Home and Away

by Candice Montgomery

  “Oh. I see Josiah. ‘Kay, I gotta go.” She hangs up so fast, I get whiplash.

  I text Tristan even though, knowing him, he’s already turned his phone off for the duration of the school day.

  good luck today

  What I really mean is good luck without me. I know I’ll probably need it.

  When I walk into the office there are three orange plastic chairs pushed against a wall, and a girl with her head shaved lying prone across them all.

  She looks uncomfortable.

  A blond woman stands behind the long desk counter, gesturing me forward. “Don’t mind her, honey. How can I help you?”

  “Umm, is she okay?”

  “That’s Dahlia. She’s fine. Strange and truant, but fine.”

  “Yeah. Umm, my name’s Taze—er, Tasia Quirk. It’s my first day. I’m just here to get my schedule.”

  “Let me check the new student bin.” She rifles through a lonely-looking orange bin. It’s only got three files in it. One of which must be mine, because she pulls it and says, “Okay, here you go. Tasia L. Quirk. Senior.” She says it like TAH-see-yuh.

  I raise my right hand like I’m already in class, about to ask the teacher for a hall pass. “Actually, it’s Tasia, like Asia with a T.”

  Linda (per her used-to-be-white-but-is-now-yellowish nametag) cocks her head at an angle. “I see.”

  I feel someone at my right and find Dahlia there.

  “What kinda name’s Tasia?”

  My face screws itself up. “It’s Greek.”

  “Aha.”

  Linda comes back over with my printed schedule. “Just want to confirm a few details. Allergies?”

  “Uh, peanuts?” I say, glancing at Dahlia.

  The woman checks off a box then says, “What level would you say this allergy rates?”

  “Severe.”

  “Airborne?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Okay, honey. All set. Have each of your teachers sign this slip at the end of class and then bring it back here at the end of the day. If you’d like to have an EpiPen stored here in the office, you’ll need a note from your primary care physician, also signed by your parents.”

  “Linda, when do I get to go?” Dahlia says.

  “When you learn to stay present for the entire school day. Sit.”

  Dahlia rolls her eyes and whispers, “If I boned the principal I might feel like I could talk to students any old way too.”

  I laugh. She smiles. It feels like a victory for us both.

  “I like your hair,” she says, but doesn’t touch the way most people do. My hair is a halo around my head, and typically I don’t react well to people touching it. But this girl with her massive eyes and olive skin … I’m okay with her.

  “I don’t know how to tell you that I like your hair too, but I do.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Who shaves their head?”

  “It’s a long story.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Dahlia Locke.”

  “Taze … Quirk.”

  “Dope name, girl. Own it.” Dahlia slings her arm around my shoulders. “Linda, if I promise to go to all my classes and keep Taze as my buddy during lunch and free period, can I go?”

  Linda looks like she wants to say no, but Dahlia says, “Please! Please please please, Linda.”

  “Please?” I say.

  When it’s clear we’ve won, Dahlia and I scoot out of the office and giggle our way down the hall. She kisses my cheek. “Yes! You pulled that out for me.”

  The shrug I give says, I guess.

  “What you got first?” She snatches my schedule. “Trig, eww. The hell? Why?”

  I shrug. That one says, I have no idea.

  “I’ll show you where it is.”

  Dahlia makes it through the entire day at school. We eat lunch together and have three classes together, aside from homeroom.

  After school, Dahlia’s there again. I catch her walking across the quad, after I spot Kai—and light up inside, unexpectedly—but right before she walks up to him and places her lips on his.

  It ruins me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’m already backing away when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It says LOCKE in all caps and flashes a picture of Dahlia, grinning, teeth white as the back of our shitty-ass president’s knees, complexion clear as the 101 freeway on a Tuesday at two a.m.

  “H-hey,” I say, wondering when the hell I was away from my phone long enough for her to have added and personalized her contact information.

  “Taze, we’re going to hang in someone’s basement. Where are—oh, I see you. C’mere!” She goes up on her toes a little to wave me over.

  Kai’s head swivels in my direction. He gives me a nod. Not, like, The Nod. But, like, a good one. Or maybe I just think it’s a good one because it’s Kai. Because last night, I spent at least eighteen minutes thinking about how I’d fit pressed right up against him, or trying to imagine how it’d feel to wrap my arms around his thin middle and feel his chin meet the top of my head. Because maybe I also imagined him lifting me up against him by the back of my thighs and—

  “Merr forced you into this shitbox, huh?” And Jesus God, he’s right in front of me now.

  I nod.

  Dahlia rummages through her bag as she says, “Oh, cool. You know Kai already?”

  He side-eyes me like I’m about to maybe pickpocket him. “Tasia is Merrick’s daughter.”

  “Merrick has a daughter?”

  He turns to Dahlia and says, “He has a daughter now.”

  “But Merrick is—”

  “White, yeah.”

  “We know. So what about a basement?” I ask.

  “Scott’s,” she says, pointing to a guy with floppy brown hair. “Scott Medina’s. We’re going,” Dahlia says.

  “Um, I gotta talk to the football coach.”

  Dahlia looks grossed out. Kai pulls out a pen and moves behind me. I feel it roll across the skin of my exposed shoulder. He’s drawing on me and it feels amazing. He could be writing MIXIE SLUT-BAG BASTARD CHILD and I still wouldn’t make him stop. Probably.

  “You don’t need to do that if you wanna go to the games,” Dahlia says. “You can just … you know … go.”

  “Taze plays football,” Kai says. His face is so close to my skin, I can feel the warmth of his breath. “Like, on the team.”

  I pull away from Kai after the fiftieth time that my eyes roll into the back of my head, the pen sliding across my skin like a train running off the track. God, that feels good.

  “Where can I find the coach’s office?”

  He moves closer to Dahlia, takes her arm, starts to draw on it. The fastest forming lotus ever. I’m watching him so closely that I don’t realize I’m also being watched. By Dahlia, a fox’s sly grin sliding across her mouth, her brow lifting. I’m stuck solidly inside it until—

  “I’ll take you,” Kai says. “Coming, D?”

  “Uh, no,” she says. And the moment’s over, Kai’s pen tucked away somewhere secret. “But come to the basement thing at Scott’s when you’re done, yeah?” She only looks at me when she says it. Then she kisses Kai on the lips again, which would have made me feel awful except then she kisses me on the lips too, then twirls away toward a crowd of people. She hops on some guy’s back and they take off down the hill toward the parking lot.

  Kai walks ahead of me and I don’t even try to hold back. “She’s weird as hell.”

  He nods. Pops a hand-rolled into his mouth. “So am I.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “So are you.”

  I laugh. “No.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If I’m weird, it’s not on the same level as you and Dahlia.”

  “Fair enough.”

  We take two lefts and a right and then we’re walking out of a gate and across the football field. It’s huge. It gives me chills. Westview’s field is standard, but this one seems bigger than a regulation-size field. The bleachers ci
rcle the field, and from where I’m standing I can spot at least three couples underneath them, lips locked, teeth checking.

  The coach’s office is through the men’s locker room. The same way it always is. So I bolster my resolve and push my way through. Kai doesn’t follow me.

  I panic for just a small moment, whisper a prayer under my breath that this will be easy. I asked for this, I remind myself. I needed this.

  Lucky for me, I don’t catch any free-ballers or waving dicks as I walk through. And there’s not a big fuss when I make my way down the hall and past the showers, either. Some of the boys gape at me as they change into their cleats, jerseys, and basketball shorts, but that’s it. And then I’m knocking as I turn the knob on the coach’s door. Across the front it says, COACH J. RASS.

  It makes me sweat a little that I don’t know his first name.

  When I walk in, I cringe. The coach is reaming some tall blond kid.

  “I don’t care, daggone it! You cheated on this test, Jay. You know how I feel about cheating. Cheat on your test, you’ll cheat on your wife. I don’t allow cheaters on my team.”

  “Coach—”

  “Unacceptable. Turn in your jerseys and get to detention.”

  I freeze in the doorway. This guy is nuts. I mean, I’m not a fan of cheaters either, but Jesus Christ.

  The cheater, Jay, shoves by me as he storms out of the office.

  “Who the hell’s in my doorway? Get in here, girl.”

  Coach J. Rass is a Scandinavian-looking overlord. He looks like he’s pushing fifty. Maybe older.

  “What?” he barks.

  I jump.

  “The dean send you? You the new office girl?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why you lurking in my locker room, then? You some kind of pervert?”

  “What? No, I-I just … I’m Taze Quirk. I’m new. I want to try out for your team, sir.”

  “I coach football. The volleyball coach’s office is through the ladies’.”

  I nod. “Yes, sir. I’m aware. But I’m here to try out for the football team, sir.”

  Everything gets quiet. The walls, the clocks, Coach Rass. I know the guys in the locker room have either vacated to the field or they’re all listening in on what’s going on.

  “You played football before?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For an official team?”

  I nod. “Sir.”

  “Touch?”

  “Tackle.”

  “With boys?”

  “Yes, sir. Only ever with boys.” It’s true. I’ve never played tackle with another girl before. I’m in the middle of teaching Slim to throw a football. It’s not going well, but only because she doesn’t care about the fact that the football needs to reach my hands when she throws it.

  He nods. “What position you play?”

  Hot damn, he’s considering it? “CB, sir.”

  “Roster’s deep at corner.”

  “I know, sir. I played for Westview. I was one of their starters. I’d be willing to challenge for playing time.”

  He laughs. At me. In case that wasn’t clear. I’m getting sick of white men laughing at me because I’m female, because I’m Black. Because I’m a Black female.

  “That’s precious. I don’t allow girls on my field. Ever. I don’t even know what kind of regulations that would violate. And God forbid you”—Dear God, not a tampon joke—“need to take a personal day for PMS pains during the season.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Mine too, little girl. Now please get on out of my locker room. My guys got practice soon and this conversation has taken up too much of my time already.”

  “But it’s perfectly legal for me to play on your team. At Westview—All you have to do is—I can try out, and if—”

  “I don’t give two bitches in a flying cooch about what your mom told you regarding your talent and your dreams and your girl power. Now, I’m sorry, and I know it’s rough being the new kid. But there’s no spot for you on this team. Not this season, and probably not next either, but you’re free to try me again next year.”

  Shit. The dam. I feel it spidering, fracturing, cracking, release release release.

  I run.

  Chapter Twenty

  Okay. That didn’t go well, did it? My face is still leaking when I push my way out of the locker room and straight into Kai.

  He grabs me by the arms. “Whoa. Hang on.”

  I don’t know why I finally realize what he’s wearing. Nikes, rust-red track pants with black leather patches at the knees, fitted. A long, oversize gray knit sweater that reaches past his hips. A purple, backwards cap on his head, the handwriting on which just says Thot Topic all over it. If it’s a joke, I’m not sure I get it.

  Kai laughs. “Merrick says the same thing. It is a joke though.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “It’s okay, Talky. Tell me what happened—wait. Are you crying?” He looks horrified, like he’s just been told he’ll be locked in a room alone with Emily for an hour.

  Female tears? Shit! Run!

  Denial comes out so fast, like, “I’mnotcrying.”

  “Yes, you are. Stop it,” Kai says. He uses his entire hand—palm and all—to wipe the very obvious tears off my face. “Stop it. Stop crying.”

  “You’re crying.” I try to move away from him, but he uses his sleeve to wipe snot from my nose while using his other hand at the back of my neck to keep me still.

  “Stop,” he says again.

  “You stop.”

  He growls and stops his cleanup, then walks back toward the locker room.

  “N-no. Wait. Kai. Wait!”

  “I’m just going to ask him—”

  “He said I can’t play. Can’t be on the team. I just want to play football and have parents who love me and don’t lie to me, people who get it, and I want to be enough of one thing to satisfy people, but apparently that’s not happening for me.”

  And Kai is so silent for a second that I worry he’s going to tell me to suck it up and get the hell over it. He doesn’t. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and puts his ugly purple hat on my head.

  I feel his lips press into my head. It’s not a kiss. It’s something different. More solid. And I’m so done with holding things back today that I literally just can’t anymore, so I say, “Kai, is Dahlia your girlfriend?” There. It’s out and running around like a wild thing. The giant green jealousy monster inside me rears up at the thought of them being A Thing on even the most minor level. And I’d swear earlier Dahlia was shoving it right in my face.

  “Mm,” Kai says. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

  And even though I don’t know what “I don’t think so” means, I take it and run with it.

  I run, again.

  Kai and I get in my Jeep to head to Scott’s, but before we get on the 101, he has me detour to a place called Bounce Boba Loft, where we stop and get HK bubble tea with honey boba.

  “Your dad’s a lawyer, right?” Kai says as he uses his fat straw to chase a tapioca ball.

  “Yeah. So?”

  He shrugs. “So if you want to play football, maybe he should step in.”

  “You have a point, but I’m not speaking to him.” And I give Kai a basic rundown of why exactly not. Why forgiveness is just an eleven-letter word right now. “I mean, they both lied to me, so.”

  “Well. You just don’t want to need him. Your dad or your mom.”

  “Well, I tried to need them both, and they dropped the frickin’ ball. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I need people who know what they’re doing. Who want to give me answers.” Who want to help me figure out who sent that stupid detonator of a box.

  “None of us knows what we’re doing. All you got, really, is people who are willing to figure it out.”

  My head cuts sharply in his direction, which wouldn’t be a problem if I weren’t driving. Kai yells, “Jesus, can you drive, please!”

  And so I turn back to the
road, and I drive. But that’s the thing—Mamma and Daddy aren’t willing to figure it out.

  “Look,” I say. “Even if I was that desperate—”

  “Aren’t you?”

  The Jeep is not a quiet vehicle. It’s old and creaky and clunky and made entirely of metal, probably. So, while I may be having a quiet moment, the Jeep and everything else around me is not.

  “No,” I say finally. “Or, kinda. Not really.”

  Kai slurps. Grabs my bubble tea out of my cup holder and sips a little. “You are.”

  “You are.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, okay. But listen. If you got your lawyer dad involved, the coach would have to let you at least try out. He only said no to you because you’re a girl.”

  “That’s sexist.”

  “Hey, don’t yell at me. I know it’s sexist. I’m just telling you that it’s also a fact. Turn here.”

  I make the left-hand turn, chewing on a tapioca ball as well as his words.

  “You don’t even really have to be the one to ask for help.”

  I glance at him briefly. “Where am I going?”

  “Turn left on Platt. You could probably get Merrick to ask him to step in.”

  Tristan would call that the coward’s way. Kai, the exact opposite, obviously thinks it’s smart. Thinking of Trist and Kai in the same world is weird.

  A world where both sides of my family come together is weird, and I hate that it is.

  Still, I think Kai is right.

  When we pull over on Scott’s street and park, Kai reaches into his bag and grabs a piece of thread and a bit of thin gold wire. He picks up a strand of my hair and weaves the wire and the thread around a lock of it.

  “Pretty weird you just had these in your bag,” I say.

  He shakes his head at me when he’s done with my hair and lifts his wrist. There’s a bracelet made out of the same thin gold wire and thread around it.

  “Can I have it?”

  Kai shakes his head no again, and then removes the bracelet and puts it around my wrist.

  “It’s okay to push back, Taze. It’s okay to tell people they’re wrong about you. It’s okay to tell that dickbag, sexist coach that you got skills. It’s okay to tell Merrick he needs to talk to your dad about helping you out. It’s o-flipping-kay. You get me?”