Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter
thirty-two
SHORT BLASTS OF WHISTLES RANG through the air as I entered the gates, at the end of the football field, surrounded by my friends. They hadn’t left me alone since the day before. I received texts every five minutes all afternoon from at least one of them, and then Deja had showed up at my house about eight o’clock telling me she was sleeping over. I wanted to pretend I was fine, but I wasn’t. I had collapsed into her arms and let her talk trash on Theo and Jensen all night. It didn’t help. I had cried a lot. But today I had to switch the hurt to anger or I wouldn’t be able to function.
Groups of guys were being directed to lines.
“Don’t be nervous,” Max said. “You’re trying out for special teams, so you won’t have to do all the tackling drills and things. Just the stuff you’ve been practicing.”
I looked at him, wanting to ask him how he knew that, if Theo had been texting him things to say to me, but I didn’t need to. It was obvious. He just gave me an innocent expression.
Coach Wallis glanced our way, said something to the assistant coach next to him, then went back to directing the players. I couldn’t make out Jensen in the sea of helmets, so I wasn’t sure if he saw me yet, but some of the guys were looking.
The assistant coach jogged our way. “Spectators in the stands, please.”
“Yes, sir,” Maxwell said, and the three of them gave me a combination of side hugs and hand squeezes before they headed for the bleachers.
I didn’t move, and the coach gestured to the stands.
“I’m trying out for kicker today,” I said.
He studied my expression as though waiting for the punch line.
“Where should I go for that?” I asked.
Coach laughed, but when I didn’t join him, he cleared his throat and said, “Oh, for real? That’s…actually pretty cool. You any good?”
“Yes,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster.
“I’ll have you talk to Coach Wallis, then. We need to get you some gear. I’m Coach O, by the way. And you are?”
“Finley Lucas.”
“Good luck, Finley.”
The head coach, Mr.Wallis, wasn’t as quick to be convinced. He stared at me for a long time after I told him I wanted to try out. Eventually he asked, “Why? Is this some publicity stunt or something?”
“No, it’s not. I’m good, Coach,” I said. “Give me a chance to prove it. I’m not asking for any favors. Just the same chance as everyone else here.”
He clapped once. “All right. Let’s see what you got.”
After gearing up, he directed me to a line, and I joined it.
There was some shuffling to my left, and then Jensen was beside me. “What are you doing?” he asked. His eyes were fire.
“I think I’m going to try out,” I said, patting my helmet. Those were the same words he’d used on me in front of the recording studio. They were burned into my memory because of the shock surrounding them. I wondered if my words would be burned into his memory now.
“Wh-what? What do you mean? For football? You can’t.”
“It looks like I can,” I said. He didn’t know yet, I realized, which specific position I was trying out for. All the anger I had been feeling toward Jensen for the last several weeks was combined with all the anger I was now feeling toward Theo. I was burning with rage. I felt powerful, like nothing could stop me.
NEVER HAD I BEEN MORE grateful for the last month of butt kicking than I was today after being put through football drills. I was running and hitting standing pads and doing fast feet in and out of the squares of rope ladders lying on the grass. All while wearing bulky pads and a helmet. That wasn’t exactly new. Theo had been making me kick in pads and a helmet this last week. I felt hotter today, sweatier, but I was keeping up. Not just because of the conditioning that I’d been doing, but because there was adrenaline coursing through my body that the day had finally arrived.
The sun was burning through the fog as Coach began dividing the group into two different teams.
“Special teams,” Coach O called out. “Follow me.”
I propelled myself into motion, falling into step beside Jensen.
“Really?” Jensen asked.
“Really.”
“I get what you’re doing. This is payback. But you’re taking the joke too far. You’re going to embarrass yourself. And Coach isn’t going to be happy.”
“It’s not a joke,” I said. “I’m trying out.”
He pointed to the uprights in the end zone. “For kicker?”
“It appears so.”
“This isn’t as easy as trying out for a podcast.”
“Maybe it is,” I said, because I wanted him to think I hadn’t worked at all for this when I stole it from him.
“The only person this is going to hurt is you,” he said. “When everyone is talking about you on Monday.”
I shrugged. “I’m used to it by now. Ever since your lovely schoolwide announcement about how much I suck as a podcast host, I’ve been the subject of a lot of gossip.”
“That’s not what I said,” Jensen said, with a scoff.
“That’s exactly what you said, Jensen, except you were more specific. You spelled out the exact ways I sucked.”
“You’re remembering things how you want to remember them.”
“Maybe you’ve altered your memory to help yourself feel better, but I know what I heard,” I said. He didn’t get to change history because the roles were reversed now.
“Did Theo put you up to this?”
“No, this was my idea. It has nothing to do with Theo.” Regardless of the fact that I now realized Theo had a bigger interest in seeing Jensen go down than I originally thought, this was always my plan.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he said.
I shrugged. “Neither am I.” Except that was a lie. That’s all I was trying to do. I wanted this to hurt. Bad. I wanted him to feel it in his bones when I took this from him. I wanted him to be scared. But so far, he only seemed mildly annoyed and distracted.
“Well then,” he said, as if coming to some sort of acceptance. “Good luck.” He stuck out his fist like he wanted me to bump it. We had never fist-bumped before in our lives. He was pretending he was a bigger person than me because he wasn’t threatened yet. I did not fist-bump him. I was obviously not even close to the bigger person.
“We’ll start at the ten-yard line and work our way back from there,” Coach O said. “I want to see three kicks at each stop. One center, one on both sides of center. Then we’ll practice with some defenders trying to block you. Who wants to go first?”
A guy in front of me raised his hand. I assumed he was a freshman or sophomore because I didn’t recognize him or the other guy. There were four of us hoping to score the spot. I didn’t care what order we went in as long as I was before Jensen. I wanted to get in his head.
“Okay, great,” Coach O said. He gestured to someone behind me, and Theo came running up. His left eye was now a purplish black. My heart stuttered for a moment. “Theo is going to help me out today with equipment and ball placement and such.”
I clenched my teeth. I hadn’t realized that was the case, but that was most likely his role as outgoing kicker.
“Let’s see what you have,” Coach said.
Theo, who’d been holding a mesh bag, began pulling out footballs.
“Does he really have to be here?” Jensen asked. “That’s a lot of pressure, Coach, to have the starting kicker here.”
“You don’t think there is going to be pressure in a game?” Coach said.
“I mean, like, he’s judging us.”
“ I’m judging you, kid,” Coach said. “Suck it up. All right, Scott, place your ball.”
“It’s not fair she gets her boyfriend here,” Jensen mumbled under his breath. If only he knew how little Theo was helping my mental game right now. I was all over the place.
Theo positioned a ball on a plastic holder on the ten-yard line, and Scott, the first volunteer, approached him. Then he backed up and kicked. It made it cleanly through the uprights. Maybe I had more competition than just Jensen for this. I hadn’t really considered I’d have to beat out more than one person. I squared my shoulders. Jensen beat out twenty-four people for my coveted spot; I could beat three. The other new guy kicked with the same results.
“I’ll go next,” I said, stepping forward.
Jensen had stepped forward as well, and when I did, he stopped and held his arm out to the side like he was allowing me to go first. I didn’t say a word; my actions would speak for themselves.
“You got this,” Theo said when I approached.
“I need to concentrate, Theo. Don’t talk to me.”
He nodded, his eyes sad, his jaw tight.
He placed the ball on the holder. From the side I heard a whoop. I knew it was Deja, but I didn’t look over. I didn’t want Coach to think that I thought of this as a joke. I took my three steps back and one to the left.
I took a deep breath, then released it and drove forward.
Right before I got to the ball Jensen said loudly, “Don’t miss.”
I stutter-stepped, and my foot hit the ball at a weird angle; it shot straight out in front of me, skidding along the grass. I held back a curse.
Theo growled and went charging toward Jensen. Coach pulled him back by his shirt. “Cool off! Now! Go take a lap.”
Theo put his head down and jogged away.
Jensen could barely contain the smug smile on his face.
“Jensen,” Coach said. “No antics. But, Finley, there will be distractions during a game; you can’t let them get to you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Try again,” he said.
“She gets to try again?” Jensen whined.
“Of course she does. Now, mouth shut.”
This time I put away all thoughts of anything but the ball. I tried to forget the embarrassment of missing. Of other people judging me for it. I focused. This time I connected squarely. It wasn’t as strong a kick as I wanted it to be, but it made it, barely flying on the inside of the far right post. That definitely wasn’t going to get in Jensen’s head as much as I hoped it would. He proved that by kicking it right down the middle and celebrating with an eyebrow raise in my direction.
We each completed our other kicks at that distance, and then Coach moved us back ten yards. By this time, Theo was back from his lap around the field. His eyes were dark, and he glared at Jensen while we took turns kicking again.
At this distance, I got my rhythm and confidence back. I kicked it firmly straight down the center. After that I relaxed. As I relaxed and my kicks became more confident and sure, Jensen’s became more wild and weak. By the time we were finishing the thirty-yard line, he’d missed two kicks completely. Each flying far left. The other two kickers had each missed one. Aside from my first botched attempt, I hadn’t made another error.
“You haven’t given up the wedge kick yet, huh?” I heard Theo mutter after Jensen’s miss, making sure he was close enough to Coach so he could hear. Coach was making notes on his clipboard, I wasn’t sure what, but I hoped next to Jensen’s name it was something like inconsistent wedge kicker.
Me winning could be good for ticket sales, I wanted to say, mocking one of the reasons they’d chosen Jensen for the podcast. I could bring in a new, different audience. I held my tongue because Jensen was spiraling. He didn’t need a push; he was getting there himself.
He missed one more kick at the next distance. After his miss, he picked up the plastic holder and threw it on the ground in frustration. It bounced and tumbled to a stop ten feet away. The new guys missed two kicks at that distance. I still had a perfect record. At this point, I was running on adrenaline and karma.
That energy took me through to the end, when after finishing my last kick, over the outstretched hands of some defenders that had been brought over, Coach jotted something down on his clipboard, met my eyes, then said, “Where have you been? Super impressive.”
This time I gave Jensen the eyebrow pop as I freed myself from my helmet and joined the others waiting. I watched Jensen get his last kick blocked. He looked destroyed. He hung his head, and unlike before, when he’d thrown the holder in anger, he just gathered it like he was picking up a delicate egg and then jogged to where the ball had landed.
Next to me Theo said, “You know you did it, right?”
I wanted to ignore him, but instead I asked, “How do you know?”
“First of all, I could read the notes Coach was making. Second, I watched you.”
The feelings of exoneration and triumph that I thought would course through me with that knowledge didn’t. Instead, I felt like I was crashing down from the rage that had been fueling me. I felt a bit like Jensen looked, walking slowly back toward us, his knuckles practically dragging along the ground like the ball he carried weighed a ton. I felt the weight of sadness over what I had lost weeks ago, over what I had lost yesterday.
I felt lost.