The sport fields
Chapter 5
Shophia
I hadn't slept
Not really. I lay in the dark with my eyes open and my brain running at full speed, cycling through every possible scenario in which I might accidentally cross paths with Lorenzo Calloway tomorrow.
By two in the morning I had a mental map of the school's east wing that was probably more detailed than the actual floor plan.
By three I had accepted that I had no real plan at all.
By four I had given up entirely and just stared at the ceiling until the light outside the window started turning grey.
And right now I have to fight falling asleep while I sitting across from Mr. Henderson's desk with my hands folded in my lap and my eyes on the door and tell myself I am fine.
I am fine.
I am absolutely, completely, totally fine.
"Miss Miller," Mr. Henderson says, appearing from a side room with a slightly apologetic expression, "I do apologize for keeping you waiting. It appears Mr. Calloway has decided not to attend school today."
He says it in the tone of a man who has said this particular sentence many times before and has long since stopped being surprised by the need to say it.
The tone of someone who has learned, through repeated experience, that certain students operate on their own schedule and the institutional calendar is more of a suggestion than a rule.
I nod very seriously to hide the fact that inside I am absolutely losing my mind with relief.
He isn't here ?
So my prayers have been answered after all.
Every single one of them.
"But please don't worry," Mr. Henderson continues, already reaching for his phone, "I've arranged for someone else to show you around. He should be here any moment."
As if on cue, the door opens.
"Hey, newbie."
James leans against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets and a grin that says he finds this situation approximately as funny as I find it relieving. His glasses are slightly crooked, as always, like they have opinions about his face and haven't quite settled on a final position.
"Looks like I'm the lucky one giving you the tour," he says.
"Lucky," I repeat.
"Very," he confirms.
He is a good tour guide, as it turns out. He shows me the locker rooms first and stops outside a set of doors at the far end.
"And here," he says, gesturing with a slight bow, "are the guys' locker rooms."
How did I not saw that ?
"That wasn't there yesterday," I say.
James turns to look at me.
"It was absolutely there yesterday."
"I'm serious James , that sign is huge, how did I not..."
"Sophia."
"I'm being genuine, I genuinely did not see..."
"Sophia." He puts a hand briefly on my shoulder. Shooting me outside to the tennis court.
"The size of this place." I look out across the courts six of them, all pristine, all empty at this hour, the lines so white they hurt to look at.
Beyond them, just visible, the edge of a running track and what looks like an outdoor swimming pool catching the morning light. "I keep forgetting how enormous it is."
"You get used to it," he says, starting to walk again.
I follow, jogging slightly to catch up. "How long have you been here?"
"Five years," he says.
"Were you impressed? When you first came?"
He stops.
Turns around slowly, in the middle of the path between the tennis courts and the sports hall, and looks at me with a small smile that I can't immediately interpret.
"What?" I say.
"Nothing," he says. Still smiling.
"James. You're doing a thing."
"I'm not doing a thing."
"You're absolutely doing a thing. Why are you looking at me like that?"He seems to consider this for a moment, like he is choosing his words carefully, which is unusual enough from someone who generally seems to say whatever comes to mind first.
"I just think you're..." He pauses.
"Different," I finish, and I hear the flatness in my own voice before I can stop it. "Yeah, I know. I've been hearing that a lot. I get it... I don't have the right background or the right..."
"Special," he says.
Like different and special are two entirely separate things that have been unfairly conflated. "And that's not a bad thing, Sophia. That's actually kind of the opposite of a bad thing."
I look at him.
He looks back, completely serious, the smile quieter now and somehow warmer for it.
I don't know what to do with that, so I look at the tennis courts instead.
"Come on," he says, after a moment. "This way is the football field it's the popular spot here" he explains to me and shows me the basketball court after and then leads me to a small kiosk at the edge of the playing fields where a bored-looking student is selling energy drinks and protein bars to
anyone who has a free period.
James hands me a can without asking what I want, which I decide to interpret as a sign of good friendship instincts rather than presumption.
"So," he says, pulling the tab on his own can. "Why do you hate sport so much?"
"I don't hate it," I say automatically.
"You looked at the cheerleading sign like it had personally insulted you."
"That's ..." I open my mouth. Close it. "Okay. That's fair. But it's not hate. It's more like..." I turn the can in my hands, watching the condensation collect. "I just don't feel it right now. Which I know sounds stupid."
"It doesn't," he says simply.
I glance at him sideways.
He is looking out at the playing field, relaxed, giving me space to continue or not continue, no pressure either way. There is something about him that makes silence feel comfortable rather than obligatory. Like he understands that some things need a moment before they are ready to be said.
"Back home," I say, slowly, "I did a lot of sport. Surfing, mostly.With my friends." I stop. "And with my parents. We used to go on weekends. My dad was terrible at it and never got any better and absolutely refused to admit either of those things."
Something pulls at the corner of my mouth at the memory. The specific, bittersweet kind of smile.
"Now it just..." I look down at the can. "It reminds me of them. And I don't always know if I can handle that yet. Being reminded."
Silence.
James doesn't say I'm sorry for your loss the way people do that phrase that is kind and means nothing because what else could you say, really. He doesn't try to fill the space with something comfortable.
He just says "I understand ."
Quiet and direct and like he means exactly those words and nothing more.
I turn my face away. Feel the warmth climbing up my neck and into my cheeks, which is a completely disproportionate physical response to someone being kind to me and one I have absolutely no control over.
"Hey you two!"
Maria materialises from around the corner with full energy, red hair loose around her shoulders, already scanning the situation with bright eyes. She looks between us and presses her hands together.
"Okay, you look adorable together, I'm just saying "
"He was showing me the sports areas," I say.
"Sure he was," Maria says pleasantly. "Okay so ...party tonight?"
"Oh, I'm not really ..."
"It will be fun, I promise, no caviar ..."
"I have to help my aunt," I say. "With her work. She has a big project and her assistant is away and..."
I stop, remembering. The Calloways. The collaboration.
The very specific information I have been asked, implicitly, not to spread around a school that is apparently deeply enmeshed with that family. "Just a big project. She needs me."
Maria looks at me. Then at James. Then back at me with the expression of someone running calculations.
"Okay," she says finally. "But next time no excuses."
"Next time," I agree with a smile and look between the two of them .James with his crooked glasses and his quiet patience, Marie with her freckles and her full volume presence and feel something settle in my chest that wasn't there yesterday.
Something small.
Something that might, if I'm not too careless with it, grow into something that feels like belonging.
Don't get used to it, says the cautious part of me.
But the rest of me ....tired and sunburned and slightly less alone than I was this time yesterday.