Split (14 page)

bright … black … bright … black …

step … breath … wind …

finally, I silence my brain …

We are about three miles out when my breathing becomes panting. I don’t want to stop, but my body is giving up. My legs quit. My toe throbs. It’s probably the size of Africa. Christian loops around in front of me and blows back past me.

“There’s only one way back,” he says as he passes me.

I turn and start walking—limping, really. His back disappears toward the darkness. Above him, the moon is full, low on the horizon. It is large and the color of cream. I’m about to chase him down when he glances over his shoulder, turns again, and jogs to me, slowing to a walk as he gets nearer.

“Okay,” he says, “you look ready. It’s my fault that Mirriam broke it off. I didn’t talk to her.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like being pressured into it. It’s the principal of the thing.”

“Bull,” I say.

He starts to object, but I talk over him.

“You want to, but you’re scared. What’s she gonna do? Break up with you?” I say, and he smiles. “You’ve faced down worse than this.”

“Not really faced it down, Toad.”

“Well, then, it’s about time.”

“I guess so.”

His breath puffs into mini-clouds, reminding me that it is still cold. The wind blows my arm hairs to attention. Contrary to all logic, walking is harder on my toe than running. I take off again. About thirty steps into it, he catches up to me.

“What about you?” he asks. “What have you faced down?”

I shake my head and keep my eyes on the horizon. “No talking. No questions. Your rules.”

He runs a little behind me and I can hear our footfalls in chorus. When we get back, I put my hand on his shoulder and hop up the stairs, since my ankle has gotten in on the throbbing action.

On the second-flight landing, he points to the top step. “Sit. Let me see it.”

I sit down, and he jogs down a couple of steps, kneels, and works off my shoe gently. He does the whole doctor thing, watching my face while he twists my foot one way and then the other. It would be amusing if it weren’t so painful.

“What did you do?” he asks.

“I just … I, uh, kicked the couch, hit the bed frame.”

“Good choice.”

I roll my eyes.

He says, “Seriously, better a couch than a person. You’ve gotta not do that with Mirriam, all right? Not with any woman. Not with anyone. You know that, right?”

I swallow and nod, casual-like. I go for the distraction technique again.

“Yeah, of course. Do you think it’s broken?”

“You just ran six miles. I doubt it. Just give it plenty of rest, all right?”

Right, that’s just what Coach Davis is going to let me do
.

“Remember RICE. Rest, Ice …”

“Compression and Elevation,” I finish for him. “I could have a PhD in first aid.”

“I’ll bet.”

He grabs my wrist and hauls me up. I wait for him to pass me so I can put my hand back on his shoulder as we make it up the steps. At the top landing, he says, “You’re sure you’re okay?” When I nod, he says, “Then I’m just gonna …” He tilts his head toward Mirriam’s door.

“Good.”

While I’m limping through our door, I hear him knock on Mirriam’s. “I have some things I want to tell you,” he says. “Can I come in?”

Her door squeaks open, and I close ours. I sit down on the couch. I wait and watch our door handle. It doesn’t turn. I take off my sneakers. My big toenail is puffy and red. Blood has crusted around and under it.

I get a sack of frozen peas from the fridge. I put it on my foot and stare at the door handle. It still doesn’t turn. Not by the time I fall asleep, my body aching for the relief of a long night’s rest, my foot raised up high on a stack of couch pillows. The door handle only turns the next morning, when Mirriam comes in for a change of Christian’s clothes while he is in the shower.

“Thanks, Jace,” she says. “You’re a great brother. And a good friend to me, too. Christian told me that you were the one who got him talking.”

No, I’m a broken kid. A little help here and there isn’t going to fix that
.

“Sorry I scared you.”

She looks away, not willing to tell me that it’s all right because we both know it’s not. Finally she looks back and says, “If you take care of yourself half as well as you do him, you’ll be all set.”

chapter 22

m
onday morning,
and I have three miles. Three miles my ankle doesn’t want to run. I don’t even bother showing it to the coach. I just tape it tight and take off. At least I got a couple of days off.

The early-morning air is cold, even though it’s supposed to get hot today. New Mexico weather is a mystery. Who knew it gets cold in a desert? The soccer fields have a weird smell of dust and grass intermixed because beyond the fields you can see where the sprinkler stops and the ground goes back to its native survival mode.

“Next to each other,” Coach Davis shouts.

I don’t change my pace.

“Marshall, hurry it up,” Eric calls back.

“You’re both benched for the final game if you don’t get in sync. It’s not like our record would suffer.”

I don’t change my pace, which surprises even me. The last game of the season is usually a big deal for me. Especially this year, since I’m not lined up on an indoor team for winter. Somehow, I care less about soccer now than I did when I got out here. I wonder if I’ll even go out for the team next year. Eric stares up at the sky, swears, and then jogs in place until I catch up.

“You’re acting like a granny this morning, I see. Prima donna,” Eric says.

“My toes are swollen up like sausages.”

He glances at my foot and slows down even more. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Something happened.”

I tell him about kicking the couch.

“What’d ya do that for?”

“I was pissed, all right? Do I have your permission to get angry, O Captain, my Captain?”

“I was just trying to be decent.”

Decent this
.

I set my jaw, and we jog in silence. I remember running the other night, when the world slipped away, and try to get back there, but with Eric’s breath in my ear it ain’t happening. I glare at him. He looks through narrow eyes at me for the rest of the lap. We pass Coach Davis in silence.

“God, you’re an ass to make me say it. You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?” he says.

“Hey, how about you just don’t talk to me unless you have to?”

“No, we blew the play because we didn’t talk. So …” He looks like a kid who is being forced to take medicine. “You were right. I was wrong. Any rivalry about Caitlyn should stay off the field.”

“There is no rivalry. Caitlyn isn’t even on my radar anymore. Would you just ask her out?”

The whole stand-in-to-make-him-jealous act is pissing me off and boring me simultaneously. My community service is done.

“Aren’t you guys … together?”

“NO! Jesus, just ask her out already. People
do
get back together, you know.”

That Friday, for our final game, Eric is no longer taking his romantic angst out on me. We’re moving more like a unit; Eric is passing me the ball. The scoreboard doesn’t show it (0–0 with only penalty time left), but we’ve been whipping their butts; the ball’s been on their side most of the game, and if we could only get one around this goalie, we could win. The team is pursuing, pursuing, and I’m feeding off their energy.

I convinced Dakota to come. I try not to think about her watching me and wonder if I look good or like someone trying to look good.

For the throw-in, I jostle with the sweeper as he tries to find an adhesive remover to get me off his tail. The ball is passed high, and we fight it out in the air, both of us going up for it. Off my head. A pass to the Eric-ish region. On the way down, the sweeper bangs into me, and we both end up on the grass, my tongue on dirt and green. He uses my head for support as he gets up and drives his knee into my back. The bastard. I pull my face out of the dirt and stick my foot out as he’s stepping forward.
Your turn to eat the
grass
. I’m reaching for him when the crowd begins to scream and whistle. Eric streaks past, his hands in the air, and the ball is trapped in the net. The whistle shrieks three times, and the game is over. We won.

The guy waves an exasperated hand, but I can still taste the dirt and the anger in my mouth. Before I can get to the sweeper, half the team is around me, dancing on the field. I muster up a smile.

I promise Tom I’ll be at his end-of-soccer-season party next week and ditch the team, opting for an olive and sausage pizza with Dakota instead. Once we’re seated in the pizza parlor, Dakota tries to get me to call the highlights, but I switch topics.

She says, “You don’t seem very excited.”

I should be. Usually I’m a maniac at the end of a season, especially if we go out on a win. Last year, Lauren said if the winter soccer season didn’t start soon, she would take me to therapy.

“I’m not sure I’ll play next year,” I say, and as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I realize that I’ve been wanting to quit for at least a couple of weeks.

I haven’t had fun at one game this year. I thought it was because we weren’t winning, or because of Eric, but maybe not.

“Yeah? I thought you were all about soccer. It was soccer or bust, you know?” Dakota says.

I think of the guy who I tripped today and the significant self-control it took not to land on him. I thought all the fury came from playing with Eric, from losing all the time, but it wasn’t that at all. Soccer was always about adrenaline.

“Maybe I’d rather run.”

“I could see you in track.”

I picture that.
Feet jammed in the blocks, the adrenaline pulsing through my veins as I wait for the gun, every muscle poised
.

“Nah, just running.”

The solitude in running, the quiet, would be spoiled by the hope of kicking the other guy’s ass. I want that rhythmic stride, not the competitive rush of soccer.

What would my dad say? For the first time, I wonder how often I was on the field just so my dad and I would have something to talk about.

It’s ten days until Thanksgiving, and Mirriam comes into the store to get some Christmas shopping done. The lines are getting long now for the holidays, so I can’t help her out, even when she asks me what I think Christian will like. She says she’ll wait for me in the café.

When I head back there, Dakota and Mirriam are sitting together, each with a cup on the table.

I approach with caution. After hellos, I ask what they were talking about, and Mirriam says, “He’s just worried I’ll tell you all his secrets. Come back in ten minutes.”

They turn back to each other as if I’m not standing right there, and Mirriam says, “So you didn’t like the dye job?”

“He just doesn’t look like himself.”

“Yeah, I think that was the point.”

Then she reminds me that I should skedaddle for ten and practically shoves me out of the café. I’m left remembering how I felt waiting outside parent-teacher conferences.

When they get back from the café, the lines are down, and I offer to walk Mirriam to her car.

It’s cold out, but too dry to snow. She points out her car in the parking lot, and I wish I’d brought my jacket. When the wind picks up, it slices through my clothes and chills my skin.

“Dakota’s really nice. Why don’t you take her out?” she says.

“I’m on a dating hiatus.”

We pass an SUV, a toy car, and a topless Mercedes that makes me wish I had a better car.

“So …,” I say, trying to think of a subtle way to ask, but I give up. “Did she say anything about me?”

“Yes, but that’s between her and me. All I’ll tell you is that you should ask her out.”

“Nooooo, I shouldn’t. I like her too much to date her.”

“That makes a lot of sense.”

“It makes Jace-sense,” I say.

“Which is the equivalent of nonsense,” she says, smiling. “Family trait?”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“You do know that a ‘dating hiatus’ is not mysterious code for a ‘bad breakup.’”

I throw my arms in the air. “Did I say to you ‘Mirriam, I’d like to be interrogated on a weekly basis’?”

We arrive at her car, and she gets halfway in. With the door still propped open, she starts the engine, and we say good-bye. Just before she closes the door and pulls out, she says, “If I were you, I’d cut the hiatus short. Take it from someone who knows. It’s not easy to be patient.”

Before I leave work that night, I seek out Dakota.

“Hiya, stranger,” she says.

“Have I been a stranger lately?” I ask, lifting half a stack of books off her arms and walking with her to Fantasy.

“No, you’re just stranger each time I see you.”

“Funny. Get that one off a cereal box?” I say, but I can’t help laughing.

Dakota has this strange habit of enjoying how not-funny her jokes are. We stop in front of an empty shelf, and I feel a magnetic pull tugging me toward her. I want to drop the books on the floor, back her up to the stacks, and taste the cinnamon-rain on her neck. Instead I tilt the books and shove them wholesale onto the shelf.

“Did I tell you about the game?” I’m suddenly a tongue-tied geeky thirteen-year-old who is asking a girl out for the first time.

“Last week? The one you won? The one I was there for?”

“Did I tell you about the postseason party?” I ask, even though I know I haven’t. “No parents, lots of booze, that sort of thing. Come with me.”

“When is it?”

“Friday. You’re not working.”

She smiles. “Have you been stalking my schedule again?”

“Come on.”

“Sure.”

I go hot, and my brain jumps into panic overdrive.
In a few months, Dakota will come to work with a bruise on her face and a good story about tripping over a branch while hiking in the mountains. She’ll be good at covering up by then
.

“Wait,” I say, “It’s not like a—”

“Date or anything,” she finishes for me. “Yeah, I got it.”