Authors: Katie McGarry
“Ryan, stop, please.” I’ve never heard Beth plead before and I want to look at her and confirm those words actually fell out of her mouth, but I don’t dare. I keep solid eye contact with the asshole in front of me.
An insane smile tugs at his lips. “You think she wants you? Is that what you think? That you’re some type of real man because you
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torture her at school? Because you spill her secrets? Because you humiliate her? You think she wants a guy that makes her cry?”
“Isaiah!” yells Beth.
His arm snaps back and so does mine. A
large figure surges from my left and instead of the hit I’m prepared to take as I throw, Noah pushes Isaiah into a car. “Back off, bro.”
“How could you!” I expect to see Beth’s
frigid, accusing stare in my direction. Instead, it’s fixed on Isaiah. Her entire body shakes and she rubs her left arm with her right hand. A continuous motion over and over again. “How could you tell him that?”
Isaiah blinks and the anger drains out of him. “Beth…”
She rushes to the Jeep. “Let’s go.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I shove the keys in the ignition before I shut the door and roar out of the parking lot. Hitting the freeway, I click on my seat belt as Beth rests her head against the passenger window.
I search for the anger I felt earlier and try to find a way to blame her. She was the one that left. She was the one that spent time with those two guys. But the only thought turning in my
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brain is the accusation Isaiah spat at me: I make her cry.
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LIVING IS LIKE BEING CHAINED at the bottom of a shallow pond with my eyes open and no air. I can see distorted images of happiness and light, even hear muffled laughter, but
everything is out of my reach as I lie in suffocating agony. If death is the opposite of living, then I hope death is like floating.
I’ve never fought with Isaiah and Noah like that. I never thought Isaiah would betray me, but he has. I trusted my best friend with secrets—secrets I’ve never told another living soul. He knows about my father, he knows
about my mother, he knows how many times a man has slapped a hand across my face…he
knows that Ryan, the way he offers friendship when I know he’s only playing me, hurts.
Resting my forehead against the glass of the passenger-side window, I watch the multiple
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white lines in the middle of the road speed by. On the two-lane road leading to my uncle’s house, Ryan passes a tractor trailer, easily doing sixty in a forty-five. I sort of wish I had the courage to open the door and fall out.
It would hurt, but then the pain would be over when I died. All the pain. The
indescribable ache in my chest, the heaviness in my head, the hard lump in my throat—it would all be gone.
We’ve ridden in silence. I’m not sure if it’s been an uncomfortable silence as I am on the verge of numb. I’m striving for numb. I crave numb. I want to be high.
The Jeep veers to the left and we begin the trip down the long driveway. My stomach
growls. We never ate.
When he reaches the house, Ryan places the Jeep in park and immediately turns off the engine. I hate the country. With no lights, the woods and fields become the playground of my nightmares. My skin pricks at the thought of the devil waiting in the darkness to snatch me up and expel me into nothingness.
There are so many things Ryan can do. He
can yell. He can go inside and tell Scott
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everything. The latter would make him the upstanding kid that Scott wants me to be. It would also crush the remains of my life. Scott will send Mom to jail.
And me? I’ll want to die.
Four hours ago, pride would have never let me say the words, but there’s nothing left inside me. “I’m sorry.”
Frogs croak near the creek that borders
Scott’s farm. Ryan says nothing back and I don’t blame him. There really is nothing for him to say to a girl like me.
He examines the keys in his hands. “You
played me for a ride into Louisville.”
“Yes.” And if my plan had worked, I would be gone, and my uncle would have blamed
him.
“You planned to meet with that guy instead of spending time with me.”
“Yes.” He deserves honesty and that is as honest an answer as I can give him.
He twirls the keys around his finger. “From the moment you walked into Taco Bell, you were nothing more than a dare. Chris and
Logan dared me to get your phone number and then I was dared to take you on a date.”
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The words sting, but I struggle to keep
the pain from surfacing. What more should I expect? He’s everything that’s right with the world. I’m everything wrong. Guys like him don’t go for girls like me.
“I almost got into a fight for you.”
“I know.” And I say those rare words again:
“I’m sorry.”
Ryan sticks the key into the ignition and starts the engine. “You owe me. I’ll pick you up at seven on Friday. No games this time. A simple night. We go to the party. We hang for an hour. I win my dare, then I take you home.
You go back to ignoring me. I’ll ignore you.”
“Fine.” I should be happy, but I’m not. This is what I thought I wanted. Behind the
numbness is an ache waiting to torture me. I open the door to the Jeep and close it without looking back.
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STATE LAW KEEPS ME from pitching more than fifteen innings a week. I’m only brought in on Thursday games if our other two pitchers dig us a hole. Three innings ago, when Coach put me in, we were so far deep we couldn’t see daylight. Not that the rain helps.
It’s rained for two weeks. Two weeks’ worth of games have been called. Two weeks’ worth of parties have been canceled. Two weeks of me and Beth ignoring each other.
Everyone is anticipating that the rain will end tonight and the field party will finally take place tomorrow. I’m ready too—eager to win the dare and have Beth officially out of my life.
Bottom of the seventh with the score tied, I need to hold this last batter to send the game into extra innings. Light rain cools the heat on
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the back of my neck. Pooled droplets drip from the brim of my hat. The ball’s slick. So is my hand. I hate playing in the rain, but guys in the majors do it all the time.
The intensity of the rain increases. I can barely read Logan’s signal. Out of habit, I peek at the runner on first, but I can’t see a damn thing. I wind back and the game-changing
sound of nature intervenes: thunder and
lightning.
“Off the field!” the umpire shouts.
My cleats sink in the mud as I walk to the dugout. This is the third rain delay of the game.
There won’t be another. The game is done.
“Great job, guys.” Coach claps each one of us on our soggy backs as we enter. “Drive home safely. Severe weather is moving
through.”
Rain beats against the roof. I don’t see the point of a roof if everything underneath it is wet. The seats. The equipment. Our bags. I quickly change shoes, tying my Nikes harder and faster than normal.
Knowing me better than anyone else, Chris wedges his large body onto the bench beside me. “We didn’t lose.”
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Rain cancellations don’t count. “We
didn’t win either.”
“You would have pulled us out.”
“Maybe.” I stand and sling my bag over my shoulder. “But I’ll never know.”
The rest of the team chatters, changes shoes, and waits in the dugout for the worst of the rain to end. I’m not in the mood for company and I’m already wet. The rain hammers my
back as I head to the parking lot.
“Hey!” Chris runs to catch me. “What’s your deal, dawg?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” he yells over the rain. “You’ve been a walking mood for two weeks.”
I open the door to my Jeep and toss my bag into the back. Beth. That’s what happened, but I can’t tell Chris that. I’m ending my losing streak tomorrow when the rain moves out and Beth comes with me to the party.
“Maybe he’ll tell me.” Standing next to
Chris, Lacy looks like a drowned rat with her hair plastered to her face. When the rain began an hour ago, she sought shelter in Chris’s car.
“Take me home, Ryan.”
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The last thing I want is to be trapped in a car with her. “I’m not your boyfriend.”
“No,” she yells as another clap of thunder vibrates in the sky. “You’re my friend.”
Lacy kisses Chris’s cheek and runs to the passenger side. I glance at Chris and he nods.
“She doesn’t want to be mad at you anymore.”
I hop into the Jeep and start it up. In Lacy-like style, she goes to work turning on the heat and switching the radio to her favorite country station before lowering the sound. “Did you and Beth have a fight?”
The windshield wipers whine at a fast rate as I pull out of the parking lot. I wonder what Lacy knows. I didn’t tell anyone that Beth and I went into Louisville. “Is that what she said?”
“No. I finally scored her home number the other week and her uncle told me you guys were out.”
I calculate how this affects the dare. “Did you tell Chris?”
“It’s not my business to tell. Did you take her into Louisville because of the dare?”
“Yes.”
“So the dare’s done. That’s why you’ve been ignoring her?”
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Silence. Why is Lacy making me feel
like a dick? Beth’s the one that screwed me over. She owes me this. “She treats you like crap, Lace. Why do you care?”
Lacy doesn’t live far from the community
ballpark. I ease into her drive and watch the hanging ferns on the front porch blowing in the wind.
“She was my friend.”
“Was! She was…”
Lacy holds both her hands out. “Stop. Listen to me. I’m not you. I’ve never been you. You walk into any situation and it’s automatically perfect. I’m not perfect. I never have been.”
What is she talking about? If Lace only
knew how broken my family is; how since
Mark left we’re slowing dying. “I’m not
perfect.”
“Will you shut up?! God, I can’t get you
guys to say crap half the time and then anytime I try to actually SAY something worth saying, one of you interrupts me. So shut up!”
I gesture with my hand for her to continue.
“No one liked me, Ryan. Daddy moved us to Groveton when I was four and I knew then
nobody liked me. My mom tried playdate after
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playdate and put me in preschool and no
matter what, I was considered the outsider. I’m not you. I’m not Logan. I’m not Chris. I can’t trace my roots to the founding fathers. I can’t eat Sunday chicken with my grandma after
church because she doesn’t live on the next property over, but three states away.”
I rub the back of my head, unsure if I should speak and if I do, what to say. Lacy never seemed to care what people thought of her.
“We never treated you different.”
She sighs heavily. “Why do you think I’ve hung out with you since sixth grade? Do you think I love baseball that much?”
I chuckle. “Don’t let Chris hear you say you aren’t a diehard fan.”
“I love him,” she says, and I understand that means that she also loves anything he loves.
“Anyway, the whole point is, Beth liked me.
When Gwen was mean to me…”
My mouth opens to protest. She points at me and narrows her eyes. “Don’t say a word. One, I told you to shut up. Two, this is my
monologue and not yours. Three, she’s a bitch.
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perfect-so-the-whole-world-will-love-me
act, she made my life hell. I was labeled weird before I entered kindergarten, yet Beth liked me.
“When Gwen made me cry, Beth held my
hand and told me that she loved me. When
Gwen’s friends told me I couldn’t play on the swings, Beth pushed them off and told me the swings were mine. Beth taught me what it
meant to have friends. I don’t know what the hell happened to her between third grade and now, but I owe her. Here’s the thing—I love you and I love her, but I swear to God I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her.”
Lacy has thrown out too much to process, so I focus on what I know. “You’ll kick my ass?”
She cracks a smile. “Okay, maybe not, but I will be pissed off and I don’t like being pissed off at you.”
I don’t like her being pissed off at me either.
“She’s coming with me to the party.”
Disappointment clouds her face. “Dare or
date?”
“Dare.” I don’t lie to friends. “But Beth knows it.”
“If she knows, doesn’t that break the rules?”
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I shrug. “We don’t have a rule book.”
The porch light flips on and the front door opens. Through the pouring rain, I barely see Lacy’s mom. I wave at her. A second later, she waves back.
“She thinks all Chris and I do is make out in cars.” Lacy’s hand flutters away any further discussion about her and Chris making out in cars, which is fine by me.
I’d rather think about Beth. Who is she? The girl Lacy swears is a true friend? The girl with blond hair who loved ribbons and fancy
dresses? The girl who crawls underneath my skin and stays? The girl strong enough to tell me what she really thinks of me? The girl who looks so small and defenseless at times that I wonder if she can survive in the world on her own? Lacy may hate me for these words, but they have to be said. “Maybe Beth isn’t who you think she is.”
“Funny,” Lacy says. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”
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