Winner Take All

by Laurie Devore

  I look from him to Jackson and Columbus. “I’m coming,” I say, because there’s no point in me staying. “But give me a second.”

  He doesn’t bother to nod. Just continues the trek back to his car. The other two boys both still look greatly amused.

  “That wasn’t funny. You guys know he’s pretty high-strung right now,” I say.

  “It was a little funny,” Jackson argues with me.

  “Oh, are you speaking to me again?” I ask, and Columbus laughs. “You’re not really going to get beer, are you?”

  “I guess we’re not now,” Jackson says with a wicked gleam in his eye. At that, Columbus doubles over laughing.

  “He’s under a lot of pressure,” I say. “Why is it so hard to imagine this might actually be important to some people?”

  “Oh, boy, here we go. We’ve officially failed to meet her standards,” Jackson says. “Nell here is ready to serve as judge, jury, and executioner of our personal lives.” And there’s definitely a touch of malice to the way he says it.

  It’s at that moment a group of girls from school comes pouring out of a car in the parking lot. Lia and Michonne wave when they see me. Columbus’s grin grows ten times as he spots them and goes jogging over.

  I glance back at Jackson then, and something compels me to say it. “Can we talk for a minute?” I ask.

  His eyes narrow as if this is a trick. “Why?”

  “You’ll find out.” I nod my head in the direction of some wooden slats separating a pebbled path to a butterfly garden from the beach. Jackson follows, looking weary. I sit down on one of the slats and he sits down on the opposite side of the path from me.

  “We’re not friends,” I say.

  “Yes, thank you, I believe that much is clear,” he answers.

  “What I mean is—we’ve coexisted for the past two and a half years without all this shit between us.”

  “Well, you hated me.”

  “Don’t act like it wasn’t mutual,” I return sharply.

  He sighs. “Nell, I’ve told you, I never hated you. I don’t hate you. I just thought it was funny to mess with you.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m so intense, there’s no purpose to me.” When it seems there’s nothing more to add, I do it. “I don’t want us to be friends.”

  He laughs. “Oh my God.”

  “I mean, I’m sorry,” I continue on before I royally ruin the whole apology. “I know you only wanted to vent. I shouldn’t have inserted myself into whatever with your parents. You didn’t want my opinion and you don’t need my opinion and I don’t know anything about it.”

  His mouth is a flat line. “Thanks,” he says after a beat.

  “I can’t imagine what it’s like,” I say. Though I can imagine some of it. The sound of passive-aggressive taunts, and the feeling that nothing you do will ever be good enough. It’s a reality I get a little more of every day.

  But I don’t tell him that.

  “I know why you said it,” Jackson tells me. He sighs, doing that thing he does where he stares at his fingers like they might do something interesting. “And you’re not completely wrong. Sometimes I go out with girls because they seem to really want me and I want something new, so we both get what we want. But in the back of my head, I know that isn’t all they want. It’s never going to last and they don’t know that. Until they do, and then … it doesn’t matter. I can’t give them what they want so I move on.” He laughs darkly. “I know you won’t believe this, but I honestly never saw it before. That I did the same thing as him. Over and over again. Do you know how fucked that is?”

  He stares off at the river, the people having fun. I know he wishes he were out there with them pretending everything is fine, not here with me, living out painful truths. Part of me wants to tell him how often I wish I didn’t have to be in my own head, either.

  “But it’s more than that. I get a thrill out of it, too. When people do exactly what I want them to do. I enjoy it.”

  I don’t know how to answer that. To tell him I understand wanting that thrill, to feel like you’re better than the rest of them. That the world is yours to create.

  I can’t let myself feel it again. It’s too dangerous. Like lighting a match in a room full of fireworks.

  I can’t be this similar to Jackson Hart.

  And I’m about to tell him that, like good talk, good day, I’m absolved and we are done when he asks, “Are you coming to the game tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” I say. I would never miss the state championship with Taylor starting at pitcher.

  “Good.” One side of his lips goes up, a half smile. “It’ll make me feel better to see you there. First home run is all yours.”

  I know he’s joking, but for some reason it bothers me. “Taylor’s waiting; I have to go.”

  “See you tomorrow, Becker.”

  14

  I don’t go to the game. I lie to Lia that I’m sick, and I text an apology to Taylor.

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

  * * *

  I spend all weekend studying. Even volleyball is canceled in honor of exam week.

  The banner greets me as I walk through the door for my first exam on Monday: Congrats to the Cedar Woods Baseball Team—Your South Carolina State Champs! I slap a streamer as I walk in like I’m some sort of monster.

  The nice thing is, I don’t have time to worry about it too much. Because it’s Cedar Woods Prep exam week and everyone knows what that means. A five-day march through Dante’s nine circles of hell.

  And this is only Day One.

  * * *

  It’s Day Four.

  I feel it in every breath I breathe. In the exhaustion sitting behind my eyes, singing from my bones. I haven’t slept in days and I don’t think I’ve eaten in twenty-four hours. I don’t really remember anymore.

  I’m on my back porch leaning against a supporting column with my legs stretched out in front of me, knee-deep in important dates in European history, when my phone buzzes.

  Come outside.

  I don’t recognize the number so I ignore it, going back to my notes. I’m something like three weeks behind on studying for this exam and Dr. Rodgers is a notorious hard-ass. I basically crammed what normally would’ve been five weeks of studying into two to keep up with volleyball and conditioning and everything else I needed to stay on top of. Only now, I’m so tired and so messed up after multiple nights of three hours of sleep that the dates are turning into each other, the lines dancing into one another as if taunting me. I’m thinking about how irresponsible it was to wait this long and what assholes these dates are and my phone is buzzing again.

  Nell. Come outside.

  I leave everything where it is, shuffling barefoot through the empty house. I open my front door and then heave my whole body into a sigh.

  Jackson is walking up and down the sidewalk outside of my house.

  I head down the front steps, pushing my hair back from my face. “Can I help you?”

  He stops pacing in front of me, biting into his bottom lip. “What are you doing?”

  I roll my eyes, propping my hand on my hip. “Studying. I have that huge European history exam tomorrow.”

  “Pshaw,” Jackson says, waving his hand like it’s no big deal. “With old Rodgers? That’s nothing. Don’t waste your time.”

  I throw up my hands, incredulous.

  “I got like a ninety-eight or something last semester,” he goes on, like Rodgers isn’t infamous for the highest exam failure rate.

  I ignore his self-congratulations because he wants the acknowledgment. “And you’re here because…?”

  He gestures around him at the houses. “I was just in the neighborhood.” He looks down at his phone, scrolling through something.

  “The neighborhood five miles from your side of the bridge?” I ask.

  “Go for a run?” he replies.

  My eyes rake over him, in his gym shorts and a cutoff Cedar Woods T-shirt. I haven’t been any
where but school and home all week. Nothing in the world sounds better than a run right now.

  I shake my head. “I have to study.” I press my palm against my forehead as briefly as I can, only a moment, because I am so tired. So mentally exhausted. So done with this past month.

  His eyes flick to mine as if he notices but he chooses not to call me out directly. “It’s just the energy boost you need. Nothing like getting the muscles going to wake you up. Your brain will thank you.”

  He stands there after he says this, looking at me expectantly, a picture of patience.

  “Will you tell me what he asked last semester?” I finally say, my words betraying me.

  He laughs at that. “Of course. But nothing easy, all right? Henry VIII shit is for chumps.”

  I swing my arms, already subconsciously trying to loosen my muscles. “You wouldn’t sabotage me, would you?”

  “C’mon, Becker, if I’m going to trick you, I’d do it in a way where you wouldn’t already know what I was saying was bullshit. Besides, where’s the fun if we don’t settle this fair and square? Well”—he shrugs—“mostly fair.”

  I half grin. “Fine. Let me go get my shoes. Stay here,” I say, because he is definitely not allowed inside of my house. Hell, I still feel as if I’m fraternizing with the enemy.

  I’m into my workout gear in less than ten minutes. Even the act of lacing up my shoes makes me feel more alive than I have all week. I meet him down the block where he’s wandered off to and we are pounding pavement as soon as we get the chance.

  “The Seven Years’ War,” he says as soon as we start out. “Make sure you don’t get it mixed up with the Thirty Years’ War, and sometimes he likes to try to confuse you by calling it the French and Indian War instead.”

  “Right,” I agree as we run in the direction of the river. “I need to do some more reading on that. I keep getting dates mixed up.”

  “How are you on the causes of the French Revolution?” he asks, looking over at me seriously. His dark hair flops over his admittedly very nice eyebrows and alarming blue eyes. I look away quickly.

  “Like I can never remember all of them.” I feel it building up then, right under my skin. The pressure. The nerves. Sometimes it gets hard to control, to push down the panic to a simmer. Sometimes I’m sure I’m a ticking time bomb. I smooth down the flyaways from my ponytail. “Fine, fine, I’m fine,” I say, more to myself than him.

  His gaze is on me and I keep exposing these chinks in my armor. “Don’t sweat it,” he says. “Just make sure you don’t get too caught up in how the Revolutionary War was a catalyst for it—Rodgers thinks that’s an oversimplification and he’ll deduct major points if you rely on it too heavily.”

  I shake my head. “How do you know that?”

  He shrugs good-naturedly. “It’s like I keep telling you. Because I pay attention to people.”

  Far from comforting me, the idea pisses me off. Of course he has no trouble puzzling out that Dr. Rodgers thinks concentrating on how the Revolutionary War led to the French Revolution is an oversimplification and of course he knows Jordan Allen’s girlfriend just needed to trust him enough to kiss him, and of course he knows Mrs. Wesley will fall for any absurd reading of The Scarlet Letter he throws out of his perfectly shaped mouth, because people just want Jackson to be listening to them.

  It makes me more jealous than I’m willing to admit.

  “Did you ever read it?” I say. We’re making our way up the highest hill in Cedar Woods on the way to the riverbank. There’s a trail through the park that leads across the bridge and all the way up to Jackson’s side of town, though the winding path becomes more difficult to navigate so as to not run on anyone’s very expensive private property.

  “You’re doing that thing again,” he says after a minute. I can tell he’s really working and I really don’t care. “Where you get all cold to me out of nowhere and I’m not entirely sure why.”

  “You didn’t,” I say.

  We’re almost to the top of the hill. I know the view from there like the back of my hand. The sun fades lazily over the water. The river luxuriates in the end of the day, with the trees bending this way and that in the tepid breeze. It’s like déjà vu every time.

  “Read what?” he says at last.

  “The Scarlet Letter.”

  He sighs. “What is it with you and that book?”

  “Why don’t you care?” I answer with a question. “Think of all the things that could be in there. To consider other people’s lives. Their perspectives. Think of what it would be like to not be you. I bet you wrote a perfect paper. Got a ninety-fucking-eight percent and your analysis was so well-reasoned, so thoughtful.

  “But you don’t care what it meant to anyone else—that it’s about a woman who’s been objectified and humiliated and told she’s different than everyone else. You don’t need to know any of that. Because it’s just another thing you can have without working for it.”

  “You know,” he says, “sometimes in brief moments, you make sense to me. But I’m not the one who won’t stop judging what everyone else does.”

  I shake my head, shake him off. He doesn’t know anything.

  We’re at the top of the hill that overlooks the river, the world stretching out in front of us like an invitation, and I make my natural push out to the edge of the grass before it declines steeply into the riverbank, feeling the way the breeze off the water hits my face like it’s welcoming me home. I stop, breathe in deeply, closing my eyes, inhaling the scent of the river. It smells like freedom.

  I feel him watching me. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look happy,” he says. My skin buzzes pleasantly, but I ignore it.

  We begin to walk, staring out over the water. He blows out a breath. “I didn’t know this was a race.” I cut my eyes over to him. “Is that why you didn’t show up to the game?” he asks. “Because I don’t care what it meant to anyone else? ’Cause I took you at your word. That when you promised to show up, you’d be there, and I’m looking around and you just aren’t there. Why is it okay for you to do that to me?”

  “Do what to you? I didn’t make you some deathbed promise.”

  He stops and stares at me, his dark, dark-blue eyes as cold as I feel. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let me know when you figure it out.”

  He laughs at that. “Yeah, okay.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. Are. Miserable,” he says to me, drawing out the words slowly. We’re facing off with each other on the deserted trail at the top of the hill, both of our hands on our hips still working to catch our breaths between words, and I feel an urge to put my fingers around his neck and hold tight so he’ll shut the hell up for once in his life.

  “Like you’re so happy,” I snap instead.

  “At least I’ll let myself try something. Is this your life? School and running and volleyball and impressing your parents? Which part of that do you do because you love it? Which of those things makes you happy?”

  I have to work so hard to control myself. “All of it,” I bite back. “Why did you come to my house?”

  His eyes narrow. After thinking about it for a moment, he says, “To go for a run.”

  The sun is sinking quickly behind him, the humidity making droplets of sweat bloom on my skin. “Then let’s fucking go,” I say, hearing the dangerous knot in my own voice.

  He nods then, and we’re back at it.

  Neither of us feels much like talking after that but our feet fall in unison. Over the dirt path we find ourselves on, up the bank, dodging a branch here and there, keeping a steady pace. After a while, I get lost in the sounds, in breath going in and out of my lungs, and that’s what does it—that’s what makes me centered. It’s as if the world is righted, reality knit back together properly, and I can finally, blissfully, think again.

  It’s dark by the time we’re back in my neighborhood. Jackson stops at the sign welcoming residents to Cedar Common and I fol
low suit without questioning it.

  “This is where I leave you,” he says.

  I stretch my arms over my head, bending to the left and then the right. “Thanks for the run.”

  “Do you feel better?” he asks me, and I can’t tell whether he’s joking, so I ignore the question.

  “Bye, Jackson,” I say, turning in the direction of my house. His truck must be parked somewhere nearby. I try not to analyze how profoundly weird it is that he went to so much trouble to come over here.

  “I wish you would’ve come, Nell,” he says, the words snaking up to grab me from behind. I pause, trying to decide what reply will be bratty enough to send him on his way, but he doesn’t stop. “Sometimes it’s just nice to have someone around who doesn’t expect anything from you.”

  I leave him there and study for hours, my brain going in and out of focus, hearing him over and over again, tearing the conversation apart. Like trying to draw a map to a place you’ve never seen.

  15

  My phone explodes next to my ear, not so much pulling me out of sleep as ejecting me from it. I almost fall out of bed, I’m so disoriented. I scramble to pick up my phone before Lia hangs up.

  “Where are you?” she demands in my ear.

  I leap out of bed and tear through my hamper, looking for whatever dirty uniform will work. “I overslept.”

  I can tell she’s trying not to laugh. “Are you okay? You’re going to make it, right?”

  “Yes,” I say, buttoning up my Oxford and sliding into boat shoes. “Bye.” Then I throw my hair up and go running down the stairs to my car.

  I’m at school in fifteen flat, shoving open the front door and sprinting to Dr. Rodgers’s class, sliding into my seat right in front of him. I’m completely disheveled, without even a second to gather my thoughts or string together dates in my head. Dr. Rodgers is watching me, unimpressed.