Chapter 52 #2
Mentally I’m already on the plane, fuck all of it, I want to see him so bad, I don’t care about anything else.
‘Don’t you have class?’
‘Yes but—’
‘And y’all have a game tomorrow. You’re the captain, you can’t let the team down just to come see me.’
‘How do you know we have a game tomorrow?’
‘’Cuz your schedule is online, fucklenuck. You’re in the UK, not Outer Mongolia, but I bet they have the internet there too.’
Who knew I’d be dreaming of the day my little brother calls me a fucklenuck?
‘It can’t be that long until you head home for fall break, right?’ he says. ‘Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I’m still reeling at the fact we’re having this conversation at all. I have no idea what I’ll be doing in November, if I’ll even still be enrolled here. ‘They don’t have Thanksgiving here so I might not be able to get away.’
‘Christmas then. Be here before you know it, according to Mom. Reckon I’ll be out of the chair for good by then, might still need a walker for a few months but I could even be back in school after the holidays.’
A fresh swell of tears spills down my cheeks but happy ones, bittersweet anyway. We’re talking again and he doesn’t hate me.
‘Sorry you’re not getting more time off,’ I say, and he laughs. ‘But think how popular you’ll be when you go back. You know what they say, chicks dig scars.’
‘Even when they’re on your back and your butt?’
‘Especially then.’
He yawns and I do the mental math on the time difference. It’s only eight there and Chris has never been a natural morning person.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I tell him. ‘Promise me you won’t say anything to Mom and Dad? At least not until I get home.’
‘Dad’s in New York all week, some legal conference thing.’
He says it like it’s no big deal, but Dad has been spending more and more time away from the house. Not since summer, but for the last couple of years. Once Chris goes off to college, I wonder what will happen to him and my mom.
‘Mom went to the gym. She joined that fancy new one, out on Route 21? Right by Fightertown. Goes almost every day.’
This is a new development. Mom is hanging out at a gym next to the Marine base? Maybe Dad isn’t the one I should be worried about after all.
‘Will you call me after you pick up the W tomorrow?’ he asks. ‘I was looking for the local channel to watch you play but I couldn’t find a damn thing.’
I manage a smile at the thought of his scouring the web, the assumption that we’re going to win.
‘College sports aren’t the same over here as they are at home. No cameras, no mascots, no cheerleaders.’
The gasp of horror that echoes down the line really does prove he’s feeling better. Chris has had a thing for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders since before he could walk.
‘You could get someone to livestream it for me? Like that time I FaceTimed the Georgia game for Mom?’
‘I’ll see what I can do, I promise.’
‘’Kay.’
There was a time when I thought growing up with a little brother was a massive pain in my ass.
Always tagging along, always screwing up my plans.
Now I can’t keep him on the phone long enough.
When he yawns again, I know it’s time to stop being selfish, but I wait for him to end the call. God knows I can’t be the one to do it.
‘I’m gonna go back to bed,’ he says. ‘I have PT this afternoon.’
‘Sounds good, bro.’
‘Ethan?’
‘Chris?’
‘Thank you.’
Just when I thought I was done with crying.
‘You never have to say that,’ I tell him, welling up again.
‘Just wanna make sure you heard it.’ The line goes quiet, and I can hear a TV rumbling in the background. ‘You’re really doing good over there?’
He sounds doubtful but I’m doing a hell of a lot better than I was ten minutes earlier, that’s for damn sure.
‘What could be bad? I’m in school, I’m playing soccer, everyone here is scary nice. It’s like living in a Paddington movie. You don’t need to worry about me. Now you get your ass back to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow.’
‘You better not forget. I’m bored out of my mind here.’
‘I won’t forget.’
As if I could.
When the call cuts out, my phone slips from my fingers, falling onto the ground as I pull my knees up into my chest. Chris is going to be okay. He’s going to walk again. Now all I need is for him to stick to the plan. He can’t tell anyone he was driving Bre’s Jeep that night or everything blows up.
Wrapping my arms around my shins, I curl up as small as I can, head tucked into my knees, and let it all go.
Everything I’ve been holding in all comes pouring out.
The white-hot moment of fear when Chris swerved and Bre grabbed the wheel out of his hands.
The ugly blur when I woke up in the backseat followed by sheer terror when I heard Chris whimpering, stuck between the steering wheel and the crushed-in car door.
Holding Breanna’s shoulders, begging her to tell the cops I was the one driving.
Lying to my folks. Lying to Breanna’s dad.
Sitting next to Chris’s bedside for two whole days until he woke up.
And now Mia. A fresh slice of pain like a knife running across my palm.
I didn’t know how much I needed soccer in my life until it was almost taken away but I think I knew how much I needed Mia from the first moment I saw her.
By the time I’m all cried out, I’m shaken and exhausted, but there’s a spark of hope. When I call Chris tomorrow, he’ll pick up.
Which means I have twenty-four hours to get my shit together, because I have a game and a girl to win.