Chapter Thirty
Ten years ago
It’s a Friday night, and although the varsity season is long over, Parker is playing an alumni charity match.
The crowd turnout for a friendly scrimmage is incredible: The bleachers are packed with students, faculty, and folks from all over town, who arrived in droves to watch a Division I recruited quarterback play his last home game.
Our school has pulled out all the stops, with the band and a cheer squad to mark the team’s unofficial send-off.
A few heads in the cheer section turn my way, exchanging whispers.
In our eye-catching hues of red and white, I can tell that we stand out.
The four of us—C?, Chú, Nathan, and me—are wearing Parker’s old Griffins jerseys.
It was Nathan’s idea for each of us to wear one from Parker’s four years on varsity.
His freshman jersey—the smallest of the set—nearly reaches my knees.
Parker has always made me feel pocket-sized, but I don’t recall him being this big at fourteen.
When I breathe in, I recognize the familiar scent of the Costco detergent C? buys in bulk, along with a faint trace of body spray.
Nathan gestures to the two black stripes under my eyes. “Nice touch.”
“Have I ever been one to half-ass anything?”
“Don’t say ass, Dani,” C? chides.
To no one’s surprise, Parker is a burst of unmatched energy on the field.
He launches passes with pinpoint accuracy, making easy targets of his receivers.
Every time he puts the ball in the air, it’s an unstoppable missile.
By the end of the first half, he has three touchdown passes and not a single interception.
I think everyone has the sense that this is no ordinary game: There’s something magical about him tonight, and he has all of us under his spell.
The floodlights turn on in the second half, illuminating the field as Parker scores his own rushing touchdown—faster on his feet than I’ve ever seen him.
C? is jumping up and down with a cheer that rivals the freshman girls screaming in the front bleachers.
I hear the click of a camera and notice that the local press has shown up.
By the fourth quarter, the Griffins are up 32 to 15.
The center snaps the ball to Parker, and the tight end explodes down the field.
Parker launches a stunning forty-yard laser beam, and it’s caught effortlessly in the end zone.
As the clock ticks down to the final seconds, the team is already celebrating its victory.
A cheerleader jumps into Parker’s arms, and the stands are a frenzy of whoops and applause.
Every eye is on him. Spectators erupt with joy, fired up as if they’d come off the goal line themselves.
I wonder how it feels to have everyone you know rooting for you.
I love watching Parker play football. Something about him lights up from within; he’s mesmerizing, and I can’t get enough.
I watch as he and his teammates lift the Gatorade cooler to dump over the coach’s head, and a laugh bubbles out of me.
I know one thing for certain: Parker Tran belongs on the field.
Friday nights are indisputably his. I think of all the games I’ll miss once I leave, and I have this tiny, selfish desire for tonight to last forever.
The players return to the locker room as a crowd assembles around Parker’s family, congratulating them with handshakes and hugs.
I have an inkling this will take a while, so I tell them goodnight and descend the bleachers.
Parker and I have our own plans for tonight—he intentionally withheld the details from me, but I’d been instructed to wait for him in the parking lot following the game.
No sooner have I sat on the curb than I see it: tall and wide, with mud-hungry tires and a hardtop that looks like armor. The jet-black Jeep Wrangler rumbles into the parking lot, rolling to a stop in front of me.
“No way,” I gasp as Parker steps out.
He wears his usual postgame attire of jeans and his letterman’s jacket. That smile—the one that reaches his eyes—I’ve only seen a handful of times.
“My parents surprised me with a little recruitment gift.”
“Little?” My mouth falls open as I circle the vehicle. “Can I touch it?”
“You can,” he laughs, and I take my time opening doors, running my hand along upholstery. I don’t climb in just yet—this moment feels too big to rush. “Why didn’t I see it in the driveway?”
“I drove straight here from the dealership.”
“Wait, does that mean—” A grin tugs at the corners of my mouth. “Is that why you told me to meet you here? Am I the first one to get a ride?”
“Wouldn’t make sense if it were anyone else.”
My heart swells with gratitude. Sometimes I have this silly fear that Parker will outgrow me.
Before high school, we used to see each other every day.
The longest time we’d spent apart was the three weeks his family spent in Vietnam.
But when we entered Green Valley as freshmen, something shifted.
Parker found his stride early; people in a small town have a way of sniffing out someone destined to be A Big Deal.
He’s been popular since day one. I had a modest group of friends from book club whom I sat with during lunch, but we didn’t see each other much after school or on weekends.
By junior year, Parker was fully focused on recruitment: meeting coaches, attending showcase events, and traveling to camps.
On a smaller scale, I was preparing for my big move to New York, building up my college applications with AP classes and extracurriculars. Every once in a while, I’d picture our futures splitting off in such different directions, I’d wonder how we’d ever find our way back to each other.
Then Parker does something like this and reminds me that even if our paths diverge, he’s still saved a spot marked Dani. I wipe my hand under my nose, trying to dial back my emotions.
He makes a surprised sound. “Are you going to cry?”
“No. Shut up,” I scoff, allowing myself one more lap of the car before meeting Parker where I started. He’s got his eyes trained on me, hands in his pockets.
“I saw you in the bleachers,” he says. “Wearing that.”
“It was Nathan’s idea.”
He gestures to the number 11 in large, white print. “It looks good on you.”
I don’t know if it’s the compliment or Parker pointing to my chest, but my cheeks are warm, and I imagine just as red as his ears have turned. When his eyes fall to mine, they catch the shine of the floodlights in the distance, and I forget whatever response I’d planned to say.
I only have to be a mute tomato for a second longer, because a pair of boys are gravitating toward the Jeep, whistling loudly. “Damn, Parker! Nice ride.”
“Watch your sweaty hands,” he chides. “Mike, I know you don’t shower after games.”
“Shit, all I got was my dad’s old Civic.”
“Hey, let me test drive it. Just once around the lot.”
Parker hovers near his car, trying to form a protective barrier against his grubby teammates. The shorter of the boys—a running back on the team—drifts toward me. “Dani, right?”
I blink at him. “You know my name?”
“Of course. You were in my World History class,” he says. “Do you know my name?”
“Caleb Brennan.” I didn’t need to search my brain too long for it. “You did a presentation on the Defenestrations of Prague. I thought it was hilarious that people were thrown out of windows so often they had to come up with a term for it.”
“Right? That makes me feel better. Mr. O’Connell gave me a D because apparently it didn’t count as an actual historical conflict,” he mutters bitterly. “By the way, why didn’t you come to Bend with us?”
A few of the seniors on the football team drove to Bend for a weekend. Someone’s older brother helped them rent a cabin, and someone else’s cousin supplied the beer. That’s the story Parker told me, anyway. He didn’t get into the particulars after he returned.
“Oh, um, I was busy.” What was I doing that weekend? Either I was working on my college essays or adding hours to my Animal Crossing save file.
“I thought you’d be there, since you and Parker are—” He stops, and I know what’s coming.
“We’re best friends,” I insert before he can speculate.
He merely nods, digesting this information. “Okay, that makes sense. Since Amelia came.”
After that weekend away, a rumor spread that Amelia Reyes and her girlfriends had driven down to Bend to join them at the cabin. Word in the hallways was that there were six boys, six girls, and only five bedrooms to split. Again, I didn’t have the lowdown.
“I thought he was going to invite you, but she showed up instead,” Caleb says. “I didn’t even know they were seeing each other.”
My fingers curl at my sides, the jersey bunching up beneath my grip. I pause, trying to discern if it’s another rumor or if Caleb’s just told me a bad joke, until I realize he’s posed the sentence as a question and is looking to me for confirmation.
“I didn’t know either,” I admit.
What I do know is that sometimes Parker goes to parties and doesn’t come home until the next day.
Every now and then, a girl will show up at his door asking if he wants to catch a movie.
Most of what I hear is through the rumor mill—which makes it easy to dismiss—and never from the actual source.
Parker doesn’t make a point of telling me things like who he has a crush on, and I’ve never asked.
Until now, I didn’t want to know.
I turn to Caleb. “Does Parker have a girlfriend?”
“Shouldn’t you know that?” he asks, and I hear the accusation clearly: What kind of best friends don’t talk about this stuff? I stare down at my sneakers, where I’ve discovered the single most captivating grass stain.
Before the agonizing silence can go on too long, Mike lets out an undignified yelp as Parker grabs him by the leg. They wrestle by the car, and Caleb can’t resist jumping into the action.