End of the Innocence (4 page)

Jennifer’s face moved from surprise to hurt to unreadable in a manner of seconds. “Suggesting you show up was my way of trying to make people accept you two, because I think the way you’ve been treated has been bullshit. I understand that might scare you, but do me a favor and try not to assign motives on my part, since you don’t know me.”

I could see why Brad had gone out with her.

“Sorry, but I’ve heard a lot of things you said about Brad after you guys broke up,” I countered.

“And I’ve heard from half a dozen guys you’ve made passes at them since you came out, but you don’t see me believing random gossip, do you?” Her voice wasn’t harsh, but she was obviously challenging me.

“Um, guys,” Brad said, trying to interrupt us, but we ignored him.

“So you didn’t say all that about Brad the day after?” I asked her.

“I said stuff, yeah. I was angry. But I went back and told people I was just talking shit because I realized it was unfair to him and you.” Again, she wasn’t angry, but she sure as hell wasn’t backing down.

“And you think showing up to this stupid party will change minds?” I tried to match her tone, but it was hard because I was still kinda pissed.

“I think showing up proves you aren’t afraid of them.”

“Can I say something?” Brad asked behind her.

“Hold on,” I said to him and then looked back to her. “And if they do try to kick our asses?”

She gave a smile that was nothing like a pretty-girl smile. If anything, it looked like a villain’s leer, something given to remind people how dangerous she was. “Then they have to kick my ass too.”

And damned if I didn’t believe her.

“You’re serious?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Completely,” she shot back instantly. No hesitation, no thinking about it.

If we’d been playing poker, she would have just called my bluff.

“Fine, we’ll go,” I said with all the force I could muster.

“Good.” She nodded and smiled and held her hand out to me. I took it like we were making a business deal. “This is going to be fun.”

“Do I get a say?” Brad asked in a small voice.

“No,” we both said, looking at him and then laughing out loud.

And that was how we ended up going to The Party.

B
RAD

O
KAY
then, having my ex-girlfriend and current boyfriend sit down and talk seemed like a good idea at the time. But in class after lunch, it began to dawn on me that I might have made a mistake. After agreeing to go to The Party, they seemed to get along okay, eating and talking about nothing in particular. The girl with the weird hair even got into it after a while, leaving me to wonder if I had created a monster.

I tried not to be jealous when Jennifer and Kyle talked like they were lifelong friends. Up to that point, I had been Kyle’s only friend, and I hadn’t realized how much I liked all his attention. Seeing him open up to Jennifer and what’s-her-name was cool, but I couldn’t stop wishing it was just the two of us sitting on those steps.

I tried not to think about everything as the day played out, but banishing jealousy, I discovered, was not the easiest thing to do.

When school let out, I headed toward the gym so I could change out for practice. No one had lost their mind about me being on the field with them so far, but the way the team behaved had changed. It was obvious, at least to me, that I was one of the stronger players this year, which was going to make their choice about keeping me on the team that much harder. Normally it would be a mortal lock that I was playing, but after everything that had gone down and the fact I wasn’t sure if they offered me a position I’d take it, I played as hard as I could to stack the deck in my favor. I hadn’t been bluffing when I told Principal Raymond and his good ol’ boy buddies I wouldn’t play for them if they didn’t change their attitude toward bullying. Though my dad had been spitting fire about what I’d said, my mom supported my decision to transfer to Granada if things didn’t change.

When I got to the gym, Kyle was waiting for me like he normally was. What wasn’t normal was Jennifer standing with him.

“Hey,” I said, not sure what was going on this time.

“Hey,” he answered back, stepping into my arms and throwing his arms around me.

The moments when we hugged, the world stopped moving for me and everything went away. The thousand thoughts usually lurking in my mind disappeared the second I leaned into Kyle. It was like diving in a pool after a long summer day. My entire day restarted every time we hugged.

“What’s up?” I asked as he pulled back.

Jennifer answered for him. “I was going to kidnap Kyle while you practice. I always hated sitting, waiting around for you to get done.”

“But I don’t hate it,” Kyle added quickly.

“Um, sure,” I said, confused about what was going on. “I mean, I don’t want you to just sit around waiting for me if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind!” Kyle said again, but Jennifer was already talking over him.

“Sweet. So I’ll have him back by the time you’re done,” she assured me. I wanted to ask Kyle if he wanted to go with her, but I didn’t know how to ask that without telling Jennifer to go away so I could talk to him.

“Okay,” I said, confused as they walked away. Why did that bug me so much? Did Jennifer just steal my boyfriend from me?

I tried to ignore all those thoughts as I walked into the coach’s office and changed out. The worst thing any player can do is walk onto a baseball diamond with something other than baseball in mind.

To the people in the stands, the game might look slow and leisurely, but I assure you that, out on the field, baseball is anything but. Reacting to the crack of a ball when it hits the bat means you are already too late. You should know the moment the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand whether or not the batter will get a piece of it or not. If your mind is wandering, then there is no chance for you to react in time.

As I put on my uniform, I realized life was a lot like that.

I mean you’re out there, just chilling, being yourself when—wham! A line drive slams into your face, and you’re on the ground screaming in pain because you lost focus or figured you were safe and there was no way you could end up on the ground bleeding. Because most people can’t resist looking at a car crash, there are people standing over you looking down at you as you try to look up. Some guys will feel bad for you, and others might not even care, but there will always be a few who enjoy seeing you caught off guard and slammed to the ground. They like seeing the blood flowing from your nose, and though they aren’t going to laugh out loud at you, you can see the glee in their eyes as they watch you stumble to your feet.

So yeah, that’s a metaphor for the past month or so of my life in a nutshell.

I walked onto the field, and the stress of the day just evaporated. It was getting colder, as North Texas does close to Christmas. Of course, the cold wouldn’t matter once we started laps and then drills, but right now I felt the chill of the oncoming winter and wondered if it was an omen.

Practice breezed by, and before I knew it, I was heading back to the locker room. I had no idea how much time had passed. I stopped to pick up my glove, and when I got to the doors, I saw Kelly standing next to the stands. I felt my heart begin to race as I searched the shadows to see if he had brought company. All of a sudden, however, I stopped being scared and moved straight into fury. When exactly had the sight of a person standing in the shadows begun to scare me?

“What do you want?” I asked, still unsure if he was alone.

He held up his hands in surrender as he realized how pissed off I really was. “I just wanted to talk. I’m alone,” he added quickly, and I knew he was telling the truth. Kelly was a lot of things, but a master liar was not one of them.

The steps to the locker room led under the stands, so there was a small alcove made of cement just before the locker room doors. I leaned against the wall across from him to escape the growing winds as the night got colder and colder. “Okay, then talk.”

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets as he tried to figure out what to say. “So how you been?” he threw out after a few seconds.

“Fuck this,” I said, moving toward the doors again.

“Okayokayokayokay wait!” he called out, moving between the door and me. “I wanted to ask if you were coming to The Party.”

As Kyle would put it, my spider sense began to tingle. I wondered if the timing of Jennifer’s decision to talk had anything to do with Kelly’s appearance and suddenly needed to know if Kyle was okay. “Did you think I would go?” I shot back. Where was Kelly going with his questions?

He stomped his feet as he walked around in a circle. “Fuck, it’s cold.” His breath was fogging now. “Okay, look, things got weird and a lot of shit went down.” He paused like he was expecting me to say something. Instead, I just stared at him. “Anyways, some people have asked about you, and I told them I didn’t know….”

He took a deep breath.

“Look, if you were to come, it would be okay. Nothing would happen, and no one would do anything.” He looked at me, and I could see the old, pleading Kelly peering back at me in his eyes. “I would like you to come.”

I gave him a few seconds to add anything else, but he didn’t. “I’ll think about it,” I said curtly. “Anything else?”

There was a ton more he wanted to say. I could tell from the way he hesitated, but expressing his feelings through long, drawn-out speeches was not one of Kelly’s strong points. He shifted from one foot to the other as he struggled with something to say. “You looked good out there,” he said finally, gesturing toward the field.

“Anything else?” I repeated.

He moved away from the door. “No. Thanks for listening.”

I rushed inside, partly because I was freezing now and partly because the feeling that someone was going to rush out of the shadows at me wouldn’t go away. Coach Gunn was standing at the door of his office. “You coming, Greymark, or what?”

I squashed the feeling and rushed into his office so I could change out before he kicked me out of the gym so he could lock up.

K
YLE

W
HEN
I got up this morning, if you asked me what the chances were that I’d end up being kidnapped by my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, I would have said close to impossible. Yet here I was, getting into Jennifer’s green Honda Accord and wondering exactly when my day had slipped into the Twilight Zone.

Taylor Swift came screaming out of her speakers as she started the car.

She lunged for the radio, accidentally hitting the windshield controls with her elbow at the same time her seat belt, triggered by the driver’s side door closing, tried to wrap itself around her. For a moment, her car looked like it was trying to swallow her, and I just had to laugh out loud at the image. She spun over to look at me quickly, and it looked like she was checking to see if I was making fun of her, but when she saw half the things on her car going off she started to chuckle too.

“Some days I think this car is out to get me,” she admitted after she turned off the windshield wipers.

“It’s nice, though,” I said, wishing I had a car, any car.

“Yeah, it’s great until your grades start to suck. Then your dad threatens you with it. Then it’s an albatross around your neck.” I tried not to look shocked that she even knew that reference but obviously was pretty bad at it. She gave me a small smile and said. “Yeah, I’ve read a book or two.”

“Actually it’s a poem. But still, nice use.”

She turned the music up louder. “Okay, you’re smart, I get it. No one likes a show-off.”

I was still laughing when we pulled out of the parking lot.

As she pulled onto First Street, I pointed to the radio. “I love this song!”

She nodded in agreement. “She has the best breakup songs on earth!”

And suddenly I felt like shit again.

I didn’t say anything for like two songs. She didn’t notice until we pulled up to the light at East Avenue. “You got quiet,” she said, turning the music down.

“You must have really hated me,” I said, wishing I was anywhere else but here.

“’Cause of Brad?” she asked. I nodded. “No, I hated him; you, I didn’t know. And once I did, I felt sorry for you.”

That made my head spin. “Why would you feel sorry for me?”

She shrugged. “Because I assumed Brad would be with you like he was with me, and I had to feel sorry for anyone going through that.”

Okay, not feeling so bad now and moving toward annoyed. “Go through what?” I asked in a voice that was harsher than I meant.

She must have caught the hint because she quickly added, “No! I meant the way he and I treated each other. We were horrible when we were together. In fact, when I saw you guys together I realized how wrong I was.”

And now on to confused. “I don’t understand.”

She pulled over, parking in front of a small thrift store I’d never been in before. I waited for her to turn the car off and think her words out. “Brad and I dated each other because we were supposed to. When he was a freshman, he ended up hitting this home run that won an important game, and suddenly he was the most popular guy in the world. My friends told me I had to go out with him, not because I liked him, but because I was
supposed
to.” She took a deep breath, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. “We didn’t so much date as we used each other as accessories. I was a pretty girl to take to parties, and he was a cute boy to walk around school with. And I really think we hated each other for it.”

“Did you know about him?” I asked softly.

“That he liked guys?” she more asked herself than me. “Not really. Well… most guys who play sports are always all over each other after three beers. Every party I’ve ever been to has ended up with two or three guys on the ground wrestling each other for no real reason, so he wasn’t gayer than anyone else. But I’ll be honest; even when he’s with you, he doesn’t seem gay.”

I felt my chest seize up as she began to voice all my inner fears out loud.