“Liv! O-Rod, please.”
The tears squeak through my eyes now. Goddammit, why can’t they wait until I’m in the car?
I will not sob. I will not break down. I can’t—
“Olive.” There’s a hand on my shoulder.
Fresh tears immediately fall as I wrench myself away. I don’t want him touching me again. Not now. Not ever. I wheel on him, backing toward my car.
“Don’t.”
Grey’s hands are raised in front of his body. I want to slap him. I want to leave angry red fingerprints on his cheek.
“Liv. Listen—”
“Don’t you dare.”
“If you’d let me explain—”
“Explain what?” Car doors are swinging open, people coming to see what the commotion is all about, and I suddenly don’t care. Let them see and hear the whole damn thing. “That you didn’t mean to use me as revenge? Against Stacey?” My eyes tighten. “To make yourself feel better about your colossal mistake?”
Grey draws himself up to his full height, hands down, features granite. Bastard. “Don’t act like you weren’t out for revenge, too.” He leans in, suddenly mindful of our growing audience. Out of the corner of my eye, I recognize Jake taking a step toward us, only to be pulled back by Kelly. “You can say it was all about getting on the softball team. But I know you. I know that deep down in your heart, being on this team was just as much about steamrolling Jake as it was about impressing my mother.”
He’s right. I saw my opportunity for revenge before Grey and Shanks had even finished their pitch.
“Maybe that’s true,” I shoot back at him, not bothering to lower my own voice. There’s definitely a crowd now. The bodies are a blur—teammates, classmates, teachers, parents. Hell if I know. A big fat tear rolls into my mouth as I draw in a breath. “But you lied to me. I believed you when you said you wanted to be my friend. I believed you when you said you liked me. I believed you when you kissed me. I’m your girlfriend and you still used me. I may have had my own motives for joining the team, but I never lied to you.”
I place both hands squarely on his chest and shove him away.
But Grey’s not done.
“I overheard you in Mom’s office and I felt sorry for you—I know how much of a hard-ass she can be. And then I saw you play with your brother and I had to tell Shanks. So what if you punched my ex-girlfriend? Who cares what she would think?”
“Then why didn’t you tell me about Stacey? She ruined my life. You knew that. A lie by omission is still a lie.” Staring him down, I dare him to glance away. Dare him.
And suddenly, there’s real anger in his face, not just frustration. “She didn’t ruin it. You punched her. You broke her nose. You got yourself kicked out of that fancy-ass private school. You did that. Nobody else.”
The words sound like something he’s told himself over and over since his stupid car crash. Maybe something his mom drilled into his head.
But, even still, the words hit their mark and anger rips through my veins, shoving past the sadness. The embarrassment. The shame.
I finally get my fingers wrapped around my keys. I yank them out of my bag and stare him down. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
I turn and stuff my keys into the lock, but Grey dares to touch me again. “I did this for you. Ninety-nine percent of my motivation was to help you and the team. I swear.”
I want to believe it. But I just can’t.
“Bullshit, Worthington.” Jake’s wiggled out of Kelly’s arms and moved next to Grey, his left eye swollen shut. Behind him, I see half the team there—not just Kelly, but Topps, the whole offensive line, Sanchez, Brady, Tate, Smith. I don’t see my family, though, or Addie and Nick, and it’s a major relief. “You were using her and we all knew it.”
Jake’s defending me. But somehow that makes it worse. I’ve been a part of this team for weeks—so many sweaty hours together, and no one, no one, warned me that Grey had a past with Stacey. Any one of them could’ve pulled me aside and filled me in on the backstory so that I wouldn’t be so blindsided.
I wheel on Jake. “So you knew about all of this and you didn’t tell me?”
Jake’s lips fall open in surprise. A memory of us in the parking lot that first day flashes in front of my eyes, when he told me he didn’t like the thought of Grey using me. But that could’ve been anything—if Jake had really wanted me to know, he could have said something else in any of the days since then.
I search the faces of my teammates. Topps. Brady. Tate. Smith. I even spare a second to read Kelly’s face.
“You all fucking knew?”
Silence. I take the collective lack of an answer as a yes. They all knew about what happened with me and Stacey, and they all knew about Grey and me. And yet not a single one of them had the balls to come clean.
I swallow, willing my voice not to break, and turn to Grey. “I’m a human being, not some pawn. If you got burned by some stupid girl, how dare you bring me into it? How dare you bring the team into it?”
A few of the players’ heads nod in my periphery, but I don’t care. They should have said something earlier if they didn’t agree with what Grey was doing.
“I was taught that a team is a family,” I say, my voice like iron. “And families don’t do this shit to each other. Human beings don’t do this shit to each other. And this human is out.”
Every eye is on me as I jam my keys back into the lock, wrench the car door open, and slide into the seat. As soon as the door latches, the tears fall free. I hope against hope they can’t see.
31
BY THE TIME I DRIVE HOME, BAWLING MY EYES OUT THE whole way, Dad’s out front again, Danielle drinking beer with him. When I reach the top of the drive, he’s taking a swig of Boulevard Wheat, and so Danielle speaks first, a big stinkin’ grin on her face. “There you are, superstar.”
Though I should be all cried out by now, I burst into tears.
Confusion crosses Danielle’s face and she pushes up to her feet, tucking me into her arms. Dad’s standing now, too, hand on my back. “Liv,” he says, “what’s wrong?”
When I shake my head into Danielle’s shoulder, she gently pushes me to arm’s length, the two of them trying to read the words I can’t say.
That Dad was right. That I couldn’t trust Grey. That the people who play football are brutal.
It doesn’t help that I can feel my left knee swelling, my jeans too tight around it.
Two car doors slam.
“Look,” Dad says softly, brushing a tear from my cheek. “Adeline’s here for you. Another friend, too. I can tell them to come back tomorrow, if you want.”
I shake my head, and Dad nods and touches his forehead to mine. “Pancakes after practice tomorrow, baby girl.”
There’s a thrill in his voice as he tries to get me to smile, and a look on his face I haven’t seen in forever.
What I wouldn’t have given for this Dad that first week of practice. For his joy rather than his anger. And now I’ve tossed it away because boys are assholes. He’ll be just as disappointed tomorrow when I tell him I’m not going to practice as he was last week, but for totally different reasons.
I am such a freaking letdown, no matter what I do.
Danielle gives my arm a squeeze before grabbing the beer bottles and disappearing into the house. “You really were super tonight.”
As the storm door clicks shut and both of them disappear into the house, I pivot toward the street, mindful of my knee as I twist. Addie is standing there, and Nick takes up space behind her. He can’t seem to look straight at me, eyes unfocused, almost as if he’s ashamed. Good. If he knew what was going on, then he deserves to be ashamed.
“Is it true?” Addie asks, her voice unbelieving.
I close the distance between us. We’re away from the house, down the driveway, Heather’s favorite maple shading the streetlights and moon.
“What part?” I say, tears pricking my eyes again. “That I basically le
ft the team? That Grey used me to get back at Stacey? Or that every single teammate knew what he was doing and no one thought to say something?” I shift my gaze to Nick and give him the exact same glare I gave his sister seconds before she hit me with a fastball.
Addie blinks and although the light is low, it’s easy to spot the clear sheen of tears against her beautiful dark eyes. She lunges forward and wraps me in a vicious hug. I stifle a gasp, my sore muscles complaining, but wrench my arms around her anyway.
We stay like that for a good minute before Addie draws back, hands draped gently over my upper arms, her natural strength subdued.
“What do you need? What can I do?”
My gaze strays to Nick. Without a word, he disappears into the passenger side of Addie’s Toyota. When he’s gone, I sob-smile. “Get my Windsor Prep scholarship back?”
“Something more realistic?”
I chomp down on the inside of my cheek, willing the fresh tears to back off.
“Want me to talk to Grey?” she suggests.
I shake my head.
“How about Jake? Want me to talk to him?”
I shake my head.
“Stacey?” She throws a right cross into the shadows. “I can drive straight to Arizona and talk the hell out of that one. Or, you know, just deck her.”
She says it to be funny and laughs a little with it, but instead, her words stick in my mind. I think of Grey running into that brawl and how worried I was that he might take a punch his brain couldn’t handle. I shake my head to clear it, and force out the words. “She’s actually here. She’s the one who told me about her and Grey.”
The tears start coming again.
“I’ve got my gloves in the car.” Addie adds a one-two, hook-uppercut combo to shadow Stacey. That kickboxing class this summer really paid off in good form.
It’s all so ridiculous that I laugh through the sob in my throat, words loosening. “How about you land one on my temple so I don’t have to go to school Monday?”
“If your dad wouldn’t kill me, I’d take you out of your misery, yes.”
“You are the best friend.” And she is. And I suck—again missing her games this week, because I’m the worst.
“Correction, I am Olive Rodinsky’s best friend. And Olive Rodinsky is a damn good quarterback.”
That just makes the tears fall harder. “The whole point of football was to show what a team player I am, and I just basically left the team. Kitt is never going to see past that. Never.”
Addie clutches my shoulders. “Then don’t make it an issue.” I blink at her, vision blurry. “She doesn’t know the whole story. Were your coaches there? Did you say the words ‘I quit’ to Coach Lee?”
“Well, no—”
“Then go to practice tomorrow. Finish the season. In a few weeks, she’ll be so impressed, you won’t even need to try out.”
“I can’t,” I say, voice shaking at a dangerous pitch.
“Yes, you can.”
“No—you weren’t there!” I hate my voice right now, every shaky syllable of it. All pitchy and raw. “Every single one of them knew about Grey and Stacey—how they dated for two years, how he totaled his car after she dumped him—all of it. Every single one of them knew how Grey was treating me. And every single one of them knew it was as fake as Stacey’s new nose.”
“So what! They’re idiots. They used you? Use them back.” She drives home the point with a playful jab, but her eyes are on fire. “Hold your head high and walk into practice tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. You think this is hard? You think those boys are assholes? What if you do make the softball team?” Tears roll down my cheeks. “What about playing on the same team as Kelly? The team you beat at the state semis before whooping up on its star player? You think that’s going to be a freaking piece of Funfetti?”
“No, but I can’t—”
“Did you break your leg tonight?” She taps each of my shins with the toes of her Nikes, like she’s kicking the tires of a used car. “Nope? Okay, then walk into practice—”
“Weights. Saturday is weights.”
“Weights—whatever. Walk in and show those assholes who’s boss. They’ll be so terrified of you there will be an inch-deep stream of piddle on the floor.”
“But if I go back, then who am I?” My arms fling wide. “The girl who told them all to eff off because they were assholes and then came back for more? Isn’t that the definition of a toxic relationship? Not feeling like you have the power to leave and staying where you’re treated like garbage?”
“Not if you give it back.” The wind kicks up and Addie’s braids swirl into her face. “You want to be on the softball team. That’s the end goal. Show up. Kick butt. Do what Kitt needs to see you do and then make the damn team.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But when I close my eyes, I see Grey’s face in the parking lot. Angry. Unflinching. I see the remorse in Jake’s one good eye and his teeth bare and flashing. I see the blank faces of the “friends” who never gave me a heads-up about this integral piece of Northland romantic history.
“I can’t.” My eyes fly open. “I respect myself too much to go back there.”
“You don’t respect yourself at all if you let a group of stupid boys and an even stupider girl steal your dreams.”
“They aren’t—”
“You quit and yes they are.”
“I’m quitting because I’m standing up for myself.”
“Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean walking away.”
In my head, in this situation, it does. There’s nothing much left to say. Addie knows it, too, and starts backing across the street toward her car.
“Show up to weights in the morning, Rodinsky.”
I watch Addie drive away, Nick in the passenger seat. They’re gone and I’m still standing here, her words swirling in my head.
32
AT SIX THIRTY, MY ALARM DETONATES AND THE SUN busts through my window all bright and cheery, like it’s completely ignorant about last night.
My football gear is strewn all over the floor, a sweat-lined trail of disappointment. My phone’s faceup, home screen lined with texts and missed calls. My head pounds, my knee throbs, and soreness roasts my muscles from the inside out. Even my skin seems to hurt.
Ughhhhhhhh.
Still, I pull myself to standing and head for the hall bathroom as silently as possible—Ryan’s wedged under his pillow, sleeping off being a teenage boy.
The house is mostly quiet—Dad’s snores replaced by clinking in the kitchen. Coffee before his morning jog. The case he was working really must be over. Mom’s sleeping off her treatments in their room, and I hear Heather’s voice coming from the back deck, running Danielle through sun salutations. Danielle’s remarking—not complaining—that she’s just not that damn flexible. Which is exactly why Heather wants her to do it.
And they all expect me to be gone in ten minutes.
Pancakes after practice tomorrow, baby girl.
Now Dad’s over by the front door, probably stepping into his running shoes. Humming. Like he’s freaking Mary Poppins and not a twenty-five-year cop crashing at his eldest daughter’s house while the love of his life battles cancer.
Today, he’s happy.
And last night was part of the reason.
I’m part of the reason.
That word flashes in my brain again—can’t.
I can’t tell him I quit. But I also can’t go to practice. I can’t look those assholes in the eye and lift weights like nothing happened.
I know why it’s a good idea to go. I know I shouldn’t let them get to me. I know that football is the path to my softball dreams. I know I shouldn’t let that opportunity slip away, no matter how tough it is.
But I can’t.
Can I?
I run a cold tap, scrub the last of my mascara onto the towel, and pull my hair back into a ponytail. Look myself in the eye.
I can’t go back. Not to last night. Not to that night in May.
But I can go forward.
I’m five minutes early, but when I walk into the weight room, everyone is there, save the coaches. The boys are hanging on benches, looking as shitty and rundown as I do, and when they see me, they go dead silent, like someone stole all the sound in the room.
Grey. Jake. Nick. Topps. Brady.
Everyone.
I simply find a seat right up front by the mirror and take a sip from my water bottle.
Addie was right.
These boys look like they just metaphorically peed their pants.
The coaches march in, Kelly with them. Her eyes bug out of her head at the sight of me, eyeliner sweeping into a big round O. But other than that, nothing happens. If Coach Lee knows what went down in the parking lot last night, he’s not showing his cards, nor commenting on the fact that the room is very much everyone versus Liv. Instead, Coach Lee accepts a clipboard from Napolitano and starts naming off stations without a preamble.
“Squats—offensive line.”
“Deads—defensive line.”
“Pull-ups—secondary.”
“Bench—quarterbacks and running backs.”
Great. Fantastic. Ideal.
I keep my game face on, of course. Coach doesn’t need to know how I feel about these boys. He just needs me to lift some goddamn weights.
On bench, we’re supposed to pair off—one to spot, one to lift, then switch. But I’m not about to pick any of these people, so I go to the bench on the end and start racking my weights. Napolitano has written the set scheme on the mirror—ten reps, four sets for this station.
Grey starts in my direction, in his calm, relaxed way, and my eyes threaten to roll right out of my head, but then Jake appears and shoulders between Grey and my bench. They exchange a few whispered words… and then Grey starts racking weights two benches away. Brady partners with him, moving to the head of the bench, ready to spot.
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