7. John
It had been a very long and confusing day, and if you”d told me this morning that Cade Simpson sporting a pink shirt would be the least unexpected thing that would happen, I wouldn”t have believed you. Cade didn”t seem like a pink-wearing kind of dude, but then again, I didn”t know him all that well. Still, Cade wearing a pink polo was far less surprising than Joey Baxter showing up on my doorstep.
The water heated gradually, and I waited in the privacy of my bathroom, letting the silence of the house and the sound of running water push me deeper into my own thoughts as I stood with one hand in the flow, waiting.
It was so odd to think that just a few feet away, only a couple slabs of drywall and some two-by-fours between us, slept Josephine Baxter. I had to work hard to keep myself nonchalant about the fact.
There was something undeniably nice about being needed, though it felt wrong to admit that, given the current state of my friend”s life. Was it wrong to feel honored and happy that she”d chosen to come here? To me?
I knew it was, but I couldn”t help it. That was how our unconventional friendship had always been. She was the popular girl, the shining blond debutante first on the list for every school dance”s court, and first on the list of every guy”s dream dates. And she did all that stuff. Homecoming queen, prom queen, president of student council. She fit the mold.
And yet...
She didn”t.
I met Joey Baxter in fifth grade. She was blond and beautiful then too, but I was less easily swayed by such things at ten years old. It turned out what really got me interested back then was a girl who could run faster than I could. And it didn”t just interest me. It pissed me off.
But there she was, in her ruffled sleeveless shirt and pink shorts, beating my ass in her white Keds and still looking perfect. It started at PE one day when we were doing those ridiculous Presidential Fitness tests. Our whole class had to do the one-mile run. It was hot—one of those swampy Alabama days when the right thing to do was to sit under a shady tree and try not to sweat. But the teacher didn”t care. She filed us all by the drinking fountain and then told us to line up.
We”d been prepared for this. They sent a note home and everything. We were supposed to eat a good breakfast and come to school well hydrated.
But the night before had been one of Dad”s bad nights. The kind where you stayed quiet and out of sight and just hoped the yelling and cursing would stay focused on the game. TJ and I stayed in our room while Dad screamed and drank, hoping he”d fall asleep so we could find something quick to eat for dinner while he snored away on the couch. We didn”t get lucky that night, though. He came looking for someone to fight with, and even though Teej tried to protect me, I was that guy. I was always that guy.
Dad didn”t hit me. But he scared the shit out of me on a regular basis, making it clear I was the problem. I was the cause of his troubles. Teej always told me it wasn”t true. I knew somewhere deep down it wasn”t true. But it didn”t make it better. And when Dad told me to go to bed and not make another sound that might remind him of my sorry existence, I followed orders. And I got myself dressed and off to school before he woke up.
So I wasn”t well fed or hydrated.
And when we ran the mile, Joey Baxter beat me by almost two minutes. She finished first in the class. Ahead of all the boys. And I finished third to last, ahead of the one kid who refused to run a single step and a girl who faked a sprained ankle in the first lap.
While I practically collapsed at the end of it, Joey glowed in the sunlight like the princess she was raised to be. A princess who came over to see if I was okay, since I was hunched on the ground trying not to throw up as my friends guffawed around me.
”Yeah, I”m fine.”
”You don”t look fine.” Joey Baxter”s blue eyes had glowed on that blistering day as she”d leaned over to get a better look at me. ”I”m getting you some water, John.”
She returned with a cold bottle of water, handing it to me and standing there watching as I drank it while still hunched on the ground. It was the best water I”d ever tasted.
”Thanks.”
She”d smiled then, and maybe I”d been a goner from that day on. But when her eyebrows pulled together and she leaned in again, she sealed the deal. ”My daddy says some people are better at running super fast for short distances than pretty fast for long ones. Sprinters, he says.”
”Yeah, probably true,” I agreed.
”I bet you”re a sprinter.”
I hadn”t understood what she was doing then. A big part of me just wanted her to head on back to the group of girls she usually hung around with, leave me to my misery. But she didn”t. Instead, she challenged me to a race the next day. A sprint.
That night, I slipped through the kitchen before I headed to my room for homework. I filled that plastic bottle with more water, made myself two peanut butter sandwiches, which I wrapped in paper towels, and plucked an almost black banana from the counter.
The next day, I showed up at school well-hydrated and well fed. I”d had a good night”s sleep, and Dad had even made spaghetti for dinner. I”d had the second sandwich at lunch, and by the time we were set to race—during our recess after lunch—I was feeling confident. I was ready now. I”d surely be able to beat this girl.
But I didn”t.
I didn”t beat her that day, and I didn”t beat her the next day, either.
It took me almost three months to get fast enough to beat Joey Baxter. The thing she probably still didn”t know was that the training she pushed me into, the incentive she gave me without even meaning to, was what drove me to be the best once I started playing hockey. In a lot of ways, Joey was the reason I was playing for the Wombats. And so many times, when training got really tough or a game wasn”t looking good, I thought back to the day I finally hit the fence at the end of the playground before she did. I thought about the way she”d smiled at me and thrown her arms around my neck and yelled, ”You did it, Sammy! I knew you could!”
We quit racing after that, but we kept hanging out together at recess. We played basketball, handball, and just sat on the swings, talking. It wasn”t the same kind of friendship I had with any of the boys I usually hung around with, though I”m not sure at this point if I”d call those guys friends, exactly. I didn”t talk to them at all. Not about anything real.
But Joey told me about her family, about her life, which sounded like it belonged on television to my young ears. We were a study in contrasts. There was nothing about the two of us that would make you look at us together and guess it would stick. Still, it did.
In middle school, Joey invited me to her house to study, since we were both in a lot of the advanced classes together. I didn”t return the favor. I couldn”t imagine Joey sitting at the kitchen table in our two-bedroom house, couldn”t imagine what my father would find to say to her that wouldn”t humiliate me more than the truths I”d told her about my life already did.
So we went on that way. We grew up together. Adjacent. Not intertwined, exactly, but still close. She lived her life and I lived mine, but there were times she was the only one I wanted to see and there were things I knew only she would understand.
Snapped back to reality, I shut off the shower and wrapped my waist in a towel, stepping out of the steam and doing my best to banish all the memories that had decided to join me in there.
”Stay in your lane, Johnny,” I whispered as I stared into the mirror at my own familiar face.
Joey would always be in my heart, but I knew she”d never be mine. I”d learned that the hard way in high school, and if there was anything that had kept me out of trouble and moving in the right direction all these years, it was that I didn”t have to learn the hard lessons twice.