11. Riley
Chapter Eleven
RILEY
The final days before the winter break found us licking our wounds and hurrying to pass the end-of-semester exams. We played the last game of the period in Chicago and returned to Detroit with broken hearts and low spirits.
I found Sawyer in a corner in the basement, practically banging his head against the wall, a physics book hanging from one hand on the verge of slipping.
“I’m never gonna make it. Never gonna make it.
” He finally turned around, red-eyed from sleepless nights, and leaned against the wall.
“I’m done, man.” He didn’t say it directly to me, but more like he was speaking to an imaginary person comforting him.
“Sawyer?” I asked and glanced over at the couch where Cam was playing Fallen Order relentlessly. His slow and rusty thumbs had finally regained most of their skill. “Are you alright, buddy?”
“Am I alright?” Sawyer scoffed. “Jesus, Cap, I’m toast.”
“Dude,” I sighed. “Is it really that bad?”
Sawyer rubbed his eyes with one hand, the other releasing the textbook to smash against the floor. “There’s no way I can pass this. And then I won’t be able to catch up. And then I’ll fail this goddamn course and lose my scholarship…”
“Is he spiraling?” Cameron asked from the sofa, glancing over his shoulder.
“I’ve got it,” I said, not too kindly. Though I had given myself over to him in every physical way there was, Cameron and I kept our guards up whenever we weren’t alone in his room.
“Listen, I know a guy who knows a guy,” I told Sawyer.
It was a long shot, but I couldn’t let my goalie despair and leave campus for Christmas in this state.
“We can hook you up with that guy, Noah What’s-His-Name.
He tutored half the football team last year and nobody failed. ”
Sawyer looked at me like I was speaking of employing a poltergeist to teach him physics.
“You’re fucking kidding,” he said. “Noah Foster quit tutoring ‘dumb jocks’ according to all the competitive nerds on campus, Cap. He’s prepping geeks for national competitions now.
Have you seen the line in front of his room every weekend? ”
“I…” I scratched the back of my head. “I didn’t realize that.”
“I can see that,” Sawyer said, voice clipped.
Cameron apparently found that amusing since he was currently chuckling.
I ignored him and focused on my goalie. “I never realized you were a quitter,” I said, harsher.
It was another long shot, but Sawyer hadn’t reacted well to pampering and compassion.
“The Sawyer I know grabs life by the balls and makes his own rules. If you want to pass this course next semester, you’ll get Noah’s help.
And if you want Noah’s help, you’ll march in there and convince him to help you. ”
Sawyer blinked twice, like he was emerging from a trance, opened his mouth, then closed it firmly and nodded.
“Do you hear me?” I all but shook him by the shoulders.
“Yeah, uh… Yeah, I hear you, Cap. Grab life by the balls.” He nodded again, firmer, and bent down to pick up his textbook.
“Good,” I said in the end. “Make sure you do that as soon as you’re back from break.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Sawyer saluted me and drew toward the door. “Merry Christmas, guys.”
“Same to you,” I said.
Silence filled the room briefly as Cameron and I remained the last two souls in here. Then, dramatic music began playing on the TV and the clicking of the controller clued me in. Cameron was in a heated boss fight and getting himself killed by the time I turned around and started toward the sofa.
After everything, I still feared speaking to him.
This feeling of dread had been present in high school, too.
I could remember assuming, but never voicing my thoughts.
I could remember dreaming up a future for us and never asking what he thought.
God, I had been a moron. And I remained one, apparently.
It was so much easier to pout and receive the punishment — or reward, depending on who you asked — than to ask him anything even remotely personal.
And it wasn’t even Cameron I feared. In all my life, I had never been as close to anyone as I had been to Cam back then.
But to ask a question and receive a negative answer terrified me after years of rejection and casual dismissal.
Great job, Dad, I thought. And, as I recognized where the fear stemmed from, I inhaled and let the smallest of my many questions leave my lips.
“Christmas plans?” My voice was barely louder than a whisper as insecurities welled within me.
Would he think I was clingy for asking? Would he think I was asking him to stay with me?
I barked at myself, a shield of anger protecting me until I forced myself to cool off.
Cameron was utterly unfazed. His snort of contempt said it all. But it wasn’t directed at me. I could see it in his eyes as he dropped them from the screen where his character had just gotten killed. “You?”
I shrugged. How much truth was too much? How open is too open? “Not really.”
Cameron looked at me fully for the first time this evening. “Aren’t you going home?”
“I don’t think so,” I admitted.
“Your folks are gonna be bummed out.” He set the controller on the cluttered coffee table in front of us, then shifted toward me. “They love Christmas.”
It pained me how little he actually knew about my family. “They’re obsessed with Jesus, not with Santa. And I don’t fit in.”
Cam nodded a little, like he understood everything and nothing at the same time. “That bad?”
“Coming out made it…not worse, but not better, either.” I heard the words as they left my lips and realized I was forming sentences from thoughts that had long lived in my mind, but had never been spoken aloud.
“How so?” Cam asked. “Did they say something hurtful?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “They didn’t say anything.
That’s the part that bothers me, ya know?
They just sort of nodded, said the mandatory happy wishes, and ceased asking me about my love life.
Before that, they kept pestering me about having a secret girlfriend and so on.
Afterwards? Nada. Not once did they ask me if I had a boyfriend.
It’s hockey all over again. They disapprove, sure, but it’s not the quiet sort of disapproval.
They just gave up on me. First in my profession, then in my romantic life.
The closest they ever got to commenting was when they hinted my brother would be the only one to give them grandchildren. ”
“Oh, shit,” Cameron muttered.
“Yeah.” It was more a sigh than speech.
We sat in silence for a time, then Cameron licked his lips and inhaled reluctantly. “To answer the question, no. I’ve got no plans for Christmas.”
“You’re not going home?” I asked.
He ogled me like I was speaking in tongues. “Riley, I haven’t been there in over three years.”
“What? Not once?” I asked.
Cameron slouched slightly. I almost missed it, except that he suddenly appeared smaller in every way. “You know what they’re like,” he said.
I knew vaguely. We had never covered the details. Cameron had never wanted to talk about it and I had never been brave enough to insist. “I’m not sure I do.”
He thought about this for a moment, then closed his eyes like he was giving up. “Of course. I never…” He pulled his eyelids back up and directed his blazing brown gaze at me. “I never let you in.”
Words died on my tongue.
Cameron sank into the back of the sofa and dropped his gaze lower on my face, then at my hands sitting uselessly in my lap.
“They never got along, Mom and Dad. Like, never ever. Since I could remember, they were fuming in different corners of the house. It was like growing up in a minefield. I had to stay neutral, you know? I had to be careful where I went while they were fighting. For years, it was just words aimed at hurting the other one and me running away from the crossfire. But Dad accused Mom of turning me against him and…” His voice stopped abruptly and I realized I had been holding my breath.
Cameron blinked. “I never knew he saw me like that. That I was against him? What the fuck? But that doesn’t matter.
They soon started throwing plates against the walls.
Not at each other, but not aimlessly, either.
Plates, cutlery, framed photos. All that shit was always broken at my place.
Mom broke my computer screen. The only one I had until I moved away.
Dad broke my first trophy. It’s in my room now.
I glued it back together. And this gigantic Empire Strikes Back puzzle I put together…
” He smiled like he was revisiting a very fond memory.
But the smile soured. “I came back from your place one time, way before we…” I knew what he meant, so I just nodded for him to move the conversation along.
“Yeah, er. I returned and found the puzzle scattered because they were fighting over my interests and Mom spitefully tore it apart because Dad accused her of indoctrinating me with puzzles. He was venomous. She wanted to prove him wrong even if it ripped me the fuck apart.” His growl faded out and I could see anger rising.
“Jesus, that’s so messed up,” I whispered. “I had no idea it was that bad.” I had my suspicions. He had angrily shown up on my doorstep when I was alone far too many times for me to completely miss the hints. But I hadn’t truly been there for him. “I wish I knew, then,” I admitted.
“Tsk. I’m glad you didn’t. That angry, eighteen-year-old Cam couldn’t stand compassion, Riley.” He was as blunt as I’d ever heard him with this. I had been his escape when he had needed it.
What did that make me, now? That was a question I didn’t dare to ask. “But the adult Cameron deals with it better, huh?”
“Better?” He shrugged indecisively. “I don’t know if this is better, but it’s different.”