by Tara Lynn
But I was terrified of what might find me.
CHAPTER SIX
Everett
“Tull. Tull. Tull.”
The word pounded the air like a war drum. This was war. Armored men surged my way. Their only weapons were bare hands and brick bodies, but that’d be enough. Second law of physics. Force was proportional to mass and acceleration and my opposition came at me with both.
I sprinted towards them, ball clutched against me, my vision pounding with blood.
My red and white line of warriors collided into the skirmish, but three of the defenders still ran free towards me. Their eyes shone fierce within the dark caves behind their helmet grills.
Victory rode on this play. When I was long since gone from the school, this moment would be what lasted.
One moment to define my life.
I blinked tight. Too tight. My thoughts flickered out.
Suddenly, my feet were crunching brush not turf. The stadium lights were replaced with stars, countless and distant. And I wasn't charging. I was sprinting away.
Sand kicked up as I ran.
Snapshot. I wasn’t even a starter on the team, but I’d already earned that name.
Snap. Shot.
The syllables pumped in rhythm with my legs as I sprinted towards my shitty car, to get the hell away from this dead place. I wrung my hands against my shirt, trying to wipe my skin clean, but adding another stain on the fabric that would never wash away.
Sweat dripped past my nose.
The roar of the stadium came back.
Christ. I’d been sprinting blind.
Two of the lineman were descending on me like me pistons. I jerked to a stop. They tried matching but struck each other and swayed off balance. I juked past and sped on down the field.
Luck. That's all that was. About time that I had some of it though.
The third man still swung towards me though, sharp and certain as destiny. I realized his jersey number. It was their QB playing defense. He wouldn’t miss me.
The endzone lay as far away as a lone taillight on dark dirt road. I ran as far as I could, but then he brought me to the ground.
I shoved him off and got back up. Twenty yards to go and we were ahead with a minute. A three-point field goal would seal it for us.
But this was my last play in a game. Coach Jacobs had asked me to be around for spring training, but I wouldn’t be playing, just bestowing what wisdom I could. If we went for the goal, someone else would kick and it’d be done.
It shouldn’t have mattered. I had a life waiting past this with the MC. But the past month, my love for the game had come back like a bad infection. The MC liked my rep here. That’s what had kept me on the field this long – college fantasies aside. But now, the game coursed through my blood like it once had.
No question why it had happened. I’d spent too much time around the girl I couldn’t see without remembering who I’d once been. The girl who’d known me when I was a blank page and painted me a world of possibility. The girl who resided so deep within my soul that a taste of her cheek had me smiling at the memory.
The one girl who I could not claim. Not again.
I blinked sweat out of my eyes.
No, I couldn’t have her. This stadium, though, that belonged to me.
Let me go out on fire. Let the world see what they missed out on.
We got in a huddle and I laid out my plan. Not a face here showed a sign of doubt. They knew me. Their blood beat almost as hard. This was a brotherhood I had truly earned my place in. They accepted the risk I offered.
We lined up for the play. I gazed over the crowd. A veil had descended over their roar. They didn't understand why we didn’t take the easy path. But there were wins, and there were victories. Victories were total. They came only when you choose the righteous path.
Not thinking about what it could cost you.
The air hung still, only men softly adjusting themselves. I took a quick glance at the spot where my father and his new woman sat above the endzone. They weren't here for me. They were here to let themselves believe that they were normal, that this win was in any way theirs.
But then, my breath caught.
A new face had joined them, perched right beside her mother’s. Even fifty yards away, far from the tray lights pouring down on the field, Liza's oval face glowed like a half-covered moon. Her blonde hair hung loose behind and ran smoothly into a cream white shirt she had on.
She looked like an angel descended, gazing back with a look as soft and warm as a night wind. It was the same warmth I’d seen trembling on her face before I turned it away and kissed her cheek on New Year’s.
The play clock descended into the single digits. I returned to the field, eyes tightened on the endzone just past the defense. Nothing would stop me from getting us there.
“Texas 74,” I called out. It was a bullshit number, but it got the defense tripping. The ball snapped to me. I ran toward the scrimmage line, and at the very last second, I saw Marlo find his opening in the endzone.
I snapped him the ball right over four men descending over me. The crowd erupted in my ears as I slammed into the ground.
I shoved the meat off me and stood. Marlo danced and roared out to the stadium and the crowd answered, wild as ever. They stamped their feet and shouted my name.
I found Eliza. A faint smile traced her lips. My chest went tight.
I didn't know what had inspired her to grace my field. Maybe she was writing the story for her paper. The thought trickled past me, warmer than a shower. That’d be more than fine. After all, it was how we’d first met.
“That's how we do it, boy.” Marlo slammed into me, crushing my helmet under a meat arm.
I peeled him off, and tried to find Liza again, but the crowd was on its feet, and I caught only glimpses.
“Come on, son.” Marlo jabbed my arm. “Let's end this and go bask in our victory.”
“I was already getting started,” I growled.
Marlo shrugged, but let go. He didn’t get my moods, but he knew when to back off.
The game wasn’t quite over. Our kicker came on and got us the extra point. The other team took the ball glumly. Thirty seconds wasn't near enough to make up an eight-point difference. I would have still tried to get in their way, but I could think of nothing else but Liza.
The game ended.
I got mobbed by every guy on my team. They chanted my name and threw me in the air. I found Liza's face every chance I could, but in the middle of the celebration, I glanced up and saw her seat empty.
I searched the aisles for her, but all I spotted was the MC. Not just Jethro or Clash, but a dozen of the brothers, lining a full row. Clash was bent in conversation over the railing with a pudgy man, pointing excitedly like I was his son. His bristly face spread into a grin.
I felt a strange shiver. Liza's radiance had reminded me of the cold without it. Clash had saved me, the MC might ride with me, but they were meager comparisons next to the prize I once had.
Despite the victory, the championship ceremony felt more funeral than celebration. They made me speak on a wooden stage. The crowd watched in anticipation. I looked up at the wall of faces and could only find a few words for the mic.
“I tried to make the right calls. That's all anyone can do.”
The crowd whooped. Of course they loved that message. The whole fucking world did.
But what did they do when they were asked to live up to those words? They saw the murky roads it led toward and they ran off down an easier path. Maybe I should have been more of a coward. Then I wouldn’t have run down a one-way street.
“Why do you keep making it worse?” Eliza screamed, inches from my face in her driveway. “Once wasn’t enough?”
“What the hell do you expect me to do?” I winced. Just talking set my ribs on fire. “You think I can just stand by?”
“This isn’t a game, Rett. There’s not always a play.”
I said nothing. She lo
oked me up and down, pausing at the parts that must me bruised or red. Her eyes crinkled. She came up, stroked my shoulder gingerly. As if I were the one who needed help. As if I had done anything to earn this.
As if I hadn’t failed her.
I was done with this. I was done with them.
I handed the mic to the commissioner and marched off stage.
People shouted my name down at me as I passed below them towards the locker room. I didn't even glance up.
“Yo Everett!”
Marlo charged up after me. I spared him a look, then pushed through the double doors.
“What you doing man?” he said. “We got a goddamn celebration to head to.”
“I'm not in the mood.”
“Well, why the fuck not?” He rounded up in front of me, his wolfish face nearly panting. “This is your night.”
“Then I’ll do what I want with it.”
I pressed him onto to the middle bench and marched past. I felt him watching me as I pulled stuff from my locker.
Eventually, he just said: “I don't get you at all sometimes, you know? We’ve fought together. We’re brothers, and I still don’t understand what makes you tick.”
I sighed. Marlo deserved better, but I couldn’t give it to him. “I’m tired man.”
His eyes didn’t loosen any. “Whatever. Do your thing.”
He clomped out through the swinging doors.
I could have gone for a drink with him, but right now all he did was stand as a reminder of the shit we had done together. We’d stolen, slashed tires, broken bones, drawn blood. All of it had been inflicted on bad men, those who might pose Loving and the MC trouble. And Marlo did most of the enforcing.
I got to offer a hand once the lesson had been inflicted - be the friendly voice of reason that would guide them on how to avoid it. But there was no separating the two. No separating myself from anything the MC had done. And right now, brotherhood was cold comfort. I had chosen it over classes. I had chosen it over working harder on the field. Chosen it over Liza.
It hadn’t been a tough choice. Prison was the most likely other outcome. Death, probably a close second, if not delivered by someone else’s hand, then maybe my own. The MC had smoothed things over, but most of all, they’d saved me from myself.
But saved me for what? I felt no cause for celebrating this life I had just exited. I just wanted to get out there and ride the whole goddamn night. Maybe slip down into Mexico, see how far a tank of gas could take me.
Ride free. That’s what the MC said, right? Nowhere I could go would let me outrun my past, but at least I could pretend a bit.
I didn't bother to shower even. The last thing I needed was to linger and let my team find me again. I switched out into civilian gear and went to the parking lot.
My chopper stood slanted under a bright sodium street lamp, right near the front. The stadium lot went on far enough to fit a couple Walmarts, but I could still see the mesas under the moonlight past it. Could still see the star-pricked sky above. Their might beckoned. Be lost in us, they said.
I loaded up my gear on chopper. It would not see battle again, nothing more than a few practice sessions. But maybe someday, ten years out, if I was still alive then, I could gaze upon it and picture a road that I might have taken. That might have been open to me if fate had rewarded my convictions instead of making me the dictionary definition of a fool.
“Where are you headed?”
The voice came out of the shadows. I looked this way and that, just waiting to see Jethro slink out as he so often did.
A dim figure edged out from behind an SUV, pale and ghostly. My head came out of my thoughts to realize the voice I'd heard had been a woman's. Not just any woman, either.
“Liza.” The word ran out of me like an incantation, a balm on my tongue.
She stepped into the cone of light. Her face seemed so faint. Only her glasses made her seem real. Her shirt glowed in the light, lush with her. Even her jeans were mostly faded.
“Where's your team?” she asked.
“Inside.”
“You're not with them?”
“You're a smart girl,” I said. “Tell me what you see.”
She looked over me, straddled atop my bike. I had on my drenched top, my exertion fouling the air with its stench. But she went over me extra slow as if I were an art piece, worthy of her study.
“I see a guy who's running from his victory.”
“Point for the pretty girl.”
She swayed and glanced down bashfully. I had the sudden urge to stride off and spin her around, to dance her in this still and empty lot. We’d be dancing around a tornado. But damned if I wouldn’t charge through any winds if I could have her even once more.
I burned the thought from my brain. No use. No fucking use.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I whispered. “I thought you cared about football as much as I do about calculus.”
“You could do calculus just fine if you wanted to,” she said. “Don't pretend you're stupid.”
“Never said I was. It’s just not a road I’ve taken. Just like you don’t show up at my games. So why did you come see this one?”
She shrugged. “My mom's here. She suggested I come support you.”
“That should have sent you running in the opposite direction.”
She laughed. “She had a point this time. It’s your last game, after all.”
Her laugh held magic. If I had floated up into that sky, I would not have wondered what caused it. Time spun back years, the air between us rich with possibility.
But a part of me defied the spell, refused to believe.
“Eliza,” I said softly. “What are you doing here?”
She shut her mouth, but her eyes didn't lose their luster. “I don't want to be angry at you forever. That's not a part of me I want to preserve. I wanted to support you.”
“Why?”
“Cause we're going to be family.”
Family. The word hit like a gut punch. How could a word be so close and push us farther apart?
“We're not yet,” I said. “And we won't be even living together for long. Five months and you'll be flying out of here.”
She shook under a wind. “I don't even know if I’ll be admitted anywhere yet.”
“Well then, you're a goddamn idiot.”
She snapped up at me, eyes aflame. Now that look, I could deal with. But it burned out to an ember all too fast.
“There's other things than grades you know. I need money to get out of here too.”
“You’ll get it. You always belonged out there. I saw it four years ago. Every college you applied to will see it now. You can fly as far as you want. That's all you wanted to do once, remember?”
“You did, too.”
“Once.”
“I saw it tonight.”
I glanced out at the land, so my face couldn’t betray me. “It was just a high school game. No one’s paying attention, anyway.”
“You can make them pay attention.”
“I belong in this town.”
It hadn’t started out so somber a statement, but my words couldn’t stand apart from how I felt. Not around Liza.
Her eyes ducked to the ground.
“Apparently, I don't want so much either,” she said.
“No?”
“Well, more than some. I still want to get out. But I'm thinking that I won't be too far.”
“You'll be in Austin,” I said. “It might as well be another planet.”
She glanced up at the stars above. “I'll be close though. I might come home now and then.” She looked at me. “And if you're still here, then I don't want to need to avoid you.”
“If that's what you want, then that’s fine,” I said softly. “There’s no bad blood.”
She bit her lip and nodded. She made no motion to move though.
I got off my motorcycle. She stood her ground as I crunched up to her.
“Is that it?
” I said.
She blinked at me. “Yeah,” she said. “That's it.”
Her face looked soft under the light. All of her, really, looked amazing. Her lips called out to me, as they had two weeks ago. She’d been the one pressing home at New Year’s – digging for something more. She wouldn't say a word if I leaned in and did what I had just barely avoided doing then.