Chapter 28 Bryson
Bryson
I can tell Jaden wants more time on the court alone, so I send everyone home and promise Taryn that we’ll get the lights off and that I’ll take the blame if we get caught. Given what Jaden has been through, I think we would argue a pretty heart-strong case as to our reasons for being out here.
“Taryn’s right, you know,” Jaden says, sitting down on the ground in the center of the court. I sit next to her, placing my hand within inches of hers. I give her a sideways look.
“About what?”
“If we get caught out here, the athletic director is going to lose his mind,” she says.
I lean back on my palms and look up at the sky. I can’t see the stars through the beams of the lights. They’re probably buried under the coastal sheen of cloud cover anyhow.
“Nah. I’m a football player, remember? Hero worship.” I throw her words back at her, and she takes them in jest, chuckling before sliding back on her own palms. Her hand brushes against mine, and the feeling is what I imagine it must be like to be struck by lightning.
“Besides, the story practically writes itself,” I say. I hold up one hand and sweep it in front of me. “Cordon’s greatest athlete of all time takes to the court under the stars one more time in search of her swing.”
The raspy laugh that caught my heart the first time I heard it fills our tiny, special space.
“I don’t think that would be the headline,” she argues.
“Oh yeah?” I squint one eye as I glance at her. “What did I get wrong?”
Her lips twist in thought.
“Well, for starters, I’m not sure you could call me the greatest Cordon athlete of all time. There’s a hall of fame football player from here. Plus, Kathrine Maltese.” Her head falls to her shoulder in a nonverbal “I told you so” type of way.
“Ah, yes. The great Kathrine Maltese. Okay, let me edit that.” I lift my hand and repeat my gesture. “Cordon’s most beautiful athlete of all time takes to the court under the stars one more time in search of her swing.”
Jaden rolls her eyes, as predicted, and I lean into her shoulder enough to push her slightly off balance.
“I’m not that either,” she says.
I shake my head.
“No, you are. I’m the authority on the subject, remember? I get to tell you all the ways you’re beautiful. And most beautiful is one of them.”
My gaze lingers on hers, and I’m rewarded by the slight crinkle that forms at the corners of her eyes as her smile spreads.
“Why do you like me?” She studies me with an intense look in her eyes, and I realize that I can’t lie to her under such scrutiny.
“I don’t like you,” I say. Her eyes flinch.
“I love you,” I follow up.
This time, her stare is fixed wide, and if I didn’t see her nostrils move with the sharp intake of air, I might worry that she was frozen.
Her upper lip begins to arc, and she leans into me, her focus narrowing on my mouth.
I close my eyes and welcome the soft brush of her lips against mine, the tease of her tongue against my lower lip followed by the subtle suck of my lip between hers.
She lets go, but her mouth remains close enough to tickle mine with her words.
“I love you too,” she hums, sending a million vibrations across my lips all at once. My grin is instant.
I shift my weight, then move a hand behind her head and hold her to me as I kiss her deeper.
She’s coming back, not just to me, but to herself.
I feel it in her touch. I can hear it in the timbre of her voice.
She’s getting stronger. She’s finding her power.
She was only lost. Now, she’s on her way back home. Back to me.
“If you turn the lights off, can we still sit here for a while? Just like this?”
I smile in response and scurry to my feet.
“We can downright camp out for the night if that’s what you need to do,” I say.
She giggles and shakes her head.
“I don’t think I want that. I could use some actual sleep.”
“Right.” I nod before holding up a finger and dashing to the control room just below the center court stands. It takes me a few tries to figure out the right breaker, but I flip the lights off finally, then lock up the room before jogging back to her.
Jaden is flat on her back when I get there, and my mind races with terror for a short second, recalling her just like this after her seizure.
Only that’s not what’s happening now. I squeeze my eyes tight and block the vision before kneeling, then lying beside her.
I stretch my arm out, and she scoots into the crook of my arm, resting her head on my bicep and her palm on my chest. I hope I’ve slowed my pulse enough to mask the fear that raced through me.
She has her own demons to slay. I don’t want her worrying about mine.
“Tell me, Crash. What’s holding you back?”
She pats my chest with a tiny bit of gusto, and I huff out as if it were a heavy blow.
“Fine, Jaden. Not Crash. Crash is gone. History.” I roll my head enough to meet her waiting gaze.
“I don’t really mind it so much,” she admits.
“I know,” I answer.
She hangs on to my gaze for a long, quiet moment, then flits her attention back to the sky. I was right about the clouds. But there are patches missing, and some of the stars are shining through.
“When I was in high school, there were a few people that called me a not-so-nice nickname,” she says.
My chest tightens, and I can’t help the beast that wants to beat up her enemies. He’s in there, waiting. Let me at them.
“What was it?”
She’s quiet for a few seconds, and her fingers scratch against the cool center of my T-shirt and the middle of my chest.
“The red hair makes it easy for them. I mean, Carrot Top was on regular rotation. But other terms weren’t so PG.”
I jet up to a sitting position, aware enough to bring her with me to make sure her head doesn’t hit the ground.
“Fire Crotch, or when they really wanted to embarrass me, Fire Cunt. Because of the hair, and I guess my temper.”
“Temper? You?”
She levels me with a hard look, and I swallow the rest of my words as I think back to our first encounter.
“I know I can come off callous, arrogant, maybe mean.” She blinks slowly, and I can read the hurt in her eyes. She was given the nickname years ago, and she’s outgrown it for sure, but it still stings. Words are terrible that way.
“Not true. You’re the nicest.” I squint one eye as her chin tucks and her brow pulls in. “Though, you are quite red . . . down there.”
She shoves me to my side, and I laugh hard, grabbing her body and rolling her with me.
She ends up lying directly on top of me, and while I could probably explain the lights being on as well as the two of us sitting out here and talking, I know I wouldn’t be able to explain this.
Neither of us moves, though. So I guess . . . fuck it.
I run my hand along her cheek, then sink my fingers into her hair.
“What is it? For real. What’s in your way, because I’ll move it. However heavy it is, I’ll move it to get you there.” I lift my forehead to meet hers and close my eyes before whispering one more plea.
“Tell me.”
“It’s me,” she breathes out. “I’m in my way.”
My head rolls against hers.
“Explain.”
She hums in thought for a moment as I let my head rest on the court again.
I hold her hair away from her face with my hands and brace her weight so her neck doesn’t tire from holding her head up.
I want to do everything for her, which I know isn’t right, but it’s how I feel.
And I think I’m going to fight that urge to do things for her for a long time. Maybe forever.
“I’m twenty-two years old, and I’m still harboring bitterness over a nickname someone gave me seven years ago, when I had acne and braces. How do I handle wearing a badge that says I have epilepsy?”
My gaze flickers from one of her eyes to the other.
“You own it,” I say.
She pushes up from me with a tsk.
“I’m serious, Bryson. I don’t want people to look at me and only see that.”
I swing my body around until I’m facing her, both of our legs folded, our knees touching.
“Look, I know it sounds cliché, what I’m saying.
I’m aware. But you and I are in a really rare position thanks to Amelia’s app.
You have a lot of power right now, and what if there’s a girl out there struggling with something, maybe even epilepsy, and she sees someone like you pop onto her feed and declare that it’s part of your identity, but not all of it?
Imagine how you would have felt if the great Kathrine Maltese broke into your Saturday morning cartoons to tell you that she was called names too. And look at her now.”
She stares at me flatly, and I fear I’ve lost her with the Kathrine bit. Before I have a chance to chicken out, I hold out my palm and ask for her phone.
“I’ll go first.”
She blinks her eyes wider, tilting her head, but hands her device over, albeit reluctantly.
“I won’t talk about you. This will be all me being honest about my own shit.
What do you say? I go, then you go?” I’m not sure if I’m rooting for her to accept or turn me down.
She ekes out a soft “I’ll think about it,” though, so I decide that’s good enough.
It’s time I reckon with all the reasons I haven’t been honest about abusing pills, and maybe that will help me understand why it’s so hard for her.
Even if I wasn’t taking them to get high, I shouldn’t have been taking the pills in the first place.
And the reason I haven’t talked about that part of my injury and recovery publicly is that I didn’t want people to look at me like I was weak.
I didn’t want to be labeled as a druggie, instead of a nineteen-year-old who was afraid of looking like a failure after defying his overbearing father.
Hell, I didn’t want people looking at me like I was either.
I scratch at the back of my neck as I hold her phone out, ready to stream, and I hit the live button before she can stop me.