I got suckered into coming to Illinois.
I got suckered into going to Texas.
I got suckered into going on a road trip with a girl who makes me want to kiss her and stay far away from her at the same time.
How the hell does this stuff happen to me? I couldn’t say no to Ashtyn when she talked about how much football and this trip meant to her. Once upon a time football meant that much to me.
Ashtyn has that spark I used to have. I see it in her eyes. I don’t know what she thinks she’ll accomplish by going to football camp, but I have no doubt she’s going to use everything in her arsenal to get noticed by scouts.
Four days later, we load up my SUV. Ashtyn made a big deal out of raiding the pantry for junk food to chow on during the drive. I stuck some granola bars Ashtyn bought in my backpack, but decide to bring stuff to make my own food.
“What is that?” Ashtyn asks as I walk out of the house.
“You’re bringing a blender on a road trip?”
“Yep.” Give me some bananas and spinach and I’ll have a good breakfast. If Ashtyn thinks I’m going to eat candy or cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she better think again.
After saying our good-byes to Brandi, Julian, and Gus, we’re ready to get out of town.
Falkor jumps in the backseat when I open the door.
“You’re not invited.” He looks at me with droopy eyes and doesn’t move. Ashtyn tries to get him out, but he doesn’t move until I say, “Out!”
Suddenly Julian is at my side, hugging my legs with his little kid arms. “You’ll come back, right?”
I kneel down to him. “Of course I’ll come back.”
Ashtyn peeks out of the window. “Hey, Julian. You want to give me a hug, too?”
Julian nods.
Ashtyn gets out of the car and kneels down. She pulls him toward her and hugs him. That hug is full of warmth and emotion . . . she doesn’t want to let him go. It’s like she’s craving the unconditional love Julian’s giving her right now. It’s something I could never give her.
Ashtyn kicks her shoes off and makes herself comfortable after we pull onto the highway. Soon, we’re out of the city and see nothing but farms and a lone hawk flying overhead.
“You hungry?” She reaches into her backpack and pulls out some crackers and a can of cheese spread. “Want some?”
“Nah.”
“It’s not gonna kill you, Derek.” She holds a cracker, piled high with semiliquefied cheese, in front of my mouth. “Try it.”
I open my mouth and she shoves the cracker in, her finger-tips touching my lips and almost lingering there until I close my mouth. It feels like an intimate moment, but that’s nuts. She was just feeding me a cracker, not trying to flirt.
Tell my body that. It’s been reacting since she touched me with those feminine fingertips that totally betray her football-tough-girl image.
She holds out another cracker. I’m tempted to take it, but I don’t want those fingertips anywhere near my lips again. Her rule of no kissing or touching is cemented into my brain.
“I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” She opens her mouth wide and squirts cheese directly into her mouth.
Keeping Ashtyn at a distance is what I need to do, even though I sense an undercurrent of something I can’t put my finger on . . . and don’t really want to. No kissing or touching. I glance over at Ashtyn. She’s licking some cheese off her top lip and has no clue she’s driving me insane.
She shrieks and braces both her hands on the dashboard. “Derek, you’re about to hit a squirrel!”
Shit! I quickly swerve to avoid the thing, the tires screeching as the car jolts us sideways.
“Did you hit it?” she asks in a panic, looking in the rearview mirror.
“No.”
She shakes her finger at me, the same one that was on my lips a few minutes ago. “Pay attention to the road. You could’ve killed us.”
I’m not the one who tested the no-touching rule. I grab the can and toss it in the back. There, now I won’t be distracted.
She lets out a frustrated cry. “What was that for?”
“So I can concentrate on the road.”
She shakes her head in confusion, but if she thinks I’m about to explain why I tossed the can of cheese in the back, she’ll be waiting forever. Some things need to be left unsaid. With nothing to put on her crackers, she shoves the rest in her backpack, which I’ve got no doubt is filled with more crap.
I stop for gas and hand the keys to Ashtyn. She drives while I knock out in the passenger seat. I wish I was back in my dorm, where all I worried about was how I was gonna make it through the summer without being summoned into Crowe’s office. When I was a freshman, I had it all planned out. I’d go to college and play ball.
Everything changed after my mom died.
My brain reaches into the flood of memories locked up like a safe inside my head. I can still hear the familiar sound of my mom laughing in the kitchen with a stained towel around her head after she dyed the ends of her hair blue. It was my dad’s favorite color and she wanted to be reminded of him every time she looked in the mirror. He was deployed and she was bored and lonely.
A few months later she got diagnosed with cancer and lost all that hair.
All those times my mom had go to her chemo treatments when I was at school sucked. When her hair started falling out, I found her crying in the bathroom as she looked into the mirror at the massive bald spots and clumps of hair in her brush.
Two days later she held up my dad’s clippers and told me to finish the job. I shaved my own head right along with hers, but it didn’t prevent her from tearing up the entire time. If I could have fought that cancer for her, I would have.
But there is no negotiating with cancer.
I took care of my mom, but it wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t save her and I wasn’t there when she took her last breath. I know she would’ve wanted me to be there. I was the only family member around, and she died alone because I was at football practice and got to the hospital too late.
I should’ve been there, but I wasn’t.
There’s a long stretch of silence as we drive for hours. After we stop for lunch, I take over the wheel and head for the campground. Ashtyn is leaning against the window, looking out at the farmhouses we’re passing. Ashtyn points out a guy pushing a girl on a tire swing outside one of the houses. “That’s romantic,” she says, sighing loudly. “Derek, have you ever had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
I haven’t thought about Stephanie in a long time. We’d gone to homecoming together sophomore year, and afterward she gave me her garter and her virginity. She said we’d be together forever, and at the time I believed it. “I moved to California and she lived in Tennessee. We tried to make the long-distance thing work, but that didn’t last long.” Forever ended up to be seven months.
“When did you know it was over?”
“When I found out she was screwin’ my best friend.”