Letter Thirteen #6
My first day back at school, Greer slinked up to me at tennis practice. “You feeling better, Bancroft? We missed you on the court.” He bumped my arm with his. “Me especially.”
I caught you glancing up from your phone to watch us.
“Feeling just fine,” I said. “But I didn’t miss you at all.”
“Oh, come on,” replied Greer. “Why do you give me such a hard time?”
“I’m not sure I like the way you look at me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Something’s not right about you.”
Greer drew back. “Something’s not right about you, either, Bancroft. What way do I look at you exactly?”
“Like you want to pounce on me or something.”
Greer smiled. “And you wouldn’t like that? Something about the way you look at me makes me think you could handle it.”
“Of course I could handle it. The question is, could you handle it if I were to pounce on you?”
Greer rubbed a hand over his chest and laughed darkly. “Sure. If you show me your crazy, I’ll show you mine.”
“Why don’t I show you on the court?” I suggested, strutting off with my tennis racket.
Greer and I were doubles partners that day, so I served the ball—as hard as I could—right at the back of his shoulder. He swore out loud and twisted around to gape at me.
I served a second time, and did it again, only the ball hit him in the middle of the back. Greer threw his arms out and said, “What the hell, Bancroft?”
The two girls over the net threw their hands up, too, ready to get on with the game.
I backed up, bouncing the ball, shooting Greer a wicked smirk. Just before I served again, you rose from the bench, your body coiled tight, on high alert.
The game went pretty smoothly after that, until it was my turn to serve again, and I served the ball into Greer’s back a third time. He whirled around, fuming, obviously resenting the way I smiled at him, because he threw his racket to the ground and charged at me.
The coach ordered Greer to stop, but he kept charging.
No matter. I didn’t move or flinch or cower one bit.
That creep didn’t scare me. In fact, I hoped he would hit me.
Knock me down. Do something to bring me pain—pain, but also relief.
Physical pain would help dull the clawing pain of hurting Michael.
Of damaging his relationship with you. Of losing those pictures of my mom.
Greer stomped so close I had to tilt my head back to look at him. “You little cunt,” he said through his teeth, hands clenched by his side.
I laughed in his face. “See what I mean? If you can’t handle being hit by a little ball a few times, you can’t handle me, asshole.”
That seemed to make Greer even angrier. But then you were there, Casey, nudging him back with a hand to his chest.
“Back away,” you told him—in this quiet, scary voice I’d never heard you use before. You glowered at each other, both of your chests puffed out. I rolled my eyes. Boys.
On the way home, we walked quietly but close, my arm brushing yours. Finally, you said, “You kept hitting the ball at that boy on purpose.”
I shrugged.
“Can we talk about it?”
“Nope,” I said, storming ahead of you.
But over dinner that night, my dad forced the issue. “I heard there was an incident at tennis practice today.”
I shot a glare across the table.
“Wasn’t me who told him,” you said.
Nic leaned back in his chair. “Your coach called me.”
“Of course he did,” I said, dropping my fork. “I can’t do anything without you finding out, can I?”
“No,” Nic said, pointing at me. “And you’d do well to remember that. Did you hurt that boy on purpose?”
I clutched my water glass. “Yes.”
Nic tossed his napkin on the table. “Elliot, hurting people is not okay.”
“This time, Dad, it was warranted.”
“Oh, yeah?” asked Nic. “Tell me how.”
“He creeps me out. He won’t stop hitting on me. He wants me to ditch Casey sometime and sneak off with him. Today, he told me he’d like to pounce on me—whatever the hell that means—and when I told him I wasn’t into that, he called me a cunt.”
“He what?” you both said in unison.
Nic turned to you. “What do you think of this boy?”
You shook your head. “I don’t like the way he looks at her. I can tell she’s uncomfortable around him.”
“What’s his name?” demanded Nic.
“Dad, don’t make it worse,” I groaned. “I can handle him.”
“What’s his name, Elliot?”
Evasion was futile with my dad. If I didn’t answer, Nic would call my coach back and demand the name from him. So I sighed and said, “Greer Johnson.”
We went back to eating, the matter dropped, but the following day at school, I learned from Tinsley—who heard it from doe-eyed Gwen in the girls’ restroom—that Greer had been kicked off the tennis team.
And Greer was definitely angry about it.
He openly glared when we passed each other in the hall—my teammates, too, at the following practice.
They were so disgusted by what had happened with Greer that the coach was forced to bench me when it became apparent the entire team was taking a united stand against practicing with me.
Every person he assigned to play doubles with me refused.
I sat next to you on the ground that day, putting on the best I-couldn’t-care-less face I could muster, but the dirty looks made my stomach churn.
“Hey,” you said, leaning close. “Care to hear the story of me dropping trou to take a wee at a football game?”
I drew back. “What?”
“Yeah. I was only three. We were at Claire’s football game, and I kept telling my dad I needed to take a wee, but he was too invested in the game to take me. So I just wandered out in front of the bleachers and dropped my trousers, and—right there, with dozens of people watching on—took a wee.”
I bit the sides of my mouth to keep from laughing. “A wee?”
“Yes,” you said solemnly, but I definitely noted a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “Right on the football field.”
“This sounds made-up,” I said, eyebrows raised.
“I assure you it’s not. We’ll FaceTime Claire tomorrow, and she’ll tell you it’s true. Imagine being nine years old and your little brother takes a wee on the field—as you’re playing. It stopped the whole game. She was mortified.”
“What did your dad do?”
You straightened, pushing both hands down your thighs. “Oh. Well. He snatched me off the field and took me to the car, and I got—um—I got a good smacking for it.”
“He hit you?”
“No, smacking means to spank. He spanked me.”
“He hit you,” I said, “when he was the one who failed to do his job. Your adoptive dad sounds like an asshole.”
You shrugged.
I slid closer to you along the chain-link fence, touching one whole side of my body to yours, shoulder to knee. You were sturdy and warm, a harbor in the shitstorm that had become my life. My safe place. “Thanks.”
“For what?” you asked, voice dropped low.
“Making me feel better.”
You draped an arm across my shoulders and pressed your lips to my temple. “Don’t worry about them,” you whispered against my head, your raspy voice pulsing through me. “Someday, this will all be a blur, and you’ll never have to see them again.”
But I didn’t want that sweet moment to be a blur. I wanted to remember it forever.
And the painful reality, Casey, is that I’m absolutely certain I will.