Chapter 14 River
Fourteen
River
March
“They’re here,” Dad said, a grin splitting his face. He held up four large envelopes. “Texas, Auburn, Alabama, and Michigan. Call me crazy, but rejection slips are never this heavy.”
He dropped them on the dining room table like a conquering hero bringing home the spoils. Mom was just finishing dessert—a tiny wedge of apple pie—while Amelia and I cleaned up the dinner plates.
“That’s quite a haul,” Mom said to me when I returned from the kitchen. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”
Her voice was tired, as if she’d just woken up.
Since Christmas, she’d been coasting on relatively good health, though she still had good days and bad.
Today was bad. She had a checkup with her oncologist in a few days.
The dread of what he might say hung over the house like a cloud that Dad tried to keep from choking us with his enthusiasm.
“We need all the good news we can get,” he’d told me that afternoon as I helped him at the auto shop. “Your mom wants to know, more than anything, that your future is secure.”
Mom wants us to be happy, I’d thought then and again as he fanned out my future on the table in front of us.
“Well?” Dad said. “Which do you want to open first? I say we save Alabama for last.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling weakly.
During our college application process, we’d discussed which school would be the best fit for my career prospects, and the University of Alabama came out on top.
Because of course it did. It was Dad’s alma mater.
He was getting a second chance at the life he wanted through me. His excitement broke my heart a little.
“I hope, gentlemen,” Mom said, “you spare some thought for River’s actual education when it comes to the final decision.”
“Of course,” Dad said, tearing into an envelope like a kid on Christmas Day. “Alabama has a distinguished academic program.”
“Good. Our son is too smart to leave everything on the football field.” She turned to me. “What do you think you’ll major in, honey?”
My stomach roiled at all this talk about my future that Mom would never see.
“Not sure. English lit maybe. Or mechanical engineering. Or both.”
Dad made a face. “You could major in underwater basket weaving, and the NFL is still going to come begging for you.”
Mom shot him a look. “Jerry…”
“You’re right, you’re right. An education is paramount.” He gave me a wink.
“It is,” Mom insisted. “Your brain, River, is more important than your throwing arm.”
“That’s code for you’re a dork,” Amelia said, returning from the kitchen and flopping into the chair beside me.
“Amelia!” Mom said, biting back a laugh. “River is not a dork.”
“Right.” She flapped an envelope at me. “Does Jockstrap University know you’re secretly a huge nerd?”
I took the envelope from her hand and smacked her lightly on the top of the head. “It’s not a secret.”
She laughed, and the laugh loosened the hard, fuck-the-world attitude she’d been trying to build since Mom’s diagnosis.
The little warm moments like these—snippets of a normal life—always brought her guard down.
Amelia’s eyes filled with sudden tears, even taking herself by surprise.
She got up muttering something about homework.
Mom reached out and snagged her wrist. “Hey. You okay?”
My sister nodded quickly.
“Love you.”
Amelia bent and kissed Mom on her scarf. “Love you,” she said brokenly and then hurried upstairs, keeping her face turned from us.
“Well,” Dad said into the silence that followed. “We don’t have to do this now.”
Mom smiled gently. “No time like the present.”
Dad and I exchanged glances. She was right. There was no time like the present, because that was all she had.
***
When I trudged onto campus the next morning, students were huddled in groups, whispering and murmuring, the girls giggling behind their hands.
I followed their starry-eyed gazes to Miller Stratton, Ronan Wentz, and Holden.
The three of them made an odd group; Evelyn Gonzalez had started calling them the Lost Boys.
The name stuck, mostly because of that old vampire movie set in Santa Cruz.
Holden’s the vampire.
The day was warm as we got closer to spring, but he looked coldly flawless in black jeans, white shirt, and a gray tweed coat. Every inch of skin covered but for his head and hands.
But I’ve seen everything.
The thought sent a rush of blood due south. It’d been months, and I still couldn’t let him go. No matter how many days slogged by without a word from him or how many nights I spent gripping myself to memories of us, there was always more. More loneliness, more need, more missing him.
I crossed the quad while Holden talked and laughed with his friends, no lingering signs from that horrible Christmas night where I’d found a broken mess on the floor. If he thought about me as often as I did him—every other minute—it didn’t show.
Evelyn Gonzalez approached the Lost Boys and lured Miller away.
Holden cupped his hands to his mouth and called after them. “Did you hear about his magical dick too? How am I the last to know?”
Miller gave him the finger, and Holden cackled, elbowing Ronan. Our gazes intersected, and his sharp features softened. He watched me cross the quad with the same hunger and longing in his eyes I saw reflected in mine every day.
Maybe there’s still something there.
Reality smashed me in the face as I crashed straight into Donte Weatherly.
“Whoa, hey!” he said, laughing, his gaze going between Holden and me. “Watch it, man.”
“Hey, sorry,” I said quickly. “You have biology next, right? I have chem. I’ll walk with you.”
“Sure, sure,” Donte said, a casual, easy smile on his lips. “Was it my imagination, or were you eyeballing Parish?”
Fuck.
My throat went dry. “Say what now?”
“You. Parish. It seemed like you two were having a moment.”
Fuck fuck fuck…
“A moment.” I scoffed, my pulse pounding. “Definitely your imagination.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Mmm, interesting.”
I stopped walking. “You have something you want to say to me?”
Donte’s laughing brown eyes were suddenly hard. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
Adrenaline lit up my veins, and I felt hot all over.
Shit, here it is. After all this time.
Naked fear gripped me, tinged with relief that the moment had finally arrived. That my pretend life was about to come crashing down over a careless glance. I teetered on the edge, fighting for equilibrium, while part of me hoped Donte would shove me in.
He put his hands in his letterman jacket pockets and rocked back in his Air Jordans.
“I’ve just been putting some things together in my mind, you know?
You’ve been acting weird for a long time.
Like at the Burger Barn a while back. And when I really start thinking about it, you’ve been shy about your relations with the ladies for years.
Almost like…you’ve never had any. And so this weird feeling I’ve been having starts to take shape. ”
I forced myself to keep my face blandly neutral. “Yeah, you got me, Weatherly. You found me out. I don’t brag about getting pussy, I don’t share private pics on Insta, and I don’t treat girls like fucking toilet paper the way Grimaldi and Blaylock do so I must be…what?”
Say it, asshole.
“Look, I’m not trying to cause shit for you—”
“No? It sure as hell sounds like it.”
Donte’s hostile demeanor softened, and he dropped his head. “I’m just saying if you have something to say, you’d better say it. Come clean for the team. So we know the score.”
“Since when is there a score? I thought we were friends.”
“We are. But I like to know who my friends are, man. That’s all.” The bell rang. He hesitated, looking as if he regretted his insinuations. “I’ll see you later.”
He walked away, and I stepped back from the edge.
The rest of the day crawled, my nerves lit up and itchy under my skin as if I were a criminal waiting for police that never came.
The murmurs and whispers continued, girls mostly huddled together over their phones, giggling.
Paranoia told me they were watching me and Holden.
Someone had taped us. Or Holden had, and now the video of him sucking me off was circulating through the school like wildfire.
You’re being crazy. Get a grip.
I approached Julia Howard as she scrolled her phone on the way to lunch. “Hey, Julia. Do you know what everyone’s talking about?”
The popular girl, one of Evelyn Gonzalez’s best friends, showed me her phone. “Miller Stratton. Evelyn put him on her vlog and…well, you can see for yourself. He’s going to be a huge star.”
“Yeah, great.” I turned to go, relief washing over me even while the knot in my guts tightened.
“So, River. You ask anyone to prom yet?” Julia asked, twirling a lock of blond hair around her finger.
“No. Why?” I demanded harshly.
“Wow, relax. Just curious.”
Another girl joined Julia, and they wandered off, whispering and glancing at me over their shoulders.
Calm the hell down.
Donte, Chance, and the guys were at our usual table. I forced myself to join them with my usual calm confidence. Donte didn’t know shit. No one did. I was still king of the damn school as far as anyone knew.
The group was occupied with a different drama anyway.
Over the weekend, someone had spray-painted rapist on Mikey Grimaldi’s white Jeep Rubicon.
Mikey hadn’t been officially charged with anything, but he was absent that day, and the girl he’d been seeing, Kimberly Mason, had suddenly transferred out of the school.
“This is bad,” Chance said. “Bad for the team. A stain on our undefeated season.”
“Yep,” Isaiah said. “Our legacy. We don’t need this shit.”
“Not to mention the damage to our rep.”
Not to mention Kimberly, I thought with a grimace.
Donte was watching me. I shot back a questioning glare. You have something to add to the conversation?
He shook his head once—a temporary truce. He hadn’t ratted me out to Chance and the other guys yet, but he might when all this shit died down. Or if I slipped up again. But there couldn’t be another slip.
Every minute I kept up my pathetic charade felt like cheating on Holden.
And myself. But he’d kicked me out of his life, and there was no one to live mine but me.
My mom was going to die, and my dad was going to be crushed.
Our family changed forever. No one was going to suddenly swoop in and fix everything or make things easy.
I was on my own.