How I Fall (48 page)

“Wow. That’s so morbid.” I laugh. “Do I have to answer that stupid question? If you
want
me to wait, I’ll wait. If you don’t, then I won’t. I’m not the type to hold out if it’s only one sided.” My throat gets all sandpapery. “It’s not, is it?””

He kisses me swiftly on the cheek and says, “Believe me, Ellen this is not at all one sided. Why do you think I’ve dragged these people here as witnesses? I’m hoping public humiliation will make my dad back off.” He motions to the news team, and they move closer. “Here’s the rest of the news story I told you about. Why I had to quit the team! This is my girlfriend, Ellen Foster. And if Huron High School is going to have rules from the dark ages that make me choose between loving this beautiful girl and playing football, I’m going to have to go with her!”

The news camera man shouts out: “Camden, can you say all that again? I just got the camera rolling.”

I shake my head and whisper, “How about you don’t say that again for the camera? Are you insane?”

Cam’s dad pushes forward, capturing the attention of the news camera and the whole crowd while chuckling this fake, creepy laugh. “I swear I think this girl’s brainwashed my son, but of course he doesn’t mean what he said back there. He’s not going to quit the team and leave his boys hanging just before the biggest game of the year, are you son? Dating can wait because we think he’s too young to date.” Cam’s dad has stepped up behind us. He’s smiling for the camera, but the grip he places on my shoulder is anything but gentle. “This is a private conversation, and it’s time to get my boy home so he can rest. I hope you all don’t mind.”

Suddenly Cam’s dad and Tanner are pulling us apart. Worse, they’re holding Cam between them in a locked grip. “You guys, stop it!” Cam’s struggling unsuccessfully against them as they pull him farther away from me. “Do you see how they are?” he shouts to the news crew. “Bastards! Let me go.”

The only thing that saves me from falling is that I’ve managed to grab on to the back of Cam’s jersey as they try to pull him farther away from me. I’m right there to hear Cam’s dad speaking to Cam under his breath. “Son, I want you to publicly take back what you said about quitting the team and then we are leaving. Do it, or else.” His voice has gone brittle. Scary.

“No.” Cam whips around to try to put his arm around me but Tanner moves to block him. Suddenly I’m blocked with elbows and arms and Cam’s jersey is yanked out of my grip as they both propel Cam to the other side of the crowd and away from me!

The lack of an anchor to my balance has me falling flat on my chest in front of everyone. Of course, I can’t move because I didn’t even have time to block my fall with my good hand. Every ounce of air just whooshed out of me. Between my CP spiking double because I’m so embarrassed, and the fact that only a trickle of air is getting back into the lungs so far, I’m simply stuck here.

*To stave off a panic attack that would only make things worse, Ellen Foster reads all of the shoe brands gathered around: Nike, Vans, Adidas, Timberland. Toms.*

The crowd gasps as I manage to at least flip to my side. I’m catch Cam’s frantic gaze as he struggles, still unsuccessfully, against his dad’s grip, shouting, “Let me go you bastards! You knocked her down. Don’t you see what you did?”

Laura’s voice reaches me next. “What’s wrong with all of you lookie-loos, help the poor, wee-lassie to her feet you pack of uncivilized ZOMBIES!”

“Go back to Ireland, you freak!” Tanner Gold shouts out.

I struggle into a half sitting position and as the news cameras move in for my big close-up, something wet lands on my face! Wet, and blue—and frozen. Everyone else around us is also showered in the stuff. Especially Mr. Campbell who’s been splashed in the face with a direct hit of gobs of the slushy drink that Laura’s flinging out of the cups in her hand. Sadly, even that doesn’t shake the guy’s grip off of Cam’s arm.

Someone, I don’t know who, helps me to my feet just in time for me to see Laura launch her last bomb—the whole box of nachos—then
herself
onto Tanner Gold’s back like a wild tiger. Chips and melted cheese are flying everywhere, blue raspberry slushy drink appears to soaking in to everyone in sight, and Laura’s screaming words none of us can understand while scratching at Tanner’s face as well as anyone who might come near to try to pull her off Tanner.

“Don’t any of you care about love? Mr. Campbell—Tanner Gold, you will let Cam go! He’s in
love,
for pity’s sake. In love and you’re all being completely stupid!” Laura suddenly yanks on Tanner’s hair like she’s a bull rider and Tanner’s head is the saddle horn which must have hurt a ton because that move loosens Tanner’s grip on Cam and sends him reeling through the crowd circle. “You especially should be sympathetic to all of this.”

With Tanner removed from one side of Cam’s arm, Cam’s almost freed himself from his father’s grip. But Tanner is not so lucky on his attempts at dislodging Laura. Because he’s Tanner (which means he still sucks) he’s actually trying to punch her off of him by jamming his fist at her face over his shoulder! This makes me so angry that when he swings close to me, I stick out my good leg and trip him.

And I’m not even sorry, but that’s because I’m screaming as much as Laura. “Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to hit girls? Tanner Gold you’re the worst person I’ve ever known! The worst!”

Tanner falls to his knees which does at least gets Laura off his back, but when he stands back up he shoves Laura hard into a trash can, then looks at me like he wants to kill me and says, “Well you’re the lamest person I’ve ever known. Didn’t your mom teach you that gimpy-girls should stay at home where they belong and if they trip people, there’s going to be retaliation?”

Tanner then shoves me as hard as I’ve ever been shoved into the pavement! Of course, I go down again. This time, so fast that I skid on my face.

Worse than last time, I’m completely laid flat.

My head is roaring from the inside because I hit it pretty hard. I can’t hear any noise but the sound of my own groaning. But I’m not going to lie here and read shoe labels this time, that’s for sure. I’m going in for my own revenge.

Or…or…something.

Head spinning, I struggle to my knees. Cam, still being held fast by his father, looks from me to his dad like he’s going insane. His dad appears to be tightening the grip that’s locked on to Cam’s arm which makes me unbelievably sad because all I want right now is for Cam to help me up. I don’t blame Cam’s dad. I wouldn’t want my kid caught in the middle of this fight.

*Wonders…am I caught in the middle of a fight?*

As I try to stand on my own, my head spins even more. I note that everyone—especially Cam and his father—seem to be shouting, but I can only see their mouths moving. As much as I try, I can’t register one word.

I also think my head is more scraped than I thought, because blood is coming from somewhere near my hairline and dripping all over my face and shirt.

Someone tries to give me a hand, but I refuse the help and stand on my own two feet. From far away, my voice says, “Don’t touch me! No one touches me. I only want Cam!
Cam!”

We lock gazes and he’s shouting as well. Though I can only read his lips, I distinctly saw him mouth the words, “Don’t anyone touch her! Ellen! Ellen! Stay still. Don’t move. I’m coming.”

I locate Patrick and from the look on his face I can see he wants to help me, but he can’t because he’s stuck carrying Laura—and she is crying! Crying, from what I can tell, because she’s so mad. Patrick’s holding her in this really tight grip like he’s a human straight jacket. We all get that this is probably so the girl won’t tiger-jump into the middle of the fray again. Which is good because everyone needs to stop.

Cam finally breaks free of his dad and I see him running full speed toward me, but then I get that he’s not coming to me. He is he running to tackle Tanner Gold! I want to call out,
Wait. Stop. Wait,
but no words come out of my mouth. I can’t let him or Tanner continue this fight over me. From the way the Coach is frowning, they’re in enough trouble as it is because the crowd is cheering and screaming like they are loving this!

*Ellen Foster runs between the two fighting boys, holds up her hand, and shouts: STOP. And the world comes to its senses.*

I guess because I’m so desperate, and because my head is still spinning and oozing blood, I forget who I am. What I’m thinking becomes what I’m actually doing.

Suddenly I’m trying to run—
me,
actually run
—between them. But it doesn’t work—not how I imagined it should have worked anyhow. I do get a ton of momentum, and I end up between them, and I do call out the word,
stop
. 

Only neither one of them saw me coming, because by the time I get between them, I am already falling.

Falling too fast.

Cam hits me full force while Tanner crushes his dead weight of solid muscle into my back.

The last thing I remember is how their giant shoulder pads crackled like empty water bottles when they both fell on top of me and closed off all of my air, how all of the light from the sky went away so quickly as the three of us slammed into the metal bleachers.

Later, I found out I had blacked out on impact, so I’m not sure if the memory of the light going away was them crushing me or just the part where I fainted.

Laura told me the fainting was a very good thing.

Because the crowd had grown so completely quiet as we all went down, everyone, including the TV cameras, picked up the sickening sound of the bones in my good leg—and one bone in my bad leg—breaking and snapping as we all slid to a stop.

cam

“Well, son, you and Tanner have hit the international news market as front page news in the US, UK, Germany and now, surprisingly, also in France.” He slides his tablet with the UK news story under my nose. “Looks like all of Europe loves a good story about Canadian boys gone bad.”

I don’t answer him while I read the latest headline.
STAR CANADIAN QUARTERBACK BREAKS HANDICAPPED GIRL’S LEGS AFTER INCITING AN AFTER GAME RIOT.

My eyes scan the article wishing, hoping and praying for a new photo of Ellen. I only want to see her face. See if she’s okay.

But of course she’s not okay. How could she be?

The article is horrible. There’s not one bit about the truth behind the confusion of that day. Not one bit about how much Ellen and I are in love. Not one word about how my dad’s the jerk who started all of this by forbidding us to date! Not one bit about how he and the coach and their stupid rules. Nor does it mention once that Ellen getting hurt was a terrible, horrible accident that none of us would ever have wished to have happen.

Instead, it’s about me and Tanner. Spoiled rich kids who went ape and had some sort of fun, free-for-all fight that bordered on a post game riot that ended when two out of control players crushed Ellen Foster’s hopes and dreams forever.

I weed through the paragraph listing Ellen’s medical status. Seeking solace that at least this article has some information on the extent of her injuries. She’s got pins in the good leg and this reporter has kindly mentioned that her leg breaks were clean so they will hopefully heal as strong and as soundly as they were before they were broken.

There’s also something about the surgeons performing a needed ligament operation on her bad leg today as well. I don’t understand what that’s all about and I think it’s got something to do with her CP, but I assume it’s a surgery that has to happen because Tanner and I wrecked her so badly she had no other choice. My eyes freeze on the terrible words that say:
Ellen Foster will be in a wheelchair for at least four months.

A wheelchair.

My heart aches. I’d cry but I’m all cried out.

I’d beg but I’m all begged out. 

“You’ll never be able to live this down,” Dad says, grabbing the tablet when I shove it away.

I answer like a robot, using the same words I’ve said to this man for three days straight: “I don’t want to live it down. I want to go home. I want to see Ellen. If you don’t let me, I will never play football again.”

“Don’t you defy me son. I decide what you’re doing and when you’re doing it. I’ve already asked for your transcripts because there’s no way we will go back to Brights Grove for next semester, that’s for darn sure.”

“What? Yes we will!”

He shakes his head. “No one says you can’t play a good year next year. I have no doubts you will still impress one of the big universities. It’s going to take a little convincing on the part of your mother, but I think the best idea is to do what Tanner’s parents have done. We will simply move.”

I’m so stunned I can’t even talk. Dad goes on like I’m not even in the room, “We can’t rule out the entire Canadian Football League either. All leagues are used to players who get in fights.” He rubs his hands together. I figure my shocked silence probably, to him, means I’m in agreement with this insanity. He goes on,  “Don’t worry. One high-profile fight is not going to ruin a bright football future like yours. I’ll just have to think of a way to flip this into something good. We’ll figure it out.”

“Dad, listen to me. Please.” My voice is shaking. “I don’t want a football future. I want to go home. I want to see Ellen. You can put me on any field you want, but I’m not going to play football ever again. I’m going to go to university in Canada. Art school, so all of this scheming and planning has to stop. I’m done.”

Dad’s eyes turn cold, unforgiving and unwavering. “That girl doesn’t want to see you. Do you know they could press charges if they wanted?”

“Ellen would never approve of that, and unlike you, Ellen’s mom is completely sane.”

“
Parents,
” he says pointedly, “know what’s best. Any mom should press charges after what you did. You might not like the decisions your mom and I are going to make for you, but we are trying to protect you. If you can’t handle that, Mom and I will go one step further and put you in a place where you can wait things out until you are ready to listen.”

“Dad,” I plead, realizing he’s serious. “I only want to be at home in my own bed. I should not be in this crap hotel, listening to your empty threats while hiding from what was an accident. An accident! Can’t you see? Ellen will understand. Mrs. Foster will also understand. At least let me contact her and find out if she’s okay. If you try to keep us apart, I’ll find a way. And if you try to make me play football, I will seriously try to injure myself.”

Dad shakes his head. “I thought you already tried to injure yourself all season long. As far as I’m concerned you should keep that up. It’s working great for you.”

I blink. “You knew what I was doing and you never stopped me?”

He comes to sit next to me. I can tell by his expression he thinks we are having a really good talk, that he thinks I’m just being unreasonable but that I’ll eventually agree like I always do. “Your antics on the field gave you your edge. All great players have an edge. Your idea made you a winner and you were playing better than I ever did. Why would I discourage that? You’ve got talent, Cam. Real talent. You shouldn’t waste it.”

I nod, knowing that’s what he wants me to do, but my eyes are already scanning the room. Looking for a way out. My gaze lands on the rental car keys we got at the airport, then I eye Dad’s bulging wallet and his cell phone. I’ve wanted a shot at that cell phone since Dad put me on the airplane out here, but the guy has been sleeping with it under his pillow. Now I’ve got bigger goals. I’m taking that rental car and his wallet as far as I can. If all goes well, I’m taking it all soon.