Winner Take All

by Laurie Devore

  “I don’t know, Becker,” Jackson says after a moment, “you ever think your mom’s password might be something to do with you?” He glances back at me.

  It hadn’t even crossed my mind. But this time, I reach over him and type in Eleanor and my birthday.

  The screen loads.

  Jackson pulls up the grading system. I’ve seen teachers in it a thousand times. He clicks into Dr. Rodgers’s grade book, opens up our class, and scrolls down to where he has keyed in our final scores.

  Nell Becker. 94.

  My heart constricts for a moment. I wish I’d done better.

  Jackson watches me out of the corner of his eye, leaning forward, pressing his chin into his steepled fingers.

  “Ninety-four,” I say.

  He stares at the number like he can’t be seeing the same thing as me. “You know that’s really good, right?”

  My expression doesn’t change. My face would give away too much. “It’s not as good as yours.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  I reach across him and double-click so the override feature pops up. I’ll just add two points. That’s nothing. It still shows Jackson did better than me, but it puts me right back to where I need to be. Where he doesn’t need to be.

  It’s not important to him.

  I click on the Update button. A new notification pops up.

  Are you sure you want to override this grade?

  It had to ask. I glance at Jackson again, feel him watching me as if this whole thing is fascinating.

  “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I ask. “How else would you know how to get in here?”

  “Tristan had too many absent days. I helped her get into Mrs. Regis’s office. She keeps her passwords on a sticky note next to her desk.” Mrs. Regis, one of the guidance counselors. “I’ve never changed my grade. Mrs. Regis doesn’t have override privileges,” he points out, gesturing at the computer, at the mouse my finger is still hovering over.

  I drag the box on the screen around with the pointer of my mouse, enjoying watching it moving. Clicking and unclicking like a compulsion.

  This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

  I hit Cancel. The grade reverts. I close the system out and shut the computer down, picking my bag back up violently.

  “Let’s go,” I tell him, my words clipped. I take off from the room like a bat out of hell and slam Mom’s door after him, locking it behind me.

  “Hey, Nell,” he says, doing that stupid thing and putting his hand on my arm to stop me again. I’m shaking all over like earlier and I can feel the day creeping under my skin already. Most times, this makes me want to go go go but the only thing I can think of right now is crawling into bed and not getting out of it until this crushing feeling lets me free. “Come do something with me. You’ll be all right.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I tell him, trying to blink the glassy feeling out of my eyes. “I couldn’t.”

  Jackson looks at me very reasonably. “I know. I’m sorry. It was stupid.”

  “I have to beat you for real,” I say, swallowing hard. “Or else it doesn’t count.”

  This time, his smile is more sad than anything. He takes the keys out of my hand.

  “I know” is all he says again.

  17

  We’re walking into the parking lot together, our two cars parked yards apart, the lone survivors of summer workouts. I need somewhere to focus my energy—something to take my mind off my scoreboard loss to Jackson and the undeniable fact that he is starting to find cracks in my armor.

  “Are you okay?” he asks me, slowing to stay beside me.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, unable to completely hide the frantic note in my voice. “I need to go.”

  “And do what?” he asks. “Spend a couple of hours berating yourself? Come on, let’s go out. Maybe you could stop—I don’t know—hating yourself for a bit.”

  I grind my teeth against one another. I don’t want to go with him, but I don’t want to go home, either. Lia blew me off and Michonne is working and some terrible part of me is so endlessly interested in him—mostly in arguing with him, but …

  I’m lying to myself. I do want to go.

  Despite the fact that Jackson seems to be involved in every problem I run into, something about him helps me let go, just a little. Which is stupid.

  “Why do you even want to hang out with me?” I ask him.

  “Look, I’m going to hang out with some friends—just, like, Doug and Columbus and Tristan. You want to come? I think it’ll be fun. It usually is.”

  I stare at him. “I’m not falling for any more of your shit.”

  He sighs deeply. “What exactly is it you think I’m doing?”

  “As of now?” And then I have to think for a few seconds before I come up with an answer. I have to say something or else I’m just full of shit. “Trying to ruin my life is my best guess.”

  He tilts his head to the side, watching me. “Then this is quite an elaborate plan I’ve got going on. I’m much smarter than I give myself credit for.” He reaches up and ruffles the bottom of his hair. “That’s not true, I know how smart I am. Do you want to come or not?”

  “Fine. I’m riding with you,” I say, marching over to his truck—a mint-condition four-door, deep green with leather seats, shiny and perfect like him. He unlocks the door before pulling it open and getting inside. I glance over at him in time to see him smiling to himself as he gets in.

  Asshole.

  * * *

  “You guys know Nell, right?”

  I look from Jackson to his friends, feeling like I’m under scrutiny. Together, they’re like some sort of extremely judgmental firing squad. We’re on the deck behind Columbus’s enormous Southern Gothic house. Doug Rivera is lying on a long chair, everything but his head horizontal so he can sip on a beer. Tristan Kaye has her legs propped up on an outside coffee table, crossed. And Columbus is standing, leaning against the railing of the deck. The boys are wearing what looks like loungewear, gym shorts and T-shirts, and Tristan has on a pair of short shorts with a loose top that exposes her bare stomach when she lifts her arms.

  “Do we know Nell?” Tristan says with an eye toward Jackson, her voice almost a singsong. She nods to me. “We meet again. Aren’t you two like Cedar Woods Prep golden twins?”

  “Right.” Jackson walks over to where she’s sitting, lifting her beer off the coffee table and sipping it himself. There’s something very intimate in the way they interact with each other, like they know exactly what the other is about to do.

  “Nell,” Columbus says, his mouth breaking out into that bright smile of his. “How you living?”

  “Significantly less painfully without baseball conditioning,” I say to him with a sympathetic smile in return.

  “Welcome to the Proctor household,” he says. “Would you like the tour?”

  “Later!” Jackson calls. “Get the girl a drink.”

  “You didn’t offer her a drink, Hart?” Doug says, barely moving his face, though his eyes slide almost imperceptibly as he speaks. The sun glints off his olive skin, sweat matting down his wavy black hair. “You’re such a dick.”

  Jackson plops down next to Tristan and I can’t help but watch how close they’re sitting. He practically fell into her lap. “Nell doesn’t like when I do things for her,” he says. He puts his feet up next to Tristan’s and his big toe rubs against her leg.

  “Ew, Jackson, don’t be disgusting!” she says, shoving him and pulling her legs away as he laughs.

  “I’ll get you something,” Columbus tells me before disappearing back into the massive house.

  I eye Jackson and Tristan flirting effortlessly with each other as I go to stand where Columbus was a moment before. I feel Doug looking over at me.

  “They always do that,” he says, sitting up a little straighter, his voice soft. I don’t know much about him. It seems pretty clear he’s a scholarship student, only here by the good grace of Jackson and
crew. I had kind of guessed, just on how he acted. Different from the rest of them. More understated. There’s a certain way rich people carry themselves. That’s how you can tell the rest of us apart.

  “Why don’t they just screw?” I say, even though screw is not a word I ever use.

  He takes another sip of beer and licks his lips. “Who says they haven’t?”

  I ignore the twist in my stomach. It’s not like that isn’t part of Tristan’s reputation.

  “Hey, Nell!” Jackson is leaning across Tristan now, his eyes all over me. “You ever seen a Super Bowl ring? You’d be so into it.”

  Columbus comes back out and puts a can of beer into my hand. I don’t recognize the brand but it’s definitely nicer than the stuff my dad drinks. “Bottoms up,” he says, knocking his can against mine.

  The can is cold and the condensation drips all down my fingers. I turn the can up and take a drink.

  I sputter.

  Tristan absolutely cackles at the sight of me spitting beer out. Columbus giggles to himself and even Doug cracks a smile. But Jackson is still watching me, this thoughtful look on his face.

  “That’s the good stuff,” Columbus says, this time banging the top of my can with the bottom of his. He laughs again. “Don’t worry, Becker. Dad only keeps those beers around to make all the white ‘I prefer IPA’ Prep parents feel at home. That’s why he doesn’t mind me drinking it. Last year, I saw the NFL Rookie of the Year spit that shit out.”

  It wasn’t personal, but I don’t like them laughing at my expense, their little naïve toy to play with. In fact, it kind of pisses me off. I set the beer aside.

  Columbus cranks some music up. Tristan asks everyone if it’s “that time” and I’m not sure what that means until Doug, Columbus, and Tristan take off into the house and I smell the sweet scent of weed swirling out of the open window on the second floor. Jackson stays behind and I can’t decide if it’s for my benefit or not.

  “You don’t have to stay with me, you know,” I say, lying down in the lounge chair Doug vacated.

  Jackson shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him either way.

  “Hey, losers!” Tristan is sticking her head out of the window with a smile on her face. “Get off your asses. We’re going for a joyride.” Then she disappears back inside with a laugh.

  Jackson reaches a hand out to help me up. I take it, not sure if I actually want to. “We can walk around the house,” he tells me, setting off down the deck stairs. I follow after him.

  “What’s up with you and Tristan?” I ask, catching up to him.

  He gives me a look. A look of some sort of significance. “What does that mean?”

  “Do you guys hook up?” I ask, walking with him across the cobblestone path to the front of the Proctors’ home.

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I mean, you’re always dating someone or other but there’s clearly something going on between you two.”

  “We’re friends,” he tells me. He pauses. “Who may have hooked up a couple of times.”

  “Of course you did,” I say, realizing a moment too late my voice sounds more annoyed than it should.

  “When we were younger,” he says dismissively. “And not while I’m dating other people, so don’t give me that shit.”

  “Whatever.”

  He throws up his hands. “What have I done to offend you now?”

  And I realize I can’t verbalize it. But I can think it, and what I’m thinking right now is that even though I know exactly who he is, I’ve become so infatuated with the idea of him and he’s been leading me around like some sort of wild mare he can break and I’m following him. It’s not because I trust him—it’s because I’m so sick of everything, some part of me doesn’t even care if I fall off a cliff.

  “Nell?”

  At that moment, the other three come tearing out of Columbus’s front door. Actually tearing, Tristan getting a running start and leaping onto Columbus’s back. Doug takes the steps three at a time behind him, and then they start piling into Tristan’s Jeep, the doors and top removed for summer. Nothing but the skeleton of the cage between them and the world.

  I grab on to Jackson’s arm before he gets in. “Are they okay to drive?”

  His eyes search from one of their laughing faces to the next. Then his careful gaze rakes over me. Finally, ever so uncertainly, he says, “It’s fine. They haven’t had that much, and besides, we do it all the time.”

  I blink at him. “You love the feel of reckless abandon.”

  Clenching my fist, I find myself climbing into the backseat between Jackson and Doug anyway. Most of the horrible thoughts fly out of my head as soon as the wind is on my face and music is playing again, but I can feel Jackson next to me, alive and close and so very tangible.

  I hate him. Or at least, I wish I did.

  Cedar Woods is a perfectly quaint suburb, but there’s plenty of empty roads along the river near the trails, and that’s where Tristan drives. We’re on one of those little back roads when she pulls over to the shoulder and looks to Columbus in the passenger’s side with a dark smile. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” she asks. There’s something so vibrant about her, and I think to myself she’s so carefree, and wish something about that wasn’t so appealing to me. That temptation in her smile—I can’t help but wonder what guy wouldn’t want someone like that.

  Columbus seems mostly unaffected. He climbs out of the Jeep and walks around it, clambering up on the bumper and then standing on the back of the car, his arms out wide. “Go, go, go!” he yells then.

  And Tristan goes. I scream in shock. Columbus shifts as the car takes off and grabs on to the roll cage, holding tight. But he’s laughing, the sound like a bell in the night. Everyone else joins me in screaming like I did it out of some sense of excitement, and all I can think is holy shit, he’s going to die.

  But he doesn’t. In fact, he looks vital.

  And then Tristan is next, her black hair flying behind her in the wind, and she looks so perfect and so happy, I hear myself say it as Columbus rolls the car to a stop.

  “I want to do it,” I tell them. I feel Tristan’s eyes on me.

  “No, you don’t,” Jackson answers. “It’s not as fun as they make it look.”

  “He’s a wuss,” Tristan says.

  “No, I have a healthy sense of self-preservation,” Jackson rebuffs.

  “I’m not scared,” I tell them.

  “This isn’t a competition, Becker,” Jackson says to me.

  I turn to him, my eyes narrowing. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Let her go, man,” Columbus says, shifting in his seat to look at the two of us.

  “He’s not going to let me do anything. He’s just a person I go to school with,” I tell them. Columbus’s eyes catch mine like he thinks that’s bullshit before he turns back around to face forward. I can still see his eyes glinting with amusement in the front mirror.

  Tristan climbs over the body of the car and onto the already extremely cramped seat Doug, Jackson, and I are sharing.

  “Doug, you go,” she says, looking right at me. “I’ll give Nell some pointers so she’ll be ready next.”

  “All aboard, Rivera,” Columbus says, patting the roll cage.

  “Y’all are idiots,” Doug says, crawling up from his seat as Tristan scoots in behind him. “Watch and learn, Nell Becker.”

  He takes his spot at the back of the car, standing up straight. Columbus starts going slow, like the other times.

  “The start is the worst,” Tristan tells me. Jackson keeps making annoyed sounds beside me. “Once you get going, you’re just on for the ride. You gotta take it all in, you know? But Columbus is really good. He’s scared to go any faster than a grandma, so you’re totally safe in his well-manicured hands.”

  Columbus does seem to be taking this very seriously. He doesn’t acknowledge Tristan in any way. She reaches up across the console, to turn the music up. At that exact moment, w
e hit a bump or something. Columbus reaches for the stick shift but Tristan is in the way and in his hurry, the shift sticks and jolts violently, sending us all flying forward.

  Over the volume of the music, I barely hear Doug scream.

  Columbus steers off the road and practically throws himself out of the car in his rush to get to Doug. We’re all screaming his name, running as fast as we can, and tears are flowing down Columbus’s cheeks before we even can get to him.

  “DOUG! Doug! Doug!”

  His eyes are open when we all reach him, though, and I am able to find my first breath since the jolt. “Doug.” Jackson crawls onto the ground next to him. Doug’s rolled over from his side onto his back, the part of his face and scalp that took the brunt of the fall skinned all to hell by gravel. “Fuck. Can you move? Get away from him, Tristan!” he yells as she goes to move closer. She backs off at the look in his eyes.

  Doug bites hard into his bottom lip as if distracting himself from something else. His eyes are glassy and one tear escapes down the side of his cheek. “Hurts. Like a bitch,” he coughs out.

  Columbus, who is full-on hysterical now, tries to string words together. “D-D-Doug, I’m so sorry Doug I’d rather die than—I’m so sorry.” I want to reach out to touch him, the ache of his wail cutting through me like a knife.

  Doug grinds his teeth. “Fucking. Asshole,” he says. Jackson gives him a smile.

  “You’re okay, Rivera,” Jackson tells him, the voice of reason. “Nell,” he says, looking at me as if I’m the only one he can trust with instructions. “Get my phone.”

  I nod, running back to the car and fishing it out of a cup holder. As I sprint back, I hear Doug saying, “It’s my shoulder. My head. And shit. Maybe my leg?”

  “Call nine-one-one,” Jackson tells me. He’s softly holding on to Doug’s other shoulder, the one that didn’t take the blow of the fall.

  “Columbus, you need to leave,” Jackson says, his voice particularly cold.

  “I’m not leaving him,” Columbus manages to get out through his sobs.

  “Tristan, get him the hell out of here,” Jackson says again.