All Broke Down

How was I supposed to help him understand when I barely had my own head wrapped around it? All I knew was that something about Levi getting arrested had me all f**ked-up. And Mom showing up had spun that tiny problem into a hurricane. There was my old life . . . living in the mobile home of whoever Mom was dating at the time, or in that rickety shack she left my brother Sean and me in when she split for good, always surrounded by people, never a moment of privacy, never having anything that was mine. There were my drunk uncles and cousins. People throwing punches over who did or didn’t get groceries. My barely there granny who couldn’t read or write, so I had to sign my own permission slips for football and school. There was Sean arrested for breaking into houses, leaving me alone with those people who thought of me as another brat running underfoot. That neighborhood was all about strength, about who was big and bad enough to fend everyone else off. I hated that neighborhood, hated what it did to my brother, but it was better than what came after. When Gram died, and my piece-of-shit uncle sold the house, and I had to beg people for a place to stay so I didn’t get trucked off with some relative and torn away from my team. I f**king hated begging.

I’d let myself forget about all of that. Let myself believe it was behind me because my life here was so much better. I was part of a team. I had my own bed, my own room even. I had friends who had no idea what kind of life I’d had, and they just assumed I’d grown up like them.

Maybe I started believing it, too.

Then Levi got arrested and it was like my two worlds collided, and I could see that old life waiting just a layer below this new one, and I can’t explain how that makes me feel.

There’s just this word that keeps popping into my head.

Inevitable.

It’s inevitable that I’ll end up back there. I forgot to keep running, and now it’s all caught up to me. That shit is in my blood, and there’s no rinsing it out or diluting it with scholarships and classes and all the other shit I’ve been kidding myself with. I don’t know how to be anything else but who I am, and who I am will never be good enough to make it in this place with these people.

I can’t explain that to Coach because not saying it out loud is the only thing keeping it from being completely real. And if that’s gone, I won’t be able to hold it together.

Coach finally has enough of my silence and sits down at his desk. He’s back to that scary quiet that isn’t the calm before the storm . . . it’s the storm that destroys you because you think it’s not a threat. “We’ve got enough battles to fight outside this locker room. I don’t need someone starting trouble inside the team, too.”

My stomach starts falling, and I wait for it to hit my feet, to drop through the floor. But it just keeps falling.

“I don’t tolerate violence on my team, Silas. No matter how good you are. As of now, you’re suspended. One week of practice, and the first two games of the season.”

Impact.

But it’s not just my stomach that’s fallen. It’s everything. My head. My heart. If it weren’t for the chair, I know I’d have fallen to my knees, too.

“Don’t you step back on my field until you’ve got your head screwed on tight. Because I’ve got to tell you, Silas . . . two games is a minimum. If I still think you’re not good for this team, I’ll cut you out like a cancer. It will hurt me to do it because I know what you’ve got in you. I know you can hack it, but I’m not willing to bet this team on you getting your act together. I’ve got too many other kids’ dreams in my hands. So you better shape up and bet on yourself and prove to me that you’re better than what I saw today.”

He scoots his chair back, and I know the conversation is over, but I can’t get up. My legs won’t work. I can’t piece together words.

If my present self is the top layer of skin and my past is the layer below that, football is every vital thing inside me that makes my body work. Muscles. Arteries. Veins. Organs.

I only work when I play football. Without it, I really am the trash I’m afraid of being.

Coach doesn’t make me leave. He turns the lights back off and lets me sit in his office alone, and when I listen for the silence I don’t hear music anymore.

I just hear what Williams said over and over again.

I’m sure you’ll be heading Abrams’s way before long.

And all I can think is . . . maybe he’s right.

Chapter 10

Dylan

I’ve put it off as long as I can.

Friday was my day of lapses in judgment. Saturday, I started cleanup. I started with apologizing to Javier about screwing up the protest. He was mad that I’d acted without talking to him. He’s the leader of our group, and everything is supposed to go through him. He understood that I just got wrapped up in the moment, in the desperation to do something.

One apology down.

Then there is my father, whose persona is that of a man who never makes snap decisions. He does woodworking as a hobby, something I always thought was odd for a man with enough money to furnish a small country. But he’s fond of saying that building things with his hands is no different from building a business. You plan, you design, you measure twice, and cut once.

Well, Friday I didn’t measure twice. I’m not even sure I measured once.

I got lucky, though. Dad was called out of town on business, and since there were no major, lasting repercussions from my arrest on Friday, Mom convinced him that we could talk when he got back.

That’s tonight. And since I’m not really sure how he will react (or if I’m still able to be grounded as a junior in college), that means today is the last day that I can go to Silas’s and pay him back for bailing us out.

Something else I’ve been avoiding. Because he’s the one thing I still haven’t sorted out in my head. Every time I think about him, my mind goes right back to that bathroom, and the heat that sweeps through me burns away any coherent thought.

At first, I think no one is home because the driveway is empty, but then I see the familiar rusty tail end of Silas’s truck parked across the street. I shake off the memories of what it felt like to be in his truck, his arm brushing against my leg, the thrum of excitement from being completely out of my element. A girl could get addicted to something like that.

In fact, there are quite a few things about Silas Moore that I could get addicted to.