking to me?” I said. “Seriously? What the hell did I do?”

  She was rock-still, even as Jake came in and sat down in his desk.

  “Or maybe you just got super busy after you left me,” I said. “With other people.”

  Her eyes slowly rotated toward me again. No spark, no electricity. Nothing. I wasn't even sure she knew I was speaking. They rotated back.

  “I mean, what the hell?” I asked. “If you found a better deal for the night, that's totally cool, but now you won't even talk to me?”

  Jake glanced at me. “Easy.”

  “Easy what?” I said, totally annoyed. “She can't even say hello to me now?”

  “Just chill,” Jake said, his voice quiet.

  I frowned at him, wondering why he wasn't taking my side, then looked at Amy again. “You wanna make your ex-boyfriend jealous next time? Use somebody else.”

  I waited for a reaction from her. Something. A dirty look. An eye roll. A middle finger. Anything.

  But she just kept staring at the stupid book.

  And it pissed me off.

  So I reached over and grabbed the book.

  And she jerked in her seat, lurching away from me, her hands up in front of her, like I was going to hit her with the book or something, her hands shaking, her eyes wide. She wasn't lifeless anymore.

  She was angry, red-hot, like a volcano ready to erupt. But there was something else there, too, something she couldn’t have hidden even if she’d tried.

  Fear.

  I held the book for a second, then set it back down on her desk. I sat back in my seat and turned around in my desk, the quiet in the room thrumming in my ears.

  This wasn’t the Amy I knew.

  What the hell was going on?

  TWENTY

  Amy was out of her seat the second the bell rang, hurrying out of the room before anyone else was even out of their desk. I didn't miss the fact that lots of eyes followed her, then some whispers and giggles.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked Jake as I slung my bag over my shoul
der.

  He made a face. “A lot of shit.”

  We walked out of the room and out into the hall together. I stepped over a wad of pink and purple streamers some girl had just pulled off her locker. She wore a cardboard silver crown and a friend of hers was trying to pin a Happy Birthday button to her shirt.

  “What kind of shit?” I asked.

  He tugged on the straps of his backpack. “Ugly shit.”

  “Like she did a couple of guys at the party?” The words clogged in my throat.

  He glanced at me. “You heard that?”

  “Cam told me.”

  He nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah, I heard that. But I heard some other shit, too. No clue what's true. Most of it's probably bullshit.” He paused. “But she doesn't look good, man.”

  Amy didn't look good. She looked tired, and more than just a little stressed. She’d always been like a ball of electricity, shooting sparks in every direction, always ready with a smile or a sneer or a sharp comment. You knew she was in the room. But she'd been more of a zombie in class than a firecracker. And her reaction when I'd grabbed the book freaked me out. I’d seen Amy be lots of things before, but I’d never seen fear. Not even a trace of it.

  “What else did you hear?” I asked.

  “That it was multiple guys.” He tugged on one of the cords of his sweatshirt, squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger. “Like there are pictures. Like they made some kind of porno. Like it all was totally fucked up.”

  We stopped near the Little Theater and I was glad. Because my stomach wobbled at his words and I seriously felt like I was going to vomit. Jake's next class was down the hallway but he made no move to walk away. He just stood there, playing with his sweatshirt, a pained expression on his face. People walked by in small groups, laughing and talking, some of them passing phones back and forth. I wondered how many of them were talking about Amy.

  “You believe that?” I finally asked. “Any of that?”

  Jake dropped the cord and ran a hand through his hair. He sighed. “I don't know, man. She's always been a partier, you know?”

  I didn't know, because I didn't know anything or anyone at that school. But I nodded, anyway. “Was one of them Derek? Cam said it was.”

  He shrugged. “I've heard that, but I don't know. I don't know anything for sure and there's too much shit out there to know what's what.” He paused. “But I heard something else, too.”

  “What?”

  He picked up the cord again, stuffing it in his mouth this time. “I mean, again, people are just saying shit, so I'm just telling you what I've heard,” he said. “This stuff happens all the time, but I don't remember anything like this in awhile.”

  “Okay.” I was getting impatient.

  “And I'm not saying I believe it,” he said. “I'm not saying I believe any of this shit because, Jesus, people make shit up all the time.”

  “Right.”

  He shifted his weight from one leg to another and squinted at me. “So the multiple guys thing, right?”

  My stomach knotted. Just the thought of her doing that made me ill. Not because I liked her, but because I didn't see how anyone could do that.

  “Yeah.”

  “When I was in physics this morning,” Jake said, glancing down the hallway, then back to me. He dropped the cord. It was wet and scarlet. “Jenna Caster and Olivia Ford were talking about it. I sit behind Jenna. She's an idiot, but whatever.” He paused, took a deep breath. “She said she heard you were one of the guys.”

  I stared at him. I could barely get my voice to work. “One of the guys that what?”

  “That she was, uh, with,” Jake said, forcing the words out of his mouth. “Jenna said she heard you were one of the guys.”

  TWENTY ONE

  “Hey,” I said. “What happened at the party?”

  It was lunch hour. Cam was across from me and Derek had just slid in next to her. Ty followed, setting his tray down next to him, and Ken and Blake were positioned on my side of the table. I'd been freaked out since leaving Jake in the hallway, unable to concentrate in class and just generally a basketcase. I could barely breathe, much less talk. I kept taking deep breaths, but it did nothing to ease the panic and anger welling up inside of me. The eyes that I'd seen follow Amy out of class? It felt like they were now all on me.

  Derek had an apple in his hand. He polished it on his shirt. “What are you talking about?”

  I looked at Ty. “At your party. What exactly happened?”

  Ty smirked, shook his head, and didn't say anything.

  “Uh, people had a good time?” Derek said, a lopsided grin on his face.

  “That's not what I'm talking about.”

  Derek took a bite of the apple and chewed for a minute. “Then what are you talking about?”

  I didn't want to, but I found her. Scanned the cafeteria, the tables crammed with people, until I saw her. Last row, back corner. She was sitting by herself. A tray of untouched food sat in front of her. She was hunched over it, the hood of the sweatshirt pulled over her head.

  “With Amy Mitchell,” I said, turning back to him. “What happened?”

  Cameron concentrated on her salad. Ty smiled and took a bite of his grilled cheese. Derek stared at me over the apple.

  “Nothing,” he finally said. “Why?”

  I frowned at him. “Come on. Cameron told me about the rumors yesterday. It's all over the place this morning.”

  Derek glanced at Cameron. She was still focused on her salad, moving her fork through the ranch dressing drizzled over the lettuce and tomatoes.

  “Why do you care?” Ty asked in between bites.

  I pushed my tray of food away. I wasn't hungry. “Because I do.”

  “Just leave it, man,” Blake muttered.

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  Derek finished the apple and dropped the core on his tray. He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you so interested in my ex-girlfriend?” He gestured at Cam. “Things already on the rocks with you two?”

  Cameron finally looked up from her salad. “Hey. Not cool.”

  “What?” Derek asked, feigning ignorance. “I'm just asking.”

  “I'm asking because I heard from someone that I was supposedly involved in whatever the hell went on,” I said.

  “That's not even possible,” Ken said from the other side of Blake. “You aren't even a captain.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

  He just shook his head like it was a stupid question.

  “What went on is none of your business,” Derek said. “And it's not something you need to worry about.”

  “Why's my name coming up?” I asked.

  “Dude,” Ty said, rolling his eyes. “Just drop it. It's no big deal.”

  “Tell me what happened,” I said again.

  He frowned at me and I was pretty sure if we weren't on the basketball team together, he would've wanted to fight me. Which is what I didn't get. If it wasn't a big deal, why weren't they telling me? I wasn't dumb. Maybe it wasn't big to them, but it was becoming bigger to me by the second. The more they denied, the more I needed to know.

  “You'll find out next year,” Derek said.

  Jesus Christ. I was tired of non-answers. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  His face hardened, and I wasn't sure if it was to intimidate me or scare me or just get me to back off. Whatever his intent was, it didn't work and I didn't have a hard time returning the stare.

  “What it means is that we had a little fun on Friday night that didn't involve you,” he said, leaning over his tray. “I don't know why someone said you were there because obviously you weren't. But people say shit.” He paused, rubbed at his chin. “So you need to stop worrying about it and focus on hoops. That's it.” He paused again. “And I don't know how it was on your old team, Mickelson, but when your captains tell you to shut up here, you shut the fuck up.”

  I looked around the table. Cameron
's eyes dropped back to the table, focused once again on the bowl in front of her. Derek and Ty were staring at me and Blake was shaking his head. Ken shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

  I stood up and picked up my tray.

  “What are you doing?” Cam asked, looking up.

  “Leaving,” I said.

  “Chill out, dude,” Ken said. “Come on.”

  “Don't leave,” Cam said, frowning. “This is stupid.”

  “I agree,” I said, stepping over the bench. “This is stupid.” It was stupid that they wouldn't tell me and it was stupid that my supposed girlfriend was just sitting there not saying anything.

  I stood at the end of the table for a second, unsure where to head but knowing I didn't want to sit at the table with them anymore. Then I spotted Jake toward the back at the end of a table, his earbuds in and his notebook on the table.

  I walked over to his table and slid in across from him.

  He looked up, surprised, then pulled the earbuds out of his ears. “What's up?”

  “Mind if I sit here?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. He looked past me, probably at the table he was used to seeing me at. “And don't take this the wrong way because I'm totally cool having you sit here. But, uh, pretty sure dudes like you are supposed to eat with...the other dudes like you. Like the basketball dudes. So what exactly are you doing?”

  I stared down at my tray, trying to keep the bile from rising up in my throat. “Trying to make sure I don't become a dick.”

  TWENTY TWO

  I was the first one into the locker room after school, and I was the first one out on the floor for practice. I didn't want to be in the locker room when the other guys came in. I didn't know what kind of tension there'd be after walking away from them at lunch, but I wasn't gonna deal with it behind closed doors.

  Derek was the next one out on the floor. He pulled his practice jersey on over his head, hesitated for a second, then walked down to the far end of the gym where I was shooting one dribble jumpers from the wing.