Year of Mistaken Discoveries (15 page)

“It’s sort of hard to fall short of nothing. My dad doesn’t even remember I’m alive, and my mom’s expectation is that I don’t get into trouble. Short of following in your footsteps and becoming a killer clown, she’s happy.”

I sighed. I wasn’t sure what was worse, feeling like I was failing compared to what everyone expected, or feeling like your family expected you to fail. “Maybe we’re both screwed up,” I suggested.

“Only in the best way.”

I stared at him in mock shock. “Kind words? Are you being a gentleman?”

“What’s wrong with being a gentleman?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just not used to it.” I picked at the carpet nap and bit the inside of my lip. I wanted him to make a move on me, but I couldn’t shake the idea that he wouldn’t. He’d wait for me. “Course, if you weren’t such a gentleman, you could be kissing me now.” I held my breath.
Oh God, what if I totally misread the situation?

His eyes were wide. I’d managed to shock him if nothing else. He leaned forward. “I’m a gentleman, but it’s still sort of a work in progress.” He kissed me. Then he sat back as if waiting to see if it was okay. His hand was shaking. I pulled his face closer to me and kissed him. He wound his hands into my hair, bringing my face to his to kiss me again. His mouth opened under mine. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a consuming.

chapter twenty

T
ime is a weird thing. If you’re stuck in a dentist chair for a root canal, a half hour can seem like an entire day. Summer vacation can seem to last forever, until it’s the last day and then you realize it flew by. Kissing Brody was like that; time went off the tracks. Lost its meaning. It was as if I had always been there, next to him, and it also passed in a blink. Unlike with Colton, with Brody I felt liquid. Electric and liquid all at the same time. I would have still been kissing him except his aunt knocked on the door, which broke the spell.

“Does Avery want to stay for dinner?” she asked.

The skin around my mouth felt slightly raw from where his whiskers had rubbed. I touched my lips lightly with my finger. Then I saw the clock on his bedside table.

“Shit, is that the time?” I scrambled to get up from the
floor. “The basketball game starts in thirty minutes.” I threw my things in my bag.

Brody watched me, confused. “I had no idea you were this big a basketball fan.”

“No. I’m cheering. Long story, but I promised I’d be there.”

Brody grabbed the strap of my bag and pulled me back for one more kiss. “Are you going to be in trouble for being late?”

“Maybe.” I smiled. “It might be worth it.”

“Might?” His lip curled into a smile, and I kissed him again quickly before throwing open his bedroom door. I apologized to his aunt as I ran out the door. I knew Coach Kerr would be ticked I was late. I’d been at the past few practices, but this was my first game back. One of the squad rules was consideration. If you were going to be late, you were supposed to call. Telling her I’d been making out and had lost all sense of time wasn’t going to go over well.

• • •

I burst out of the girls’ locker room and bolted across the gym floor to join the rest of the squad. The bleachers were already full. Coach Kerr glanced at me and then made a point to look at the clock on the wall, and back again at me.

Lydia squealed and hugged me like I’d returned from war. Shannon and I stood awkwardly next to each other for a beat before she hugged me too. Lydia had made us talk everything out. There was nothing she hated more than conflict. The idea of her two best friends not getting along was enough to bring on a full-fledged
panic attack for the poor girl. We’d sorted things out, but it was still awkward. We were acting like nothing had changed, but it had. Sometimes I wished a car would hit me so I’d have amnesia and have no memory of how it used to be. It says a lot about my life that a brain injury seemed preferable to what I had now.

Coach Kerr looked at the clock again. “Last time I checked, the agreement was that the squad was here a half hour before any game,” she said.

I knew what was required—groveling. “I had trouble with my car,” I lied. “Not that it’s any excuse. It’s totally my fault. I completely understand if you want to leave Liz in tonight. I’m just glad to be here with you guys.” I stared down at my shoes and tried to look sufficiently pathetic. I was having a hard time not smiling and bouncing in place. Brody had kissed me. He liked me. I tried to focus on Coach.

“I trust this will be the last time you’ll be late.” Coach tapped her foot on the parquet floor. “The team counts on us. We provide them with hope. It’s our job to step into the breach, no matter if we’re tired, or feeling under the weather, or have car trouble.”

Shannon and Lydia were both doing their best not to giggle. I think we all expected Coach to suddenly start beating her chest and have movie music swell up in the background as she gave her “cheerleading saves lives” talk.

“Okay, you’re in,” Coach said. “I want to see you give one hundred percent tonight.”

“At least one hundred twenty percent,” I fired back, trying to match her perky tone. I must have done something right, because she smiled. Lydia reached over and squeezed my hand.

“Ready?” Shannon yelled out.

“Set,” the rest of us screamed back.

“Go!” We ran out into the center of the gym floor and hit our marks. Coach turned on our music and it blared from the giant speakers. I’d only been back for two practices. The morning after the first one I felt so stiff I wasn’t sure I would be able to get out of bed. It felt like someone had poured quick-dry cement in my veins overnight. Our squad had a set of routines we did during football, but during basketball they were more complicated. Cheering for football was about volume and being careful not to do anything where you might fall on the wet grass. Basketball meant we’d be inside in a climate-controlled space where we could do more of the routines we did for competitions. Some of it had come back easily; I’d been cheering since ninth grade, so most of the moves were muscle memory by now. Other times I felt like I was hopelessly out of sync with the rest of the group—like I was in an early round of
So You Think You Can Dance
where the answer was clearly no.

Shannon was our captain, so she led us through the first chant, our claps tight and in rhythm. We got the crowd yelling back and moved quickly into a basket toss. I was a base. Flyers might get all the glory, but I wasn’t keen on people tossing me into the air above a hardwood floor. Stacey was our flyer and
she was perfect for it. She could fold herself into a tight nugget, had perfect balance, and could smile even through total terror.

I smiled out at the crowd and saw my parents. They were sitting together near the players’ bench. Mom waved madly at me. I nodded to let her know I saw them. If I waved, Coach would come over and amputate my arm at the shoulder for breaking the routine. I could tell they were both glad to see me back on the squad.

Stacey did a dead man fall, and I stepped forward to catch her with Shannon. I had an instant where I pictured her falling, breaking through our hold and smacking into the floor, her bones snapping. I must have blinked, because in the next second she was already in our arms.

The music changed, and the announcer came over the loudspeaker. The team was going to come out. We moved into two lines, forming a spirited tunnel for the players to run through. They called out the lead players, and we shook our pompons for all they were worth. When Colton’s name was called, I felt myself stiffen. Last year at this time we’d just started going out. We’d done this thing where he would high-five my pompon as he ran through. I focused on staring straight ahead and smiling like my life depended on it. He ran past me without glancing. He didn’t high-five Shannon, but he did wink. I took a deep breath. I could do this.

Near the end of the fourth quarter I was already wiped out. My ears were ringing from all the noise, and my hands
stung from clapping. The scoreboard showed we still had two minutes to go with no more time-outs. Our team was ahead, but only by six points. We were playing Taft High. Apparently the Vikings didn’t know that they should give up so I could have a rest. We were kneeling on the sidelines, waiting for a break in play or game end so we could go start another chant. I switched knees on the floor, trying to ignore the shooting pain that was going up my leg. I tried to forget that I could have stayed at Brody’s place, kissing him, instead of being here.

Coach clapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, “Feels good to be back, doesn’t it?”

I nodded. Not really. What it felt like was that my leg was going to fall off.

Stacey leaned over after she walked away. “I’m glad you’re here. It wasn’t the same without you.”

“Thanks.” I wished I felt as excited to be back as everyone else seemed to be to have me around. I remembered when I’d gotten onto the team as a freshman, I’d been thrilled. It was like I’d won the lotto. I knew my gymnastics experience would give me an edge; that much was obvious at tryouts, but it was still no guarantee.

Nora had had no idea why I cared.

“Seriously? You want to prance around in a short skirt and cheer boys on to do things?” Nora’s face scrunched up. “What’s up next, repealing the right to vote? Having your feet bound?”

“There’s nothing wrong with cheer. It’ll look great on my college apps.” I crossed my arms.

“Sure. Knock yourself out. I didn’t see you as someone who would like cheerleading, that’s all.”

“Well, I do,” I insisted.

Looking back, I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince her or myself.

Getting on the squad was the final straw for the friendship I had with Nora. There was no big fight, no screaming match where we declared that the other person was dead to us. It was more that cheer took up so much time, and that I
liked
being a part of the squad. I didn’t want to hang out with Nora, because it highlighted how I didn’t fit with the rest of the cheerleaders. It was easier to be with Shannon and Lydia. I enjoyed how people turned to look at us when we walked down the hall in our uniforms. Maybe I figured if they were looking at the uniform, they wouldn’t look too closely at me. Now I was starting to like the idea of being seen.

The buzzer rang, shocking me out of my thoughts. I was so startled I fell over off my knee and onto my ass. I scrambled to get up and join the rest of the squad in the middle of the floor. My leg had fallen asleep, and I had to drag it behind me as I ran out. The rest of the squad bounced around, shaking one of their pompons in the air.

“Smooth, Scott,” Shannon said, smiling.

“I was sort of hoping no one noticed.”

Shannon laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out? Everyone’s always watching.”

Colton ran off the players’ bench and picked up Shannon. She whacked him on the back so he’d put her down. Coach wasn’t keen on public displays of affection. I turned away and pretended an interest in the crowd. The players jogged off the floor. The Vikings had already gone into the locker room. They hadn’t stayed to shake hands. It could be they were sore losers, or they wanted to hit the showers so they could get on the road. They were predicting snow. I was ready to go home, but Coach Kerr didn’t like us to leave until the last of the crowd left. Peppy to the end. That was us.

“Good job, girls!” Coach came over. “A few of you need to work on your liberty moves; I saw some shaky legs out there. Let’s keep things crisp and clean.”

We all nodded in unison.

“I did notice something else,” Coach said. She pointed down at Stacey’s shoes. “Those are looking a bit scuffed.”

Stacey shifted uncomfortably. The rule was that we weren’t supposed to wear our court shoes outside, under pain of death. Anything less than blindingly white sneakers was a sign quality was slipping. Today scuffed sneakers, tomorrow we’d start mainlining heroin.

“I accidentally wore them out the other day,” Stacey admitted. “I polished them up when I got home.”

Coach Kerr didn’t answer her. She didn’t have to. The message had been sent. Stacey had been up on top of the pyramid
with shoddy shoes. She might as well have been up there commando, flashing the crowd.

“Avery, nice job out there for your first time back, but you looked a bit off your game. Stay sharp.”

Considering I’d fallen over at the end buzzer, I was getting off easy. Must be the last of my sympathy points.

“I have some news for you girls. As you know, Ms. Harmen, the biology teacher, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The school is doing some various fund-raisers for her and her family and also to raise awareness. Naturally, when the topic came up at the faculty meeting, I thought of our group. A lot of people look up to us, so we can do our part to help out.”

I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped this didn’t mean we would have to do a car wash in the middle of December or be forced to sell cheap candy bars door-to-door to raise money.

Coach Kerr reached behind her back and pulled out a large plastic shopping bag. She began to pass out hot-pink knee-highs to each of us. “Next week we’re going to wear these with our uniforms. Along with these pins.” She passed each of us a small pink ribbon pin.

The pin sat in the palm of my hand. I wondered if Ms. Harmen, or anyone with breast cancer for that matter, really felt cheered up by being surrounded by pink. Ms. Harmen lived with her partner, Jill, and seemed like someone who was born to teach high school biology. She actually got giddy when it was time for the dissection lab. No one should be that excited by frog intestines. She drove a giant red pickup truck that took
up nearly two parking stalls in the faculty lot. I couldn’t imagine that her finding us wandering the halls in pink socks was going to do much to improve her mood or make her feel any better. Cancer sucked. Dressing it up didn’t make it better, in my opinion, but what did I know? I’d never known anyone personally who had the disease.

The realization came to me in a rush. I dropped my pin. That was it. I knew how to find my birth mom.