Winner Take All

by Laurie Devore

  I bend down to pick up the folder.

  “I want to go with you next weekend,” Taylor is saying. I side-eye him as I stand back up. No way in hell he’s going anywhere until baseball season is over.

  “You’re so sweet,” Amanda tells him anyway.

  Aha! I had put the assignment inside the folder when I finished it last week. So it’d be easy to find today. I unfold it and try to straighten it out by running it over the side of the locker door.

  “What are you looking at?” Amanda asks Taylor as he peers at his phone. They are both pretty thoroughly ignoring my antics at this point.

  “Someone just sent me a picture,” he says.

  “Oh, weird,” Amanda replies. “Me, too.”

  I look over at both of them as together they stare at the picture on Taylor’s phone with interest. “What the hell is this?” Taylor asks, squinting. “Some girl kissing a guy on the cheek?”

  “Isn’t that Jackson?” Amanda asks. My skin starts tingling uncomfortably.

  “Yes,” Taylor says, his voice dark as he comes to a realization. He sighs. “And that’s Jordan Allen’s girlfriend.”

  “Jordan Allen as in the senior Jordan Allen?” I ask. He is one of the Prep hotshots, already headed to Duke University, the Harvard of the south. Despite being a loudmouth, from what I can tell, he is widely beloved and on the road to becoming another male Prep valedictorian to add to the list.

  Amanda’s mouth falls open comically. “Oh my God. He signed the text, ‘Anything you can do, I can do better, Allen.’”

  Taylor looks up. “Did you get this, Nell?”

  I slam my locker shut, finally, and wriggle my phone out of my school jacket to see that I have one unread notification. I click it open, and sure enough, there it is. Avery and Jackson. And she’s Jordan Allen’s girlfriend, because of course she is.

  Taylor’s watching me. “See? Now no one will think you were being romantic with Hart.”

  “I wouldn’t let him touch me,” I say, a bald-faced lie, apparently. Then I hike my bag up on my shoulder and take off in the opposite direction, shaking all over.

  Jordan Allen.

  I walk so fast, I practically run to the cafeteria, where I know Jackson and his friends camp out before class every day. Well, they call it a cafeteria. There’s one regular cafeteria option, a premium salad station, a McDonald’s, and the nicest dessert bar I’ve ever seen. There’s also a Starbucks kiosk because what rich kid can go a day without that.

  Jackson is sitting with his group—Doug Rivera, Columbus Proctor, and Tristan Kaye. I go over and stand at the end of the table, wearing a murderous look.

  “Oh shit, Jackson,” Columbus says, correctly reading my face. “What did you do?”

  “Can I help you, Becker?” He has a huge box of snickerdoodles open in front of him along with a card decorated with his number. It says We ♥ Jackson!

  “I need to speak to you privately.”

  Tristan whistles. “Shit’s serious,” she says to the rest of the boys.

  Jackson gets up with a smile, grabbing his Starbucks cup to take with him. I walk to the other side of the cafeteria where the salad station is. He rests his elbow on the counter, drinking his coffee as if bored.

  “Mind telling me what the fuck your damage is?” I ask.

  He snorts. “My damage?”

  “A picture? That only you could have sent to everyone in school this morning? That was Jordan Allen’s girlfriend. And you knew the whole time.”

  “Oh. That?” He thinks about it a minute, and then laughs. “Yeah, I did. Though I’m not sure I could’ve pulled it off without you, so thanks for that, Becker. She wanted to hurt Jordan, but she needed to want someone else, too. I only had to encourage her to let her guard down, and luckily, when she saw that someone like you might be interested, she did.”

  My blood boils, trying to burn out any guilt on its path through my capillaries. “I didn’t want to be a part of this. You humiliated that girl.”

  “I humiliated Jordan,” he tells me. “If anything, Avery was necessary collateral damage. She made her own choices.”

  “You’re a goddamn sociopath,” I say. “And you dragged me into it.”

  “That’s a pretty egregious rewriting of history there.”

  “I can’t believe—” I start to say. But I’m not sure what it is that I can’t believe. That I played along? That I fell for his shit?

  Or maybe that I was responsible, too.

  “What?” he says, watching me closely. “That you got off on it? We both know that’s really why you’re pissed. You loved it.” He looks me in the eye as he speaks, and it takes everything I have not to break eye contact, because I think he might be right.

  “Why do you care so much about this, anyway?” he asks, genuinely puzzled. “Trust me, Jordan is an asshole. Everyone knows he cheats on her. That’s probably exactly what he was doing on his trip to Duke this weekend. She’s better off without him. Besides, it is so worth it to humiliate him. Prick.”

  My heart is pounding against my rib cage like I’ve run a sprint. “Like what you did to Avery is any better than what he did. She’s a person, not a pawn in your ridiculous scheme. What gives you the right to make that decision for her?”

  “She wasn’t exactly an unwilling participant, if you remember,” he cuts back at me.

  “You lied. And it’s just, like—she’s not an object to be traded between guys so you can prove your point.”

  I can tell he doesn’t like that by the way his dark eyebrows come together. “You never had to get involved at all.”

  “You’re right,” I say at last. “And fuck you for trying to turn me into that kind of person.”

  “I didn’t turn you into anything, Nell.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “Nothing you aren’t already.”

  I shove past him toward the swinging cafeteria door. I kick it open in front of me with my foot and head toward something I understand. Something I can control.

  And I get the hell away from Jackson Hart.

  10

  And so it goes. The days start to run together after that and pretty soon, I forget all about Jordan Allen and his (ex-)girlfriend. Jackson keeps his distance from me. School, conditioning, volleyball, homework. Rinse. Repeat. Two-a-days for volleyball every weekend heading into the season—one practice in the morning and one in the evening. Some people might suggest I am trying to do too much, and those people might not necessarily be wrong, but with exams playing such a huge role in final GPAs, class rankings on the line, and all the college scouts attending the Charleston Volleyball Invitational in a month, there is too much at stake. And with only three weeks left in the school year, I know I don’t have to put up with it for much longer. The end is in sight. I just have to keep going until then.

  Honestly, being a part of baseball conditioning is starting to be my favorite part of the day. The boys’ meteoric rise to the state championship continues full speed ahead, and I can tell most of them love that hour of punishing workouts as much as I do—it is the only time no one asks them to worry about their throwing form or where to place a curve ball or which base they should cover. In conditioning, there’s nothing but a battle between your body and your willpower. There’s something extremely gratifying in that.

  It’s Friday afternoon, and we have the day off from club volleyball practice. The workout isn’t too hard, and I know I’ll be going all weekend—the school and volleyball one-two punch—so I’m losing myself in the ache of my muscles.

  My group is on the treadmills and I decide to just break the damn thing. I push the speed up to max and fly, leaving everything else behind me. Jackson is in my group, and has unfortunately ended up on the treadmill next to me. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he increases his speed to match my own.

  It’s only a one-minute circuit and none of the other boys are touching our speed. In fact, I can see them fading, watching the clock as it ticks down as if begging it to move with their e
yes. Screw that.

  Nell. Go. Nell. Run. Nell. Don’t stop. I keep commanding my body to go go go even though it is like screw you right back. It hurts like hell, and my legs are imploring me to stop, but it’s not going to look like Jackson fucking Hart works harder than me.

  “Whoa,” Coach Montoya calls, like he’s just been clued in to our unspoken contest. “Show them up, Becker! Let’s see it, Hart!”

  I glance at Jackson again and his eyes connect with mine. Then I turn back to watch myself in the mirror as I run before he can get a better look.

  The buzzer goes off, and automatically, I know he won’t stop. So I don’t. I can barely catch my breath, but I’m still going, following a primal instinct. I can feel everyone watching us trying too hard to beat each other and I can hear him breathing and hear myself breathing and I am nothing but the treadmill, a pair of shoes. I am speed and competition and superiority. But then I. Just. Can’t anymore.

  I hop off the running belt onto the sides, grabbing on to the apparatus in front of me to collapse with my head against my forearms, panting. I realize then that I can’t hear Jackson’s feet hitting the belt anymore, either.

  Dammit, only needed to go one more second. I almost beat him.

  “Becker! Hart!” Coach Montoya barks out. “Good God, what’s the matter with you two? Go take a water break. Cool off. I’ve never…” He trails off.

  With much effort, I push myself away from the console and shimmy off the back of the treadmill, heading out the door without holding it open for Jackson. He’s not far behind.

  I walk down the empty hallway to the water fountain and drink from it for as long as I can stand. Then I wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand and fall against the wall, sliding down it to sit on the ground. I stare straight ahead while Jackson drinks his water, and then he drops down beside me. We’re both still sucking in air.

  Finally, he says, “I think I went one or two more seconds than you.”

  I snort.

  “You don’t like to lose,” he tells me.

  “You can’t lose something that’s not a competition.”

  “Sure you can.”

  He’s right, of course. I’m not telling him that.

  “But it’s probably best if we don’t kill each other right now,” he continues.

  “I’m not—” I start to say.

  “I just mean, if we push it too hard, one of us could get injured, right? And you’ve got your club volleyball season or whatever and I have baseball, so I think we just need to call a truce. It’s conditioning. There’s no reason to put ourselves out of commission over it.”

  I am loath to concede this point to him, but it is a good one. I can’t get hurt before the season. I need to be perfect.

  “Yeah,” I say at last. “But you started it.”

  He shrugs that off. “It’s good to push each other as long as we don’t go overboard. I think it could be helpful for us both. We should have each other’s backs.”

  “I don’t have time for your games, Hart.”

  “It’s not like everything I say is a lie, you know.” I can feel him looking at me. “I really don’t have a problem with you.”

  I laugh out loud at that. “Are you joking?”

  “Nell, I do not have a problem with you,” he says very seriously. “I kind of admire you, actually.”

  I do look at him, then. His face is flushed and his throat is pulsing, but his blue eyes are steady. Damn him. “I don’t know what scheme you’re trying to run this time, but I’m not falling for it.” Not again.

  He laughs, leaning his head back against the wall. “You wouldn’t. You take everything way too seriously and that’s kind of useless. But—okay—there are worse things you could do.”

  “I don’t take everything too seriously. I just don’t have what you’ve been given in life, so I take staying ahead of the curve seriously.”

  “I can understand why you might feel that way,” he says, as if considering an alien idea for the first time. “But there are so many people here who are worse off than you. You still treat everything like it’s life or death, whether you need to or not.”

  I feel a flash of anger that surprises me with its intensity. What can he know about what I need? My parents can’t make a choice donation if I don’t get into the right college. He’s never had to earn the respect of the Prep teachers and coaches, who never seem to be able to quite wrap their heads around a girl who wants as much as I do. He can’t possibly understand that. Not him or any of the other Prep boys who are always being told how special they are, how much they deserve.

  They have private jets and thousand-dollar watches and their parents’ friends are always politicians. And people like Jackson Hart see the whole world as one giant chessboard to be manipulated for their own gains. We’re nothing alike.

  But I can’t help but think, that night at the party, we weren’t so different. And I totally got it. I wanted it. I felt so alive.

  Sometimes, hidden away in the dark of the night, I’m even able to admit it to myself. That some part of me wants everything they have.

  I hate that version of myself.

  “I’ve gotta go,” I say, abruptly pushing myself up from the floor and walking off toward the gym.

  “Nice talking to you, Becker,” he calls after me.

  I pull open the door to the weight room and leave him without a backward glance.

  11

  By Thursday night, my body is aching. Having both conditioning and club practice every day is starting to get to me. I’m trying to study at my desk, to process information, but I’m to the point where that’s no longer possible. I need to sleep.

  But that’s tricky as well, I think, staring over at my bed, unmade and inviting me to climb in, because I can’t. My mind is alive in a way that simply won’t be put to sleep. I can feel it whirring, going through everything as I lie there. Equations and European history and volleyball coverage and that insistent ache in my shoulders.

  How can I sleep when there is so much to think about?

  It’s not a new thing, but it’s worse lately. My brain feels too foggy in class and my body hurts in new and interesting ways. I’m pushing myself too hard.

  I know my mom has old painkillers from when she had surgery a few months ago. I snuck them when I twisted my ankle during last volleyball season, and they definitely made me drowsy. I can’t imagine a better feeling than that right now.

  My parents’ voices are floating in from the screened-in porch in the back so I know I’m safe as I tiptoe down the stairs. I slip into their bedroom and their bathroom beyond, crouching down and pulling things out of the medicine cabinet. The pills are behind the first-aid kit so I fish one out and stare at it in my palm. I take it right then to be safe.

  I dry swallow and make my way back through their bedroom. My luck; in the last two seconds, they’ve apparently come into the den from the porch.

  “I don’t know why you’re nagging me about this,” Dad is saying.

  “I reminded you a hundred times that your mom’s birthday was coming up soon,” Mom replies, her voice sharp. “But you still expect me to do everything—to get a present and send a card. Why won’t you take responsibility for anything?”

  “Jesus, Mary, I’m sorry,” Dad responds, though he sounds more pissed than sorry.

  “You’ve promised me you were going to do so many things lately—” Mom starts.

  “Oh, here we go with that shit again!” Dad answers. I have to get out of here and fast, but I really don’t want to walk through the middle of whatever this is. “I know. I know I don’t do enough.”

  “You just love to throw that fucking line around like this is my fault. I can’t be responsible for all the household chores and keeping up with every little thing on your schedule. How about for a change you keep up with your families’ birthdays and your appointments and the bills? You are unbelievable.”

  “C’mon, you know none of it matters. Nothing I do is eve
r going to be good enough for you. Even if I spent every day of the rest of my life miserable, selling every overpriced property across the river, and had this house in perfect shape, you wouldn’t be happy. What about me? I need some relief. I need something to change. I’m so sick of this goddamn town.”

  “Give me a break. You know what? That’s fine. Please go enjoy your midlife crisis!”

  They’re yelling at this point, so I guess I wouldn’t have missed this anyway. Though usually I prefer to tune it out, throw on some headphones, and blast music into my head or whatever.

  “I won’t say anything at all. You can explain to Nell where you’re going,” Mom continues.

  “Don’t give me that garbage,” Dad dishes right back, but his voice is fading. “I swear, you’re forcing her to live the life you wish was yours. Jesus, it gets sicker every day watching you push her.”

  Mom goes quiet. After a moment she says, “If you hate it here so much, why don’t you leave? Maybe you can go back to the country where things were apparently so goddamn quaint, since it’s all you talk about now.” She pauses, and then she’s speaking again, her voice tripping over itself. “Don’t you dare—” but apparently he does dare because the front door slams. I hold back, maintaining my composure, pretending none of it happened, waiting for Mom to make a move. Praying it’s not to the bedroom because I don’t know what to say to her. She’ll turn it on me. Make me feel like I’m not good enough, either.

  I don’t have that fight in me right now.

  Instead, I hear the cork of a wine bottle pop and her footsteps receding until the back door slams as well.

  I’m up the stairs as the lights of Dad’s car fade from the driveway and get in my bed fast. My mind keeps on whirring, but I hope that in a minute, the pill will kick in and it all won’t hurt so bad anymore.

  12

  Coach Montoya works us hard the next day.

  I love it, proving I can keep up with them, feeling like I’m always getting stronger. I’m exhausted but the exertion keeps me grounded in a way nothing else does.