“DON’T!” I SHOUT, BUT it’s too late. The door lumbers and squeaks open.
“It’s a nice afternoon,” Brad says.
With my hand clutching one of the many metal storage racks, I tell myself that this isn’t a big deal. The open garage door is just like a big window, and technically, I’m still in my house. I can try—try—to feel okay in the garage.
“IamsafeIamsecureIamcapable,” I mutter quickly, focusing on Brad’s shoulders as he digs through his backpack.
“What was that?” he asks without looking up.
“Nothing!” I take a deep breath. The flowery smell floating in from outside mixes with the scent of old motor oil.
“Hey!” Brad picks up a football off the rack I’m clinging to for dear life.
Laughing in spite of the not-at-all safe, secure, or capable way my contracting rib cage feels, I gesture to the shelves full of tools and Christmas decorations. “How did you manage to find the football among all this junk?”
“Instinct,” he says, then fakes a throw at me. I cover my face and he laughs.
I laugh weakly, grabbing the ball from him, which gives me an idea. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Brad looks at me thoughtfully. “That … you’re annoyed with me?” he asks.
“No! What? No way.” My face might really be on fire. “I was thinking that we can use this! For our project, to record parabolic motion!”
Brad’s eyes brighten. “Oh, awesome! Good one, Mal! Let’s do some throws.”
I beam. Then I realize he’s waiting for me to step out of the garage.
“After you,” he says. Damn it, why does he have to be such a perfect gentleman?
You went in the backyard the other day, I remind myself. And it was fine! Other than the falling and the embarrassment. You didn’t die. You didn’t stop breathing. No cars skipped the sidewalk and hit you. No rabid dogs ran into the yard and bit you. No virus-carrying birds pooped on you. Well, that you know of. Other than Jake, no one even saw you.
It’s not like I have to go to school. It’s not like I have to go to the mall. I’m even on my own property. It’s the driveway, Mal. Just do it. If I’m ever going to make it to the birding excursion in who-knows-where, I have to make it through this.
I take a deep breath and step onto the driveway, feeling the cracked pavement through my sneakers. I slowly come out of the shadow and into sunlight. Out where anything could happen. I close my eyes and inhale through my nose.
Am I safe? Am I secure? Am I capable? I’m not sure.
“All right, let’s do this!” Brad says, and I exhale through my mouth and throw the football with all my might toward the sound of his voice.
“Ow!”
I open my eyes and see Jake Kirkpatrick hunched over the hood of his car in his driveway. He stands up and rubs his arm.
“What the hell?” He puts down a wrench and picks up the football. Then he throws it right at me.
“No!” I cover my head and duck, but the football flies into the garage, knocking over an empty trash can. I think Brad says something like “Whoa, Mal!” but I can’t really tell because he’s laughing so hard. And, apparently, can’t stop.
I cross my arms and stare at him. “You done?”
He wipes his eyes. “Your arm is really strong. And your aim is terrible.”
“Shut up,” I groan.
“And you know you’re supposed to catch the ball, right? Not just try to stay out of the way?”
“Not all of us can be sports stars, okay? I have physics, you have football!”
“Do you have physics?” Jake wonders out loud, definitely not to himself. Any regret I feel at hitting him with the football evaporates.
Brad smiles. “As QB, I can’t allow this disrespect of a football to happen on my street. Please just let me show you how to throw and catch.”
“Please don’t,” Jake calls from his driveway.
I glare at Brad, my arms still crossed.
“I’ll give you one tip right now,” he offers. “It doesn’t involve screaming or hiding from the ball.”
I shake my head. “You are the literal worst.”
I got hit in the head with a volleyball three times during freshman-year gym, and only two of those times happened when I was on the court. So my fear of catastrophe striking at every moment isn’t totally irrational.
I’m about to ask Brad if we can just get back to our project, but I think about the “assignment” text Jenni sent me this morning along with approximately fifty heart emojis:
Initiate physical contact with Brad. Innocently touch his arm! Brush an eyelash off his face! Something that requires you to touch him!
I would seriously rather die than brush an eyelash off Brad’s face, but football seems like a relatively non-embarrassing opportunity to complete the assignment. And besides, I’m outside right now. Who’s to say I can’t become Reardon High’s first female football star?
I throw my hands up in surrender. “Against my better judgment, okay!”
Brad actually fist pumps and then holds up both hands for a double five. I can’t believe I’m hanging out with this ridiculously hot, upbeat weirdo. I roll my eyes but smack my palms against his.
“I can help record your trial throws.”
I look away from Brad and see that Jake is no longer on the other side of the waist-high shrubbery that separates my house from the Kirkpatricks’. He weaves his way through all the moms’ cars that line the street and joins us in the driveway.
“Oh, sweet,” Brad says. “Thanks!”
“Aren’t you busy with your car?” I ask.
Jake looks straight at me as he shakes his head. “It can wait.”
Brad trots into the garage to pick up the football, and in a low voice I ask Jake, “What, are you stalking us or something?”
He leans in close to my face. There’s a distinct toothpaste smell on his breath. “Just making sure you don’t hurt yourself again.”
I scoff. “Oh, shut up. You’re—”
But Brad’s back, holding up the ball and looking eager to get started. “Let’s go over here in the side yard.”
I hesitate at the edge of the driveway. I inhale, hold it, and exhale, trying desperately to think of a reason why I need to go back inside. My fists clench involuntarily and the back of my neck starts to sweat—God, the last thing I need to deal with right now is sweat stains. “Do you need any water or anything?” I call weakly.
“Nope!” Brad shouts, faking a few throws.
“Just don’t get too close to the tree house,” Jake says. “I hear it’s dangerous.”
I give Jake the finger when Brad turns his back to us. He grins at me, evidently enjoying this way too much.
“Don’t worry, we’ll stay away from it,” Brad calls over his shoulder, innocent as ever.
Every cell in my body is screaming to run back into the house, get back in bed, and pull the blankets over my head. The plan, I think. Jenni’s assignment. You can do this. The sun beating down on me makes me feel dizzy and weak, but I walk across the grass anyway. If I’m shaking, the boys don’t notice.
Brad gestures me over. “Okay, so let’s just get you comfortable with the football before we try to record anything, okay? You’re right-handed, right?”
“Yeah,” I say shakily, my tongue heavy and dry in my mouth.
“Okay, so stand a little bit to the right.…”
I mirror everything Brad does.
“Hold the football up and put your thumb underneath.…”
“Like … this?” I ask. The football seems way too big for my hand.
“Almost. Just put your arm more like … can I?” Brad asks, stepping behind me. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck as he adjusts my arm and my hand, and suddenly, I’m panicking, but in a totally different way. My own breath slows down and becomes a little less shallow. Having someone basically hugging me makes being outside a little easier.
That must be it.
Jake coughs. “You gonna throw the ball, or should I just come back next week?”
“Okay,” Brad says. “So you just pull your arm back like this, and let ’er rip.”
I nod, and Brad runs about twenty-five feet away from me, narrowly avoiding the hostas my mom planted alongside the garage. This time I keep my eyes open as I throw the ball toward him.
“Awesome!” Brad shouts, throwing his hands up in victory. “Wanna try again?”
I do. I throw the ball over and over, until I don’t need Brad to adjust my arm anymore.
“I’m not saying you’re good,” Jake says after about twenty throws, “but you’re getting better.”
“High praise,” I say, then fake-curtsy as Brad claps. Jake coughs “show-off” into his hand.
I’m not only out of the house for one of the first times in months, but I’m A) with two dudes I barely knew a week ago and B) sort of having fun. Have I slipped into a universe where Mallory Sullivan is a breezy, fun, normal girl instead of an anxiety-ridden weirdo?
My introspection is interrupted when Lincoln appears, running around Mom’s prized rock garden.
“Oh God, you’re outside!” he says at an embarrassing volume.
Seeing Linc snaps me out of my fantasy world. My palms start to tingle. You’ve got this, I think to myself. You’re in the yard. Nothing bad can happen.
“Please don’t alert the media,” I say, trying to tell him to stop making a big deal of it with my eyes. “What’s going on in there?”
Lincoln takes the hint. “I saw you guys playing from my window, and I wanted to be part of this momentous occasion.” He puts his hands over his heart and looks at me. “My big sister, playing a sport.”
I exhale a sigh of relief and give Lincoln a tiny smile, hoping my gratitude is transmitting via our shared Sullivan brain waves.
“I don’t know if you guys know this,” Lincoln continues, giving Brad a pointed look, “but I used to be a football star, too.”
“In seventh grade, until you quit because you hated it,” I remind him.
“My total apathy for team sports does not overshadow my raw talent. Also, the moms just put on Michael Bublé, and Ms. Wilson keeps trying to engage me in a conversation about how handsome George Clooney is.”
“Uh-oh,” I say. My mom’s Michael Bublé playlist usually only comes out when they’re several drinks in.
“Exactly. I mean, George Clooney is basically the Clark Gable of his generation and maybe the last truly classically attractive leading man in film for a long time, but I’ve always found the edgier aesthetic more—”
“So how about a little game?” I interrupt. I love Linc’s enthusiasm, but if I let him keep going, he’ll share his thoughts on Jon Hamm, and there’s no way I can stay outside long enough for that.
Wait, what did I say?
“All right!” Brad shouts.
Jake crosses his arms and looks to the sky, sighing heavily, like he expects to find an excuse to ditch us written in the clouds.
“That’s a yes,” Lincoln says. “I call Brad!”
“Not fair,” Jake protests. “You get the star player and I get Mallory? No offense.”
“Plenty of offense!” I yell back.
“Yeah, offense is super important!” Brad adds, not even ironically.
“I’m sorry, what exactly does this have to do with your physics project?” Jake asks, and I stick my tongue out at him in response.
Lincoln jogs over, grabs the ball out of Brad’s hands, and tosses it to Jake. “Start us off, dude.”
Jake looks at me. “You got this?”
“Just throw it!” I shout.
“You sure?” He backs up a few steps and draws his arm back.
“Good God, Jake!” I call as he throws the ball toward me. While it floats through the air in a perfect arc, Lincoln whispers, “Play dead, okay?”
“Um, what?” I ask as my fingers reach up and curl around the ball.
“You’re going down!” Lincoln shouts. I shriek as he throws all his weight on me and I slam into the ground.