Chapter 14

Scooter

Jeff didn’t tell me where we were going.

He just turned and walked back through the house.

It was the others who filled me in.

“Bet I know where you’re going,” one of the other guys on the team said to him.

“Pit stop at the girlfriend’s, am I right?” our quarterback, Joey, said.

“Something like that,” Jeff replied, pushing through the crowd with more determination than I’d seen from him since we left the field.

I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t too excited about the idea of tagging along as Jeff made a stop at his girlfriend’s. At best it sounded really awkward. We were in his car by now, moving through neighborhood streets, and I found myself hoping his friends were wrong. Maybe we weren’t going to his girlfriend’s. Maybe, instead, were going to the field to practice the plays I’d been trying to memorize. It was dark out, of course, but maybe Jeff knew how to turn on the lights. I imagined the two of us standing around the fifty yard line, running through one play after another.

We were definitely heading in that direction.

When we got there, though, Jeff didn’t stop or even slow down.

We drove through neighborhood after neighborhood, toward the outskirts of town. We turned onto a dirt road, and then another. If he hated me then the way he hates me now, this would have been creepy. I would have been worried he was trying to find a quiet place to kill me and dump my body or something.

But he didn’t hate me back then, so it never occurred to me to worry.

Still, I was curious.

“Are we really going to your girlfriend’s?”

“Trust me. It’s just what you need,” he said.

More like just what you need, I thought.

“Couldn’t you have just dropped me off at my place first?” I asked.

Jeff laughed. “It’s not like that. Just trust me,” he said again. “A little time in Morgyn’s world would do us both some good.”

Was he talking about his girlfriend? What did he mean her world?

A few minutes later we parked on the shoulder of the dirt road. Through some trees there was a small house with some lit-up windows.

I headed toward the house, but Jeff grabbed my shoulder. “This way,” he said.

He guided me away from the front door, around the back of the house. It was darker back here, and there were more trees. Branches scratched against our arms as we worked our way deeper into the trees. A few feet later we came into a clearing. Ahead of us was a pond.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Jeff said.

His voice sounded loud and echo-y over the water.

“Shhh,” another voice said.

It was dark enough that I couldn’t see the person very well until we were standing only a few feet away.

“Sorry,” Jeff said. “Morgyn, meet Scooter. He’s the new guy I told you about. Scooter, meet Morgyn. Don’t try to talk to her about football, because she really won’t hear it—not enough time. She always says she doesn’t have enough time to get everything done.”

“Shhhh,” she said again.

Then she bent her legs and swung her arm. She stayed in a crouch, watching the black water.

“What are you doing?” I asked. It wasn’t like me to blurt something out, but I was genuinely curious.

“She’s skipping rocks,” Jeff said.

“In the dark?” I asked. I wasn’t sure who the question was for—Jeff or Morgyn.

“Who has time to skip rocks during the day?” she replied casually.

Jeff turned to me and gave me a look. “See what I mean?”

“Shhhhhh,” she said.

Both Jeff and I listened. We waited for her to stop staring at the water.

“How many skips did you get this time?” Jeff asked.

“Eleven,” she said. She was talking normally now instead of in a whisper.

“How do you know?” I asked.

But Morgyn didn’t answer. By now my eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to see what she was doing: feeling around for another rock to skip. When she found one to her liking, she straightened up.

“I listen,” she said. “If you’re totally quiet, you can hear the rock skimming off the water. It makes a pinging sound.”

She threw the rock. The moon was bright enough that I saw the stone take its first big hop. Then it disappeared into the night.

I tried to listen for the pinging, but Jeff interrupted the silence: “How many that time?”

“Eight, I think,” she said. “It’s hard to hear when people are talking.”

She was accusing Jeff, but she didn’t seem to be too angry about it. This was an argument they’d clearly had before.

“Personally, I think she’s making it all up. What do you think, Scooter? Could you hear anything?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I want to try again.”

Morgyn found another rock and sent it sailing toward the water. This time, I didn’t even try to watch. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Ping . . . ping . . . ping . . . ping . . . ping ping ping ping ping.

“Well?” Jeff asked again.

“Nine,” we both said in unison.

Morgyn must have smiled because I could see her white teeth in the darkness.

“Ha! I knew you two would get along,” Jeff said. “You guys could probably spend days together not saying a single word. If Morgyn had come to that party she probably would have ended up on the porch too.”

Jeff picked up a rock and chucked it at the water. It crashed into the pond with a giant splash.

“Now that one I heard,” he said.

We all laughed.

Of all the great things that happened over the next few months, many of them on the field, that moment was probably my favorite. Feeling comfortable. All of us laughing.

I didn’t know then how complicated things would get.