He spoke quietly—my first signal that something was wrong. “You know the Valentine’s Day dance later this month?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking that this wasn’t a very promising beginning if he was going to ask me to go with him. There wasn’t any excitement in his voice.
“I was kind of thinking I’d take Elizabeth.” He wasn’t doing a great job of making eye contact with me, I noticed, because I was staring straight at him in surprise. I felt more physically shocked than anything, like someone had slammed into me from every possible side and somehow I was still upright.
“Oh,” I said. He had to know how much this would hurt me, didn’t he?
He did. His face looked worried. “Mikey, I think we might be getting too serious. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I mean, we do a pretty good job of hanging out in groups and all that, but I think you and I both know that we’re basically together. And everyone else knows it too. It might be a good idea for us to go out with other people more and each other a little less.”
It was hard to breathe for a minute or maybe it was way too easy to breathe. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel quite normal. “What do you mean? Are you saying we shouldn’t date at all anymore?”
The pause before he spoke was my answer. “Maybe we shouldn’t, at least not for a while. We’re more than just friends and that could get us hurt at some point. It’s getting a little too serious for me. It seems like the best thing to do is to take a step back.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t like me anymore?” I asked. “Because if you don’t, you should just come out and say it and not try to let me down easy.” I was a little mad, I’ll admit.
“No,” he said, moving a little closer. He was very earnest. “It’s because I like you a lot that I don’t want to date you anymore. I just don’t want to be on the line like that because the potential for getting hurt is too big.” Ethan was speaking very quietly and slowly now. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it makes a lot of sense to me. Can’t you see what I’m saying? We can still be good friends and hang out with the group without going on dates and all of that.”
All of that. All of that was holding hands on the bus after track meets. All of that was sitting together in his living room while he practiced his guitar and I did my homework.
It was having a food fight at a picnic with some friends one Saturday.
It was hanging out with other people now and then and having it not matter if I had a good time or not because eventually I’d go out with Ethan again and it would be wonderful.
It was the feeling of watching the minutes in chemistry count down until class was over, waiting for the few minutes in the hall we’d have together.
It was hearing the phone ring and knowing that it was going to be for me.
It was getting up in the morning and caring about what I wore because I wanted Ethan to like it; conversely, it was getting up in the morning and not caring about what I wore because Ethan would like it anyway.
It was daydreaming about our first kiss on the bus on the way home from the State Championships.
Most of all it was knowing that I belonged to someone who valued me for who I was. It’s not like I was Ethan’s property. It was that in the nicest, most comfortable way possible I felt like someone had chosen me and that I had chosen him and that we cared about each other.
It meant that when something bad or something good happened, there was always someone to talk to who cared. That I would have a date to the dances and games and someone to hold hands with. That we both respected each other and our beliefs and helped each other uphold those beliefs.
I don’t think adults understand how lonely it is to be a teenager. We can’t embrace and cling to our parents for comfort; we’ve outgrown that. We’ve outgrown it from them but still need it from someone. We are looking for someone to fill that void.
But how could I argue with Ethan? He looked so sad, and so sure.
“What are you thinking?” he finally asked.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “If you like me, and I like you, and we’re not doing anything wrong, I don’t understand the problem.”
“I was at my dad’s this weekend,” he said, “and he’s all alone, and it got me thinking about how hard that would be. I’m not ready for this stuff. I want everything to go back to the way it was.” He stopped and said it again, more quietly, “I want everything to go back to the way it was.”
•••
Ethan was right about the fact that we would still hang out, but he was wrong about everything else. We were friendly and we still saw each other on the weekends when everyone hung out, but we both knew that everything had changed and so did everyone else. I hated that part of it most of all—the part where we were acting like nothing was different when the very foundation of our relationship, our friendship, had shifted beneath our feet.
I started hanging out more with Julie on our own and less and less with the group, just to avoid the weirdness and awkwardness and sadness I felt around Ethan. I also tried to be friendly to Elizabeth, whom Ethan did end up asking to the dance, but it was hard. I could tell that she felt strange about it too. For the first time, I was glad that Ethan and I weren’t in the same ward. Then I’d have to see him every morning at early-morning seminary and every week at church.
As it was, seeing him in the halls and at running practice was enough daily contact for me. Somehow, though, even though he was there, workout became an escape for me. Ironically, as Ethan became harder and harder for me to understand, Andrea became less of a mystery. I could understand why she kept people at arm’s length, why she always ignored the guys vying for her attention. It had to be easier that way, right?
I came to understand how frustration could be a powerful, motivating force for running. I was running faster and faster, even though my shins had been hurting me—and I mean hurting—for a few weeks. Coach and I both thought it was a bad case of shin splints, which I’d had before. I was trying to run through the pain but not overdo it, which is what worked for me before. In a weird way, the physical pain was a relief because then it was all I thought about instead of the heartache I was feeling.
•••
The day before the Valentine’s Dance was an especially cold day. No one had asked me to the dance, which I was alternately happy and sad about. I was glad because then I wouldn’t have to go and see Ethan and Elizabeth together. I was sad because it would have been nice to be asked and to get all dressed up and show Ethan that nothing was bothering me.
Julie and I had plans to watch movies instead and make our favorite homemade salsa and smoothies. It wasn’t a plan that would set the world on fire, I admit, but it would be fun, and I wouldn’t be sitting home alone, which in my present mood was not a great idea.
As I dressed for our workout that day, I realized that I had forgotten a hat, which meant my ears were going to freeze. While we stood around waiting for Coach to organize our workout schedule, I spent the time covering my poor ears with my hands and trying not to look in Ethan’s direction. We’d already had one little awkward, “Hi, how are you?” interaction in the hall today and that was enough.
I heard him say, “Mikey, do you want my hat?” and without looking at him, I responded, “I’m fine,” and turned away. I didn’t care if I hurt his feelings. He’d already hurt mine.
Suddenly Dave’s face popped up in front of mine. “Here,” he said, shoving a wool hat of his into my hands. “Your head is going to freeze.”
“Thanks, Dave,” I said gratefully, taking it from him. It was what I needed—a hat without emotional baggage attached. The fact that it came from another guy, even though that guy was David, didn’t hurt.
So there, Ethan, I thought, pulling the hat over my frozen ears. I didn’t care what I looked like, which was good since Dave’s clothes are a little eclectic. This hat, for example, was a red and green Christmas tree hat with a giant yellow pom-pom star on top.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” I asked David. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that both Becketts were watching our interaction closely, which was kind of odd. Why did Andrea care who Dave or I talked to? I turned to look at her and she looked away.
Dave shrugged. “I’ve got an extra one in my car. Almost anything you could ever need is in my car.”
I laughed. “That’s the truth.” I remembered the time we’d all been waiting in line forever for a movie and he’d produced a game of Clue for us to play. He also had a package of stale Twinkies that no one had been willing to eat—except for Dave himself, who ate them with gusto while his character, Colonel Mustard, solved the game in record time. “Thanks for the hat, Dave.”
“No problem,” he said, and turned to jog to his car. He caught Andrea looking at us again and he gave her a little salute as he ran away. I saw her smiling back at him.
Coach told us that we were going to go on a three-mile run looping through the neighborhoods around the high school. It was an easy run, but one that would hurt my shins nonetheless, especially since I’ve been trying to keep up with Andrea for at least the first part of each run. I groaned inwardly a little as we started off. Andrea runs a little more slowly at the beginning of each run, but it isn’t long before she’s full steam ahead, and even the pace she was setting now at the beginning was hurting my shins today. Still, I stayed with her.
“Mikey,” she said, about half a mile into the run when she started to pick up the pace, “you should probably take it easy today. Your stride is off. I can tell that this is hurting you a lot more than you’re letting on.”
She was direct, but her voice was pretty kind. “I think I’ll be all right,” I said.
She shook her head a little bit. “Suit yourself.”
Andrea is merciless, with herself most of all, and I knew that. She never cuts anyone any slack—herself included—during workout. She wasn’t going to make me quit and she wasn’t going to slow down for me.
It hurt even more than usual to try to run with her. A sharp, stabbing ache shot through the length of my whole shin with every step. I felt some tears come to my eyes that weren’t just from the cold wind. I told myself, Just stick with Andrea until the end of this street. Then you can back off a little.
We were almost there when it happened. It felt like someone took my leg in their big mean hands and snapped it like a twig. I fell down, scraping my other knee hard in my efforts to save the hurt leg. A sound came out of my mouth. I don’t know what it was, but it couldn’t have been pretty, because Andrea turned around instantly, a look of horror on her face. The girls behind us almost fell on top of me, but then they caught themselves and everyone stood around watching me crying on the ground.
I’ve never been speechless with pain before, but I was then. I just clutched my leg and sort of gasped and cried at the same time. It hurt, and my other knee, bloody and full of gravel, hurt almost as much.
Everyone was talking at once. “What happened?” “What should we do?” “Mikey, are you okay?”
“No, she’s not okay,” I heard Andrea say. “I’m going to go into that house and use their phone. You guys stay here with her. I’ll be right back.” She was gone before she finished the sentence.
My friend Jana put her arm around me. “Mikey, hang in there. We’ll get someone soon.”
Andrea was back in a moment. “Mikey,” she said, leaning in where I could see her, “I called for an ambulance. I called the school too. Coach Roberts is on his way over here right now.”
An ambulance? Did I really rate that kind of intervention? I took a look at my leg and almost passed out; it was bent in a way that legs shouldn’t really bend. My other leg was bleeding everywhere and Andrea wrapped her sweatshirt around it gently but firmly. Jana kept patting my arm.
Coach arrived just in time to ride in the ambulance with me. I don’t remember very much about the ride, or the X-rays after, or the part where the doctor put the cast on my leg. They also stitched up my other knee, but that was the easy part. I think they gave me some pretty good painkillers at one point.
My parents arrived and took Coach Roberts’s place before too much had happened. My mom told me later that Coach had stayed in the waiting room for a long time to make sure I was okay. Andrea hung around for a long time too.
The doctor later explained that I had been running with an injury all right, but it wasn’t shin splints. It was tiny little stress fractures and the constant pressure and pushing through the pain had finally resulted in an actual break in my leg. Coach felt horrible. “I told her to keep running,” he kept saying. The doctor told him, “She must have a very high pain threshold.”
I’ve never thought of myself as having a high pain threshold, but this month was making a believer out of me. My mom made a lame joke about how that would serve me well when I had kids, but the bottom line was that I was out for the rest of the season and I’d have a cast on my leg for a good long time.
This was turning into the worst February on record and it was taking the rest of the spring down along with it. When I finally got home, I went straight to bed, still a little dulled from the painkillers, but aware enough to feel very, very sorry for myself.
•••
I had lots of visitors the next day—Valentine’s Day. The first was Dave Sherman, who came at lunchtime with a big bag of sub sandwiches for my family and a pan of brownies that he had made himself. I managed to make it into the kitchen for his visit and propped my leg up on one of the chairs.
Dave didn’t stay long, since he had to run some errands before he could take his sister snowboarding that afternoon. He promised he’d be back again to visit and said I should call him if I needed anything. He was a hit, as always, especially with my younger brothers. We dug into the sandwiches, which were delicious, and the brownies, which were . . . interesting. It’s the thought that counts.
We were clearing up the paper from the sandwiches and deciding how best to dispose of the rest of the brownies when the doorbell rang again. My mom answered it and I heard voices talking. I wondered who it was. I hoped it was Ethan.
“It’s Andrea Beckett,” my mom said. “I had her sit in the living room. Then you can prop your leg up on the couch. You’re not going to get a chance to rest with all these visitors.”
I hobbled into the living room where Andrea was waiting. Even though my mom hadn’t mentioned him, I had hung onto a little hope that Ethan was with her. He wasn’t. She was alone, sitting on our couch.
“Hey,” she said. “I came over to apologize.”
“For what?” I said, sitting down carefully.
“For what happened yesterday. I was pushing too hard. I should have slowed down a little. I could tell you were hurting, but I figured you’d slow down if it got too bad. I feel like a jerk.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s my own fault, not yours. How were you supposed to know how bad I was feeling?”
“That’s another thing,” said Andrea, smiling wryly. “I thought I was the biggest masochist on the team, but you’ve got me beat. How on earth were you running through stress fractures? That had to hurt like crazy.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I kept thinking that it would get better if I just ignored it and pushed through the pain.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I can understand that.”
We sat there for a second. I was trying to think of something to say when Andrea added, “You’re still going to come to the meets, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to laugh. “What would be the point?” I gestured to my leg. “I wouldn’t even be a very good cheerleader for you guys.”
“Well, I think you should come,” Andrea said seriously. “You’re one of the biggest leaders we have on the team. All of the underclassmen look up to you and like you. That’s why they voted you team captain and not me. You’re really good at encouraging them. You’re a better leader than I am.”
“Thanks
,” I said, and I meant it. Andrea doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean, so it felt really good to hear her say that about me.
“At least think about coming,” she said. “It would be really weird if you weren’t there at the meets. Plus, you could still keep an eye on the competition for next season.” And with that classic Andrea logic, she excused herself to leave, saying she was going snowboarding.
“Hold on a second,” I said. I asked my mom to bring me Dave’s hat from the day before, which was in a pile with all the other stuff we’d brought home from the hospital.
“Here,” I said mischievously, handing the hat to Andrea. “Dave might need this snowboarding today, so could you give it to him?”
“Sure,” she said. The look on her face was priceless. I could tell she wondered how I knew, but she decided not to say anything.
I laughed a little to myself. Even though I was sort of bitter about love in general, this Andrea and Dave thing could be fun to watch.
It wasn’t too much later that the doorbell rang again. This time it was Ethan.
The good feeling I had from Andrea’s visit vanished pretty quickly during Ethan’s. It started out okay. He came in with some flowers wrapped in tissue paper. They were pink tulips, my favorite. My mom excused herself and went into the kitchen to find a vase for them.
“I feel so bad about what happened,” Ethan said when we were alone. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself. I would have liked a hug, or something, but he sat down on the chair nearest me instead. “Are you all right?”
It was a dumb, generic question, one that anyone could have asked, and still it managed to bring me close to tears. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.” I didn’t trust myself to say more.
Yearbook Page 14