by Kasie West
He gestured to his ears.
Oh. My music.
I yanked on the cord and the earbuds fell to my lap, leaving a ringing buzz in their place.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I haven’t seen you out at the pool lately.”
“I’ve been busy. I’m starting club swim next week, though. I’m committed.”
He smiled. “I know.” He turned on his spinning chair to the cabinet behind him and picked up a padded orange envelope, bringing it back to the desk between us. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I know I can be annoying. I’ll work on that.”
“Hadley. Do you think you’re in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed. “You’re not in trouble. Relax.”
He said it, but I couldn’t force myself to do it. He opened the envelope and pulled out a plaque. The outline of a swimmer was etched into the wood and below the swimmer was a gold square. Something was etched there as well but I couldn’t make it out. He slid the plaque across the desk until it rested in front of me.
“Congratulations.”
“What is it?”
“I know you couldn’t make it to the awards banquet because of the event for your brother, so you get it today.”
“I won an award? For what?”
“For being annoying,” he said.
“What?”
“A joke. It’s for being my most dedicated swimmer on the team. You ready to swim four races next year?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
My heart wasn’t going to survive the workout I was putting it through today. “Thank you!”
“Thank you. I mean it. Like I told the team at the ceremony the other night, you are what commitment looks like. I’m proud of you. I wish you could’ve been there to get recognized in front of everyone, but I understand.”
“Amelia didn’t tell me about this.”
“I asked the team not to tell you. I wanted to be the first.”
I gripped the plaque, staring at the words etched into the gold: Coach’s Award. Dedication and Commitment. Hadley Moore. “I wish my mom knew I was winning an award. Then we would’ve been there for sure.”
“I talked to your mom.”
“I know, but she just thought it was a team requirement and I told her that usually only seniors win the awards.”
He took off his baseball cap and ran his hand back and forth over his short hair, then replaced the cap. He seemed to decide against whatever he had been thinking about saying and handed me the now-empty envelope. “Congratulations.”
That’s when I realized what he wasn’t saying. “You told her.”
“Maybe she didn’t understand. I should’ve explained it better.”
“You told her about this award? That I was winning it?”
He nodded.
I started to make excuses for my mom. “It’s tradition . . . this thing for my brother. . . .” I trailed off when I saw the pity in his eyes. “Never mind.” I stood so fast that the chair fell over. I scrambled to pick it up, dropping the envelope. It slid beneath the chair I’d just righted. I grabbed it and made for the door. “Thanks for this.”
“Hadley—” he said, but I had already left. The shutting door cut off however he was going to finish that sentence.
My eyes stung. I just needed to get out of there, I thought as I walked as quickly as I could away from the office, trying to figure out where I could go. I made it out of the gym and around one corner before I slammed into Jackson. The award, the envelope, and I went flying backward. The clatter of metal bouncing along cement had me searching the ground where I had landed.
“Are you everywhere?” I growled.
“Moore. I’m sorry.” He held out his hand to help me up.
I picked up the plaque and saw the gold plate that spelled out the distinction was missing. It sat by Jackson’s foot. He bent over and picked it up.
“Nice,” he said, after reading it. “Congrats.”
I ripped it from his hand, scooped up the envelope where it had landed, and shoved the two now separate pieces of my award inside. Then I left. Of course he followed me.
“I’m trying to understand you, Moore.”
“Stop.”
“You hate me.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
He laughed. “Wow. I thought you’d deny it, but that was definitely not a denial. That was probably the furthest thing from a denial I’ve ever heard. Why don’t you like me?”
“Why do you care?” I asked quite suddenly.
He shrugged like he really didn’t.
My heart was pumping and my head was spinning and I just wanted Jackson out of my face. “You want to know why, Jackson? Why people like me don’t like people like you?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Because you’re a goof-off. You do nothing. Life is a joke to you. You just sail through it. All you think about is yourself and what you need to do to make people look at you. I work hard. Every day. And I try my best and I push myself in everything I do so they’ll notice me and do you know who still gets all the attention? Who everybody talks about? Who everyone is still more proud of and happier with and can’t forget about? Who everybody loves the most? You, Eric.” I stopped and swallowed hard. “I mean, Jackson. You . . .”
He had gone silent. I swiped at the tears that were trailing down my face, mad that I hadn’t been able to hold them back for a few more minutes. Then I turned and fled. I didn’t make it far before I couldn’t see through the blurriness. Worried I was going to run into a wall, I turned a corner and pressed my back against the building. If I had thought now was the time Jackson would grow up and leave me alone, I was mistaken.
He rounded the corner a few seconds after me.
“Please don’t,” I said.
For once he looked serious, somber. “I promise I’ll leave if you want me to, but is there anything I can do? Do you want me to go get Amelia? Or call your parents?”
I shook my head no.
“Could you use someone to cry on? I think I’m good at that. I wore an extra absorbent sweater today.” He opened his arms like he expected me to melt into them. When I didn’t, he said, “How about a different offer, then?” He pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “The bell is about to ring and these halls are going to fill with people. My car, you remember it, the classic, is a great place to cry. I know it doesn’t have music, but it does have doors that can close people out. Even me if you want. Or I can drive you to a completely new location. I won’t even talk.”
My tears started anew. Why was he choosing now to be thoughtful? I had just yelled mean, awful things at him, and he stood there offering me salvation. I nodded.
“Yes?”
“Please.”
He held out his hand like a question and I took it. I could still hardly see, so I was glad he was guiding me. Like he’d warned, the bell rang. He brought me closer and put his arm around me. I hid my face against his shoulder, hoping nobody would know it was me. We made it to the parking lot without anyone calling out to me. I hoped that was a good sign. He unlocked the door to his car with his weird two-lefts-and-one-right-turning method and opened it wide. I dropped all my stuff onto the passenger-side floor and practically dived inside. He shut the door behind me. I laid my head on the seat and let it all out.
Twenty-One
Like Jackson promised, he didn’t say a word. He was quiet as he started the car and drove. I didn’t sit up to see where he was driving us, but I was glad he was leaving the school. Eventually he parked and shut off the car. He still hadn’t said anything. I wondered if this was a record for him.
The seat smelled a little of gas or grease or something—that old-car smell. I sat up, wiped my cheeks with my sleeve, and peered out the front window. He’d driven us to Lookout Point above the lake. My lake. This wasn’t the side of the lake I swam on. This was the side where everyone at school went to drin
k or make out. I turned my gaze to him and he held up his hands.
“It was the first quiet place I could think of.”
“You come here a lot?”
He laughed. “Yes.” Then, after a minute of silence added, “But not in the way you’re thinking. I like to walk. It helps me think. I like nature.”
It really was beautiful. The trees were in full spring green. Wildflowers covered the ground where the cars hadn’t driven. And the lake was a dark sheet of glass below us. I pulled my sleeves over my hands and used them again to wipe beneath my eyes, sure they were black with mascara.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“I’m sorry for what I said about you.”
“Don’t apologize for how you feel.”
“I’m sure you can guess that it’s not really about you.”
He nodded slowly. “Who’s Eric?”
“My brother.”
“So your brother is a screwup like me and he gets all the attention for it?”
“You’re not a screwup.”
“I didn’t realize you had a brother.”
Did I want to tell him? I knew it would clear up some of the bad feelings he might have over what I’d said. But it would turn those feelings into pity and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. “I kind of live in his shadow and have been trying to get out of it for years.”
“Hence the swimming for hours on end?”
“I like to swim.”
“I know. But . . .”
“Yes, I always have to be better and do more. I don’t know. . . . I guess I thought if I did the most and did it the best maybe I could make them . . . see me.” I had been competing with my dead brother. No wonder why I hadn’t been crying at his ceremonies. I had started seeing him as the enemy, the competition. Was I seriously just now realizing my motivations for how hard I pushed myself? And in front of Jackson Holt? That was my fear, wasn’t it? The one I couldn’t articulate to Heath Hall the other night. The reason I feared expressing my frustrations to my parents. I feared that if I told my parents how I really felt, they would admit that there was no competition. They would admit that Eric had already won. And if they admitted it, then I couldn’t keep pretending everything was fine. I couldn’t talk myself out of that truth.
I turned toward the window and wiped at a fresh set of tears that silently slipped down my cheeks. It took a few deep breaths for me to regain my control and turn back again.
Jackson pointed to the padded envelope on the floor. “So you won an award for your parents?”
I laughed, then sniffled. “Yes! And do you want to know the worst part about it? It didn’t matter. They didn’t want to go to the awards ceremony. They still chose him.”
He seemed to analyze my comment. “Was it a choice between an event for him and one for you?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Yes, actually, it was.”
“But that’s not fair. I mean, that would be hard for a parent to have to choose between their kids. You must’ve wanted to support him too because you obviously missed your own awards ceremony if you were just getting that award today.”
“I did miss my awards ceremony. For his charity banquet.”
“I’m sure he appreciated it.”
“He didn’t.”
“Unless he told you that he didn’t, you can’t just assume—”
“He’s dead.”
He cussed under his breath, then his eyebrows shot up. “Well, technically you still can’t assume he didn’t appreciate it.”
I laughed.
“Now you laugh at me?”
“I already cried enough, right?”
“I’m sorry. When did he . . .”
“Die?”
“Yes.”
“Eighteen years ago.”
“So . . .”
“I didn’t know him. He died of cancer before I was born. That truck on our lawn? That’s his truck. It’s been there for eighteen years.” I put my head back against the seat. “If that truck won an award the same night I did, they would go to its ceremony over mine because it belonged to my brother.”
“But what if the truck won an award the same night as the charity dinner?” He was trying to make me laugh again. It kind of worked.
“The truck would be out of luck.”
“And the truck would have a right to be pissed.”
I laughed louder this time. “Really? In this fake scenario you’ve presented, you think my parents should pick the truck’s award ceremony over my brother’s charity dinner?”
“Well, no, but in my head that was a much better metaphor where I was making you the truck and telling you that you have a right to be pissed.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I got that.”
He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Did you? Because, Moore . . .” He met my eyes. “You have a right to be pissed.”
“I am.” I pressed my palms to my eyes, even though I knew that was just going to make a bigger mess of my mascara. “But mostly I’m just sad.”
I brought my knees up on the seat with me and hugged them against my chest, resting my forehead on them while more tears fell. This was so embarrassing. “You have to promise me this doesn’t leave your car.”
“Nobody would believe me anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Moore. Tough, competitive, stoic swim star. You’re kind of known for walking through the halls in the zone. Your headphones in. Your game face on. Your veins pumping chlorine.”
“Okay, I get it.” I had been shutting out my problems, and apparently people, for years, trying not to think about how I felt second-best in my home.
Jackson moved next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. Because of my compact position, I fell against him. I thought about pushing away but I was already there and it felt nice, so instead, I turned my upper body toward his, wrapped my arms around his torso, and didn’t try to stop the tears.
His hands went to my back, where they softly ran up and down. Soon they were the only thing I felt, his hands, sending tingles along my spine. I had to remind myself four times that he was still annoying. Very, very annoying. This changed nothing.
He cleared his throat, and as if to prove me right, said, “It’s kind of nice to know you have weaknesses like the rest of us. I mean, your problems aren’t as bad as most people’s but you do actually cry over them.”
I let out a single laugh and shoved away from him. “You know, you’re really cute when you keep your mouth shut.”
His half smile, the one he wore a lot, came onto his face. “You think I’m cute?”
“No, because you can never keep your mouth shut.”
“Fair enough.”
He was cute, getting cuter by the second, it seemed.
“So does this mean we’re friends now?” he asked.
“Until I see you making a fool of yourself at school again.”
“So until tomorrow, then?”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
We stared out the windshield together toward the lake below.
“I wish I were better at advice,” he said. “I’ve been trying to think of something cool or comforting to say for the last half an hour and all I can come up with are stupid jokes.”
“Jokes? I’m surprised. That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I have some advice for you,” I said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. Run away from the mess that I am right now. Nobody needs all this drama in their lives.” I flipped down the visor, looking for a mirror but there wasn’t one.
“Huh. You’re not very good at advice either, it sounds like. But I can’t even come up with bad advice right now.”
I stretched toward the rearview mirror instead and worked at the mascara beneath my eyes. “It’s okay. There’s really nothing to say. I need to get over this weird competition I have with my brother. It’s not like I can confront him. And I should talk to my
parents about how I feel. It’s not that I think they don’t love me or anything. I know they do. Maybe they just don’t realize how what they do makes me feel sometimes.”
“Your parents seem really cool. They both couldn’t stop bragging about you. I mean, neither of them mentioned your brother once at the swim meet the other day. That has to count for something.”
I leaned back against the seat. “Did you let them talk?”
He laughed.
“You’re right, my parents are cool. But we all live in the past.”
“So are you going to talk to them?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I’m scared that even if I talk to them about how I feel, they’ll still choose him.”
“You need to talk to them. You have to give them the opportunity to prove you wrong.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. “And you said you were bad at advice.”
His hand closed over mine and he twined our fingers together. “I’m even worse at taking it.”
Twenty-Two
It was two days later and I swore I could still feel the pressure of Jackson’s fingers between mine. He had held my hand in the car that day until I was ready to leave. He’d then driven me home, not once asking if I wanted to go back to school. And that made it seem perfectly acceptable that I didn’t.
When we’d arrived at my place, he gave my brother’s truck a good long stare, very unlike the reaction he’d had the first time he’d seen it. Then he punched my shoulder, like we were pals, and I got out and walked away a little confused as to what now existed between us. I was still confused. That day he’d rescued me I wasn’t myself. I was emotional and vulnerable and wasn’t thinking straight. I shouldn’t have told him half the things I did.
So why did I keep getting this weird sensation in my hand, like I was missing an appendage or something? Like he’d held my hand every day for a year? It had been once. And I hadn’t talked to him since.
I stared at the truck on my lawn now as I waited for Amelia to pick me up for school. It was so unassuming. No one looking at it would think it could be the bane of my existence.
Amelia pulled up and waved. “Hey,” she said. “Why’d you want me to come early?”