Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
“Yeah, right!” Past Jason is saying. “You were turning green by the end of that ride.”
Past Zadie laughs. “No, that was you, Mr. I’m Not Scared of Anything Riddick,” she says. “You were squeezing my hand so tight, I think a couple of my bones are broken.”
Now, they’re both laughing.
We’re so close we’re almost right on top of them, but it still feels like they are an entire world away from us.
“In less than a year, I’ve discovered three different types of your kryptonite,” Other Zadie says smugly.
“Three?” Jason is incredulous. “I can’t even think of one!”
Zadie untangles her fingers from his to count them off. “Arcade games slash dancing.”
“Okay, true,” Jason concedes. “That wasn’t my best performance.”
“Heights,” I whisper dully at the same time as Other Zadie says it to Jason.
“Heights?” Jason sounds flummoxed, and for a second it’s like he’s answering me. Talking back to me, as if we can hear each other. It is a jarring feeling, like speaking to a dead person. “I’m scared of the Big Dipper, not heights. I’m completely fine with heights.”
“Sure, Jason,” Zadie says.
Beside me, Marcus is dead quiet.
“Okay, what’s the third? You said three?” Jason asks.
Zadie stops walking, and so the three of us do too.
“And me,” Zadie says with more certainty than she feels. “I’m your kryptonite.”
Jason leans down with a smile that takes up his whole face, kisses her on the nose.
“That one,” he whispers, “I won’t deny.”
They make out right there in the middle of the carnival, and for one or two seconds, everyone has to go around them.
The kiss is passionate for how public it is, and I feel my heart very literally split in two.
How can anyone deny that we were anything but unstoppable together?
On the other hand, I feel like Marcus and I shouldn’t be here. That we should be somewhere else.
Until someone with the type of booming voice that only a sports coach possesses yells, “Mr. Jason Riddick!”
I groan and cover my eyes. “Oh God, here we go. I can’t even watch this.”
Before Marcus can suggest that we shouldn’t, I shush him.
Zadie’s the first to jump back, and Jason’s eyes have gone wide, a timid expression on his face. “Coach Feathers,” he says.
“Who’s Coach Feathers?” Marcus asks, frowning.
“You’ll see,” I say.
Coach Feathers has a full beard sprinkled with white and a head that is almost bald, but not quite. “I thought that was you, dipping into the chocolate milk, but it was hard to tell,” he says with a smirk. The words make me flinch even though it’s obviously not the first time I’m hearing them.
“What the fuck did he just say?” Marcus says, disbelieving. He’s as shocked as Jason and Zadie feel, if their stunned eyes are anything to go by.
It’s always like this, a moment when you are least expecting it, when someone says something that pulls the rug out from under you.
“Did he just imply what I think he implied?” Marcus asks me.
I nod, trying for no expression, but I’m clenching my fists so hard my nails dig into my palms. For days after this encounter, I would question whether Feathers actually said what I thought he did, whether he meant it the way I thought he did, whether I should have told him how much of an asshole I thought he was, or whether I did the right thing staying quiet.
“How’s Sterlingwood?” Coach Feathers asks, patting Jason once on the shoulder, the man’s authoritative voice making me feel small, even now that I’m invisible. Even now that he technically has no power over me; he’s just a memory.
“Um, good, sir,” Jason says.
“And how’s that heading technique we talked about?”
“Wait,” Marcus says, “why isn’t Jay beating his ass? What am I looking at?”
“He can’t,” I explain, even though I feel warm all over. “It’s UMaine’s soccer coach.”
“Right.” Marcus looks furious, and not just at Feathers now but at his cousin, who is saying, “Much better. I’m looking forward to showing you how much it’s improved this coming year.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Feathers says.
“Jason can’t say anything,” I point out, my voice small. “It would ruin his prospects with—”
“Zadie,” Marcus says with the utmost seriousness, “fuck his prospects.” He’s looking at me like he can’t believe what he’s witnessing. Feathers pats Jay on the back again, then walks off. As soon as he’s gone, Past Jason gives Past Me a guilty look.
“Zad, I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I forgot how much of a tool he is.”
“That’s convenient.” Marcus is fuming.
Something tiny in me feels vindicated, seen somehow by Marcus’s reaction, even though I’m sure it’s easier to be mad in a dream than in real life.
It’s easier to call someone out for doing the wrong thing than to do the right thing yourself.
For all I know, if I’d been at this fair with Marcus and Coach Feathers had made a ridiculous comment, Marcus might have just given me his own apologetic smile.
Somehow, though, I’m not completely sure of that.
Other Zadie waves the whole thing off. “He’s not the first or last ignorant person,” she says, feigning a smile.
She takes Jason’s hand again, and we—they—keep walking.
In real life, I feel slightly ill as I watch them.
Even though it’s only been five months since this moment, I am not sure I would react the same way now.
Not sure that I would take Jay’s hand and pretend everything is okay.
My dad would have made a scene.
Always easygoing and cheerful and fun, unless somebody hurt me or Mom, he would have told Feathers where to shove it, and he would definitely be looking twice at Jason. Not that it’s Jason’s job to save me, but he could have handled this way better.
Still, it’s Mom’s voice Other Zadie is hearing when she plays it off—Mom’s voice I typically hear in moments like these. Keep smiling. Don’t give them something to talk about.
Softer eyes and kinder smiles and fewer whispers.
For Other Zadie and Jason, there is a notable damper on everything, like looking at the world under an overcast sky compared with a bright sunny sky. But they try to make the best of it.
They go back the way we came, to the bumper cars.
After playing on them for a while, they attempt a video game.
They take photos with a clown on stilts, and Jason even convinces one of them to let him try on their stilts.
To disastrous effect. Other Zadie takes pictures of all of it, and eventually they’re laughing hard, holding the stitches in their sides.
I smile too as I watch, tell myself with every second that passes: you and Jason. This is what makes sense.
When they get back down to the ground from their last ride, it’s sunset, everything a reddish orange as it burns up the sky.
“I’ll be right back,” Zadie tells Jason before she goes to the bathroom.
“Hold on,” he says, kissing her softly first. “Now you can go.”
She heads off, eyes twinkling, smile big.
“Who do we follow? Him or her?” I ask Marcus, mood still dampened as Zadie gets farther and farther from us.
“Listen, Cartwright,” Marcus says, and I can tell he’s trying to put the joviality back into our day. “I know you don’t want to miss a thing, but there are laws against following someone to the bathroom.”
I give a strained laugh, focusing on Jason, who is reading a message on his phone.
I get close, then even closer, and all I can make out is Monique’s name.
Why were Jay and Mo texting? Before I can read what the actual text says, though, Jason turns off his screen and slips his phone into his pocket.
Just then, I remember that this memory takes place in April, and Past Jay is going to decorate Past Zadie’s locker with flowers in a couple of weeks with Mo’s help.
“Hey,” Jay says, stopping at the stall just a few feet away. There are bears of all shapes and sizes in the stall and a plastic bow and arrow to shoot the one you want. “How much is the big one?”
The stall worker looks a couple of years younger than Jason, so he’s probably a freshman or so. “The big one?” the boy asks in a bored, nasal voice.
“The biggest one,” Jason amends.
“They’re not for sale. You play for them.”
“Okay, how’s fifty bucks?”
“You want fifty turns at shooting?” the boy asks, sliding Jason a set of about ten arrows. “Have at it.”
“No, man,” Jason says. “I think you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t want to play. I want the really big one for my girlfriend.”
“This is sweet, right?” I say, getting a little more into this.
“It is,” Marcus says.
“I believe I said it’s not for sale,” the boy says.
Jason looks around the corner to make sure Zadie isn’t back yet and turns again to Stall Boy. “Listen, man, one hundred bucks.” He puts down a fresh bill. “We’ll just say I won it.”
Stall Boy takes the hundred bucks, holding it up to the light as if testing its validity.
“All right,” he finally agrees. “Congratulations, man, that was a great shot.” He hands Jason a bear that is almost as big as him over the counter.
But it’s not Zadie who comes up to Jason—it’s a curvy brunette girl with makeup and skin that is, literally, without flaws.
“Aw,” she says, taking the bear’s paw. “Is this for me?” She bats long eyelashes at Jason.
“And who are you?” he asks, immediately falling into Hot, Confident Soccer Captain mode.
She stands much closer than she has to. “Alana Duncan.”
“What the hell?” I whisper. This is also new for me.
“Uh, wow,” Marcus says, seemingly waking up for the first time in minutes. I try not to let it irk me, the fact that Marcus is clearly attracted to this very attractive girl, who if I didn’t know better, I would say is trying to hit on my boyfriend.
“Who are you?” she asks, all bouncy and casually gorgeous.
“Jason Riddick.”