17. Relief
SEVENTEEN
Three minutesinto the third quarter, Cam paced in front of the bench, squinting fruitlessly at the opposite side of the field. “Can anybody tell me what’s going on?” he asked the air. “Is he coming back in?”
No one on his sideline answered, and the tension as the home team cheered on their backup quarterback on the stadium settled into silence when their offense went three-and-out.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Cam shouted, knocking his teammates’ helmets with his fists while he reached for his own. “Back at it! Down three is nothing for us!”
He paused as his defense ran off the field to make way for special teams. He grabbed Justin’s elbow. “What did you see?” he demanded.
“Eleven? Halsey got him hard. He was grabbing his left wrist,” Justin said. “He fell with it kind of under his hip, and he kept opening and closing his hand. Looked like he was in a lot of pain. Do you know him?”
“Yeah. Yeah, kind of.”
“Fraternizing.” Justin clicked his tongue and smiled. “You know we can’t go easy on him if he comes back in.”
Cam jolted. “Do you honestly think I would ask that of you? Or expect it? I really thought you knew me better than that.”
“Course not.”
Cam’s eyes went to the video screen when the cameras pointed at the home team’s sideline. A trainer sat next to Hayden, opening and closing each finger on his left hand, then bending and rotating the wrist. As he jogged onto the field, Cam winced in sympathetic pain and rubbed his own wrist. It wasn’t his throwing arm, but it was important. Quarterbacks needed both hands, and damage to certain nerves or ligaments could end more than one game. The look on Hayden’s face said he was not about to let it end that one.
“Get it checked while you have time, asshole.” Cam mumbled the words his direction before he collected his team for the huddle. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
Hayden’s defense was stacked against the running game, and Cam’s arm was already feeling every one of the two hundred yards he threw before halftime. Forty yards into another pass-heavy drive, he threw a tight screen for a twenty-six yard touchdown. He shot a look at the opposite bench as he celebrated with his receivers. “You idiot, put the ball down.”
The opponent took the opposite tactic and leaned into the run game to take the strain off their quarterback. As Cam caught the pained expression on Hayden’s face cast wide on the big screen, he leaned forward on his elbows and racked his memory for a time he knew anyone he played against.
He came up empty.
Hayden dropped back for a pass and froze for a second too long in the pocket. Just before he let the ball off for a wobbly, incomplete pass, Isaac tackled him.
Cory
My boys! Where’s the selfie?
Cameron
Didn’t happen, Dad.
Cory
I missed the late games. Fill me in.
Cameron
Paging @HaydenHamilton, do you want to tell him, or should I?
Hayden
Well, I only have one working thumb, so you do it.
Cameron
Oh, NOW you’re going to rest it.
Hayden
Yeah. Now that it’s not game day with my team trailing yours, now I’ll rest it.
Cory
WHAT HAPPENED?
Cameron
He fell on his left arm at the beginning of the third. Landed on his wrist, didn’t get films, and went right back out and fell on it again.
Hayden
Of course I went back out.
Cameron
Your face was eighty feet wide on that screen. Everyone saw you looked about ready to bite through your lip. You didn’t even get it wrapped. Were you TRYING to break it?
Hayden
I was trying to rally my team after you scored on us. My backup is shit, or didn’t you notice when you ran up the score in the fourth?
Cameron
You guys have had some fourth quarter rallies, and you could have come back out with a Terminator arm for all I knew.
Cory
Okay, we don’t talk game head-to-head, guys.
Ethan
Cool it, both of you.
Cameron
I was concerned for you, Hammy. I really was.
Hayden
Maybe you shouldn’t have sent your goons back on me.
Cameron
We were playing the game. Every hit that took you down last night was clean. And nobody softens up because you’re hurt. That’s why you sit out a drive, get wrapped up, and get checked.
Hayden
My trainers said I could play. I’ll take their word over yours.
Cameron
Did they tell you to get out of the locker room once they talked you down there? Did you listen to them then?
Ethan
What are you talking about, Cam?
Cameron
He went down and stayed down. For all his shit about rallying the guys, he didn’t come back to the sideline with them.
Cory
Is it broken?
Hayden
No.
Cameron
You should have been out there with your guys.
Hayden
You’re pretty sour about missing a selfie, asshole.
Cameron
I was genuinely worried for you. And yeah, I wanted to shake your hand on the fifty, win or lose.
Hayden
You did fine without my company at the press conference.
Cameron
The one you didn’t go to? How did you talk your coach into letting you skip that?
Ethan Engel has created a private chat.
Ethan
Paging @CameronPorter. Just shut up. He regrets it already. Can you see that?
Cameron
No, I can’t see that. He’s doing what he always does and dodging responsibility. This wasn’t one of his stupid jokes. You didn’t see those guys, E. They were deflated.
Ethan
You don’t get to babysit the other guy’s team. That’s his team, not yours.
Cameron
And we’re not linking up in this chat to support each other and the integrity of this game?
Ethan
You call this support? Go look at what you just wrote.
Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t fight through a little pain to get back out there for you guys?
Cameron
Of course I would.
Ethan
That’s what he did.
Cameron
And then he hid from everyone who needed to see him. THAT is what I have a problem with. That was his house. Those were his fans. And he bailed.
Ethan
Again, NOT support.
Cameron
They would have had to cuff you to a bench to keep you off your sideline.
Ethan
That’s not the point, buddy. Step away from the phone. Go lift and add a few pounds. Go do something to work it out a little bit.
And congrats on the win.
Cameron took his time piecing together his tools and workspace. He extracted the diamond-tipped bits from his kit and laid them out in a line on a rubber mat, perfectly spaced. From a hook on the wall, he grabbed an apron, then dug his goggles—prescription, since he hated the way eye protection fit over his glasses—out of his supply drawer. He set his glasses in the drawer, fitted a bit to the rotary tool, and sat down.
The soapstone was about the size of a sheet of notebook paper, and he had already sculpted most of the front row of the summer garden: pansies, marigolds, geraniums. Behind them, according to his initial sketch, would bloom wisteria, hollyhocks, and azaleas. One row further, a lilac bush and bougainvillea on a trellis. One corner of the stone was kept open for a bougainvillea blossom, if he could make some sense of the perspective for the vine.
The hum of the rotary tool and the quiet drip of water against the stone were white noise after a moment, and he dug in with the finest point to scoop out the curves of some marigold petals. He’d grown up whittling with his father, and got his first chance to use sculpting tools on wood less than a year before. Before he was done with his first project, he was hooked, and eager for new media beyond what he’d handled his entire life.
He paused, grabbed a pencil, and drew the first wisteria on the stone, behind the marigolds. With the fine-point bit, he traced the sketch, then swapped it for a thicker, rounded bit to clear out a little more depth.
He heard the door open and knew from the silence who it was. Anyone else would have said hello. On his way in, he saw her in the drawing studio, her back to the open door.
“Grab some goggles over there if you want to watch,” he said without looking up. He wasn’t sure if she heard him over the hum of the rotary until her footsteps stopped behind him.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Avery said. “I saw you and wondered if this was the flower sculpture.”
“It is.” He drew the whirring bit across the stone, catching the tiny water droplets to cool the friction as more soapstone turned to dust. “Wisteria bushes here.”
“Are you working from a drawing?”
“A sketch. But I’ve deviated a few times already.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He worked without speaking for a few minutes, drawing branch outlines with blossoms, then digging everything down to let the front row stand out and create depth in the relief. The sculpture studio was uncommonly quiet on Sunday afternoon.
The game the day before and the chat with Hayden that morning itched under his skin. Ethan was right to tell him to put down his phone, but maybe he would have been better off at the fitness center, where he could slam things down and yell in frustration and everyone would tell him how great he was. Here, he was a lowly apprentice who had to move slowly and thoughtfully, even when his mind was jumbled.
She waited until he pulled the bit away and blew it off to speak. “What’s the water for?”
“The bits have diamond tips like sandpaper, and when they grind out the stone, they can get warm. That can cause the bits to wear down like the stone does. The water keeps it all cool.”
“You can wear down diamond bits? I thought only diamonds can scratch diamonds.”
He blew on the bit again and handed her the rotary tool. “It’s not a solid diamond. It’s like sandpaper around a block, except it’s grains of diamond on a chunk of metal. Heat breaks down the metal or adhesive.”
Avery nodded and handed it back. He brushed her hand with his as he took it, and she jerked back.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to say hi, and see what you were working on. I’ve never taken sculpture classes.”
“I might be biased, but they’re the best.”
“I want to take printmaking in the spring, so I’ll have to get decent at carving linotype.”
“I’ll be happy to help you.” He held up the rotary tool and flicked it on. “If you want.”
“I may take you up on that.” She lifted her goggles, and her blue eyes met his. “Thanks for letting me watch for a bit. I’m going to get back to work.”
Cam bent forward over the table and turned the water drip back on. “You don’t have to go,” he said, touching the bit to the stone. “I mean, if you’re interested, you can watch. It doesn’t bother me.”
“You’re used to having a lot more eyes on you.”
“The stadium sounds like a drill sometimes,” he said. He frowned at the stone, blew it off, and switched to the fine-point bit. “It’s loud when you let it get loud, but when you get in the zone, you don’t notice so much. It’s the same with having an audience.”
She smiled. “I’ll try to refrain from cheering.”
He nodded and kept his eyes down. She was so close—less than two feet away, on a spinning stool just like his. He could touch her and ask her what happened to her brother, and tell her what happened to his. He could kiss her and tell her why he loved flowers so much, about the bees and his hat and everything he loved and hated that might go into that tattoo design.
If she belonged to him, he could make her understand. He could explain it without words if he could kiss her.
“Avery?”
“Cameron?”
His breath caught in his throat when she met his eyes.
“Can you hand me that pencil? It got away from me.”
She scooped it up from where it rolled in front of her and dropped it in his open hand.
He sketched another flower next to the wisteria. “There. Hollyhocks. I’m going to try and make some of the top flowers bend forward, so I can’t cut as much off the top layer for those. They’ll need to be almost the same depth as the marigolds.”
“I’m entranced. Go on.”
After dunking the bit in a little puddle of water accumulated in the branches of the wisteria, he traced the outline of the hollyhocks. “Soapstone is good when you’re still learning,” he said, rambling as he worked. “The drills scoop it out evenly without a lot of work. You just have to know what you’re digging for. Even marble is a lot more malleable than you’d think.”
“I always think of marble for old statues. Ancient artists with itty-bitty chisels working for years to make one piece.”
“It’s fun with the chisels as well, but a little easier to take out too much of a hard stone, like granite. Most headstones are done by sandblasting or laser etching these days. The people who carve granite by hand are so good.”
He nearly drilled into a wisteria blossom. That was not the way he intended to ask about her brother. Pulling the rotary back, he took a deep breath to regain his focus.
“I’ve seen some with interesting designs on headstones. Reliefs, and things.” She nodded at the stone. “What an interesting job that must be. Probably a lot of the same old things, and once in a while, some weirdo with a funny family.” She stifled a laugh. “There’s one in the cemetery where my brother is buried that has the name and dates, and it says ‘Beloved husband of the woman who was right about the motorcycle.’”
Cam nearly dropped the drill. “Oh my God, I can’t decide if that’s the best or worst thing I’ve heard all day.”
“You could almost say something like that for Isaac, so I don’t know why I think it’s funny, but I do. I suppose you’ve got to lean into whatever helps you cope, right?”
His breath caught in his throat, and he coughed. “Sorry,” he wheezed. “The dust. Hand me that brush, please.” He cleared off the stone and the work area and whisked a pile of soapstone dust into his hand. “I should’ve had the vacuum on.”
“It’s okay.”
“A motorcycle?”
“A boat.”
He dusted off his hands and waited. When she didn’t speak for five seconds, he knew she wasn’t going to. “With my brother, it was SIDS when we were about four months old. I didn’t even know I had a brother until I was about ten. I never had a sense of him or a feeling like someone was haunting my birthday parties. Everyone in my family knew, obviously, all my grandparents and aunts and uncles, and none of them told me because my folks said not to. They thought I’d ask difficult questions and be sad. To this day, I don’t know how I feel about the way my folks handled that with me. ”
Cam blew out a long breath. “I wonder what it would be like to have another one of me. Whether we’d be alike or different. We were identical, so I do know he’d be a gorgeous hunk with killer biceps,” he deadpanned.
Avery spun to face him, smiling. “I’m glad I had my brother for fifteen years, at least. I remind myself to be grateful. I can’t fathom a parent’s side of this, so I try not to judge my mom and dad, but come on. They had two kids still here who needed them, and just kind of looked the other way.”
“I’m sorry, Avery.” He pushed up his goggles. “Crap. Can you grab my glasses out of that open drawer? You’re a blur.”
When she pressed them into his hand, her fingertips brushed his palm. He curled his fingers to touch hers as she pulled her hand away. When he looked up with his glasses on, she was staring.
“I’ve never seen you without your glasses before. I’ve never seen you without a hat or a helmet, either. That could be downright scandalous.”
“Nah. I’ve got a bald spot under this thing.”
“I think you’re smuggling drugs.”
“Diamonds for my drill bits.”
“Even better.”
“What’s the deal with you and Isaac? Fields, I mean.”
The words escaped his lips before he could stop them. But asking Isaac would feel like asking his permission, so he had to ask her.
The pencil she’d been twirling in her fingers clattered to the floor. They both ignored it, and Avery fidgeted with her hands, spinning left and right on her stool.
“It’s—we’re not really a thing. We kind of gave it a shot, and we realized we do like spending time together, but just as friends.”
Cam’s heart leapt into his throat, and for a moment, all he could do was nod.
“Well, that’s a bummer, I guess,” he said when he regained his voice.
“It’s great to make a new friend out of it. It all works out.”
“It all works out.”
“Now, if I can leverage him to help Justin see reason, it would work out even better.”
“You still haven’t talked since he told you that you were running from reality? Is he just not answering calls or something?”
“I texted him a few times. Short replies, like ‘that’s nice’ and ‘maybe later.’”
“If I can help, tell me what you need.” He stopped himself from reaching for her hand. Too soon. He had to wait more than two minutes, at least, and gather his thoughts.
“Thank you. I don’t want to put you in the middle of it, though. I really don’t want to involve Isaac, to be perfectly honest. You guys are his friends. Justin and I will work it out.” She lifted her chin. “I’m sure we will. I’ll text him today and demand a meeting, or else.”
The glimmer in her blue eyes warmed him. Their conversations had given him drops of who she was, and left him parched. He wanted to know the girl behind that honest bravado—what made her so confident and what left her vulnerable.
“Now,” she continued, “I’ll get out of your hair. Philosophy homework is calling me. I’ll tell you all my deep thoughts later.”
He waved the rotary at her, pointing the diamond bit. “Oh, you’d better. Or else.”