Playing Defense (Corrigan Falls Raiders)

by Cate Cameron

  “I don’t blame you for the math contest,” she said in a small voice. “I blame me.”

  “For being stupid enough to spend time with a guy like me. Right? For letting me distract you, for taking your attention away from what’s really important so you can waste it on a loser with no future.”

  She stared at me, and I turned to stare back. “I know I’m not good at school,” I told her. “But I’m not totally stupid. I know what you’re thinking.”

  “My mom is thinking that,” she whispered. “Not me.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “My mistake. Guess it must have been your mom who’s been avoiding me all week.”

  She didn’t have an answer to that, at least not right away. So the two of us sat there, staring out at the darkness, waiting to see what the hell came next.

  …

  “I lied,” I said after we’d sat there for a while. I’d built up as much courage as I could, so the next step was just to go for it. Chris was worth it. “When I said sex wasn’t important to me, I was lying. When I made it sound like I’d be doing you a favor. It’s easier to think of it that way… I don’t know why. But I thought about sex the whole drive over. I think about it a lot. I think I’m ready. I want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… I don’t know. Why do you?”

  “It feels good.”

  He wasn’t giving me a lot to work with, and it was so out of character for him that I didn’t really know how to react. “So I guess that’s why I want to, as well.”

  “Okay. So maybe we should do it sometime.”

  “Sometime.”

  “Yeah. I mean, any reason it has to be tonight?”

  There were so many reasons. I started trying to organize them, hoping to come up with a sort of thesis and some supporting arguments, but then I just blurted out, “I want to shut my brain off.”

  “What?”

  “I feel like it’s just going, all the time. Some of it’s useful, like for schoolwork, but sometimes it’s just stupid and negative, worrying about stuff I can’t control, hearing my mom yipping at me, regrets and doubts and fear, and…” I slowed down and realized exactly how true my words were. “The only time it stops is when I’m with you. When you’re touching me, I’m just there. It’s you and me without all the extra crap.”

  “Like thinking? When you’re with me, you turn off your brain? The part of you that you value the most?”

  I wanted to cry again. “Everything I say, you’re flipping it around. I don’t want to fight with you, Chris.”

  “You just want to use me for my body.” Any other time he would have laughed while he was saying it, but not that night.

  “It’s not about your body,” I tried. “It’s you. I want to be with you for who you are, and for how you make me feel.”

  “Really?” He turned around in his seat now and looked right at me. “So if you could go back in time, and say no to Mrs. Davidson when she asked you to tutor me…or if you could just not invite me into the Sisterhood, or whatever… If we’d never hooked up, that wouldn’t be better for you? You wouldn’t be happier right now if you’d never met me?”

  I didn’t answer right away, and he smiled bitterly, like he knew the answer I wasn’t giving him. “You’d have aced the math contest, right? You and your mom would still be tight, without all this fighting. If the girl you used to be saw the girl you are now, a girl sitting in an arena parking lot, crying, with some random jock—that girl wouldn’t be too impressed, would she?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I was going to say I didn’t care, but Chris spoke too quickly.

  “A lot of guys are wondering what I’m doing with you,” he said. Not like he wanted to hurt me, exactly, but at least to make a point. “Lots of people, not just guys.”

  I braced myself, waiting to hear about the puck bunnies or whatever. But he didn’t hit me quite that hard. Instead he said, “And I’ve just ignored them. Because I like you. A lot. I want to be with you, and it’s nobody else’s business who I’m spending time with.” He frowned at me. “You worry about being immature. You don’t have a job, you don’t drink, don’t have sex, don’t like to drive. But none of that really matters, in terms of growing up. But caring as much as you do about what your mom says?” He shook his head. “It’s either a sign that you really are still a kid, or it’s a sign that you kind of believe her. Right? I mean, is there some other way to look at that?”

  I didn’t answer, and he smiled a bit sadly.

  “Yeah. So…whatever. We can still hang out, and I’m still going to care about you because I don’t seem to be able to stop. But I don’t think we should have sex.” He frowned as if wondering whether he should say the next part. “And just so you know, I’m going to be working pretty hard to not care about you quite as much. I don’t think it’ll take, but if it did? I think it’d be good. Because there’s no way you and me are going to last long term, is there? You aren’t going to let that happen.”

  “So you’re sorry you met me?” I whispered. The words were too horrible to say at full volume.

  But he shook his head. “No. I’m not sorry, and I don’t think I ever will be. But that doesn’t mean I have to be stupid about it, right?”

  “So…what does that mean?” I was still whispering.

  He looked at his hands. “I don’t know. I guess it means—do you want to go find Tyler and Karen and play pool?”

  “It’s that easy for you?” No more whispering. Now my voice was loud, and getting louder.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked quietly. “Do you even want to be here, or should you be home, studying?”

  “That’s not fair. We’re working around your schedule here. You’re the one with all the practices, and the games and the road trips. Have I ever once asked you to skip anything to do with hockey?”

  He shook his head. “No. You haven’t.”

  “So don’t lay that on me. I’m not the only one who has other things to worry about.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  I had no idea where to go from there. I almost wished he hadn’t backed down, because then at least I’d know he cared enough to fight with me about it. Instead, he’d just sort of mentally walked away. “I have about two hours before I’m supposed to be home,” I said. “Can we just…go somewhere? Out to the lake, or something? I don’t want to be around other people.”

  He nodded and put the truck into gear. It felt good to be moving, at least, even if I didn’t really know where we were going.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We were sitting in the cafeteria Monday morning, Claudia and me and most of the rest of the Sisterhood, when the principal came on the PA system. We’d all heard about the accident on the highway the night before; Claudia’s parents had freaked out because they hadn’t been able to get through to her phone, since we were out on the back roads where there was no cell coverage. They’d thought maybe she’d been involved, she’d told me that morning.

  As soon as the principal started talking, before she even said what the announcement was about, we were all looking around the cafeteria, trying to spot any missing faces. An accident the night before and an unscheduled announcement meant only one thing: somebody wasn’t going to be at school that day.

  But even though we were all braced for it, it was still a shock when the principal finally worked up to giving us a name. “Ms. Coyne was airlifted to the hospital, but her injuries were too severe. Please join me in a moment of silence to honor the memory of a vibrant member of—” The principal’s voice broke for a second, then came back. “Of the school community.” There was, literally, a moment of silence, and then the principal said, “All scheduled guidance appointments are canceled for today. We will have grief counselors in the guidance offices; if anyone, students or staff…”

  She kept going, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was watching Claudia. Ms. Coyne had been my teacher the year before, and I’d liked her well enough, but she and Claudia had
been way closer. Karen was crying, and Tyler had his arm around her, but Claudia just looked kind of numb.

  I leaned over, my hand extended, but she stood up before I could get to her. “I need to go,” she said. “I need to finish up some homework before calculus.”

  “Dia,” I started, but she shook her head hard. She wasn’t going to hear my sympathy, because that would make it real. I guessed it made sense, at least short term. I thought about offering to go with her, but it was pretty clear she didn’t want me to.

  She dodged me the rest of the day. I went to the library at lunch in case she was there, but she didn’t show. Karen said she’d been in English and bio, but she didn’t come to chemistry. “Take notes for us,” I told Oliver, and I grabbed my backpack and went to find Claudia. The teacher didn’t give me any trouble about leaving; on a day like that one, they let us do what we needed to.

  I found Claudia in the library, in her carrel, staring at the flyer for the poetry slam. “You okay?”

  She looked up at me as if I were a stranger, and she crumpled the flyer as she spoke. “She was coming home from dinner with her partner,” she said dully. “That’s what I heard. They went over to Barrie to try some new place, because that was her awesomeness challenge, to eat different foods.”

  “It was icy last night,” I said. “People get in accidents when it’s icy. It’s got nothing to do with trying to be awesome.”

  “Really? Because I can’t think of why they’d have driven to Barrie if it wasn’t for the food.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, okay, it’s related. But not in, like, a direct way. She didn’t die because she was trying to be more awesome.”

  “I think she did,” Claudia said. She looked down at the books open in front of her. “This whole thing has been a mistake.”

  I froze, waiting to see exactly how she was defining “whole thing.”

  “Annalise was right; I haven’t been acting like myself. And it’s not making me happy. I need to change.”

  I felt like it had been coming ever since the math contest, and I’d thought I was ready for it. But now that it seemed to be happening, I just wanted it to stop. “You’re upset,” I said quickly. “It’s not a good time to be making big decisions, probably.”

  She shook her head. “I think I have to do it now.” She took a deep breath, then looked at me and said, “I don’t think I should see you anymore.”

  My nod felt kind of jerky, like maybe my head was going to fall right off my neck. “You don’t think you should? Jesus, Claudia, could you at least have the guts to just say it? Say you’re dumping me.”

  “It’s not really a dumping,” she said lamely.

  “You’re doing it because of Ms. Coyne? Or the math contest?”

  “I just…this is a crucial year for me, Chris.”

  “Sure, Dr. Waring, I guess it is.”

  “Okay, yeah, it’s what my mom’s been saying. But she’s been saying it because it’s true.”

  “Really. This year is special somehow. All you need to do is get accepted into Waterloo, and everything’s easy after that. Oh, no, wait, I heard a lot of people flunk out of engineering their first year. So next year’s pretty crucial, too, isn’t it? And then the year after, and if you want to do your biotech stuff you need to get really good grades every year, right?”

  I wasn’t really arguing with her. I’m not proud of myself, but I wasn’t trying to change her mind; I was trying to make her as upset as I was. “So every year is a crucial year, for a long time. And you know what, Claudia? Maybe you’re just not smart enough for it.” I liked seeing that expression on her face, like nobody had ever dared to suggest that before. “I mean, if you have to work this hard just to get in to the program? If you have to sacrifice every part of your life that isn’t school or studying? What’s it going to be like next year, when everyone in the place is as smart as you? How are you going to compete with them? What are you going to give up then, to give yourself more time for studying?”

  I stood up. “Whatever. Maybe it’s not about needing to study at all; maybe you’re tired of me and looking for a way out. So, fine, go ahead and take it. But I don’t think it’s cool to use Ms. Coyne as an excuse for this. I bet she’d be pretty disappointed if she knew you were this much of a chickenshit.”

  “Well, Ms. Coyne is dead,” Claudia fired back. “So I’m not really worrying about her right now.”

  “Yeah. You’re worrying about yourself. Okay. Sorry for distracting you.”

  I turned and headed out of the library, and then right out of the school. There was no way I was going to go and sit through chemistry, not right then. I needed to go to the gym and work up a sweat.

  I thought of Claudia, thought of never getting to touch her again, or see her smile at me. I sped up to a jog, heading for my truck. Working out wouldn’t help much, but it’d be something. Something better than remembering Claudia’s smile, or the way she’d gasp when I touched her just right.

  Damn it.

  I slammed the door of the truck and peeled out of the parking lot. Claudia had made her decision; now I had to find a way to live with it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day at school, I didn’t plan to go to the cafeteria in the morning before class. I intended to go to the library. But instead my feet took me over to our regular table. And Chris wasn’t there. That was when I realized what I had done.

  Stupid, right? What did I think breaking up with someone meant?

  I guess I’d known it was over in my head, but standing there in the cafeteria, waiting for a smiling face that never appeared? That was when I knew it in my heart.

  And I suddenly couldn’t breathe. It took a while for anyone to notice, since they’d all pretty much taken Chris’s side in the breakup and were giving me the best cold shoulder they could without being totally cruel.

  But finally Oliver stopped telling his tale of guy number four and said, “Shit, Claudia, are you okay?”

  I sank into the nearest chair, letting my bag, including my laptop, drop to the floor. I didn’t have enough breath to speak, and even if I’d had the air I wasn’t sure what to say. Everything’s gone wrong. I can’t breathe without him. Ms. Coyne is dead. I pushed Chris away. I don’t have a life. Chris hates me.

  And of course that was when I saw him. I’m not sure how word got out that he and I had broken up; I guess he must have said something to Tyler, because Karen knew by fourth period the day before. But now it seemed like everybody knew, including other girls. Chris was walking in from the parking lot, Faith Davis skipping along beside him to keep up, and she was laughing, her hand on his arm.

  Which made sense, because he was available now. His insane girlfriend had chosen cold numbers over his warm smile.

  “Breathe,” Oliver said gently. He laid his arm on my shoulders and squeezed, like he was trying to push me back together. I took a shaky breath. “Good. Now let it go. Exhale.”

  I managed to do that, too. “Good girl. Another breath, please.”

  I did it, and breathed it out without needing instructions. Okay. I could breathe. I looked out the window, but Chris and Faith were out of sight now. Maybe he was walking her to her locker. Probably he’d already realized how nice it was to be around someone with normal social skills. Now my breathing was turning into sobs, and Oliver sank down beside me, his arm still holding my shoulders.

  Another warm body on the other side, and I heard Karen murmur, “Oh, Dia. It’s going to be okay. It’ll be okay.” It was nice that she cared enough to lie to me.

  The three of us sat there together well into first period. It wasn’t like I wanted to rush off to English class, not when Ms. Coyne wouldn’t be there to greet us.

  That was when it hit me. My day was back to being flat, even flatter than it had been before Chris. I’d thrown out the flyer for the poetry slam, and I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to do with the Sisterhood. I had no interesting English class, no squirming through biology waiting to
see Chris at lunch, no anticipation as I went home and got my work done, looking forward to his text to tell me he was done with practice. None of that anymore. I’d chased it all away. That was what I’d wanted to do—what I’d needed to do—but I hadn’t realized just how empty I’d feel without it all.

  I eventually pulled myself together and went to second period, then cried my way through lunch, then let Karen help me get cleaned up before chemistry. But when I walked into the lab, Chris wasn’t there. Not in his new seat at the front, not in his old seat at the back. I looked at Oliver, who winced sympathetically, then offered, “Maybe he’s got a hockey thing?”

  But Cooper was there, sitting in the back row, so it wasn’t like the whole team was busy. I took a deep breath and made my way back to him. “Where’s Chris?” I asked, trying to sound casually polite instead of nearly hysterical.

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business, is it?”

  “I don’t want him to fall behind,” I tried.

  Cooper just shrugged. “If he does, they can hook him up with another tutor easy enough. Tutors aren’t exactly rare, you know.”

  I was nothing special. That was the clear message, and I couldn’t blame Cooper for making it. “Can you tell him I was looking for him?”

  Cooper looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. You should leave him alone and let him get back to normal. He doesn’t need this crap.”

  It hurt. A lot. Chris might have said he wasn’t sorry he’d met me, but that was before we’d broken up, and it was coming from him. He might not have wanted to hurt me, but Cooper clearly didn’t have the same restraint. I made my way back to my seat at the front of the room and tried not to think about the times Chris had sat there beside me. It didn’t work. I had no idea what we talked about in class that day; at least we weren’t doing a lab, because I probably would have mixed the wrong chemicals and set myself on fire.

  I staggered home after school, cried for a bit in my room, and then dodged my parents’ inquiries. They’d clearly noticed I was upset, probably noticed Chris hadn’t called the night before and didn’t call that night, either, but I didn’t feel like giving them the satisfaction of a formal announcement. Even without hearing anything concrete my mom was having a hard time disguising her gleeful anticipation. She clearly thought this was a rough transition period, but when it was over, her studious, serious, just-like-her daughter would be back.