THE SPORTSBALL-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
It was pretty much the quietest bus ride ever. Even the rumble of the engine seemed muted by the fog that had descended over the team after our first loss.
I let that goal past me.
My fault.
I slumped down in my seat and pulled out my phone to text Landon about the game.
No answer, though. He was probably in rehearsal.
I hugged myself and stared out the window. The afternoon sun had turned into a golden dusk, more beautiful than it had any right to be.
I wiped my eyes with my cuffs.
“Hey.” Chip sat across the aisle from me. “Darius?”
“What.”
It still stung, how Chip had just stood there and let Trent make fun of me.
But that was what Chip Cusumano always did.
“Scooch over.”
I wanted to tell him no.
I wanted to tell him to go find someone else to bother. Someone who wasn’t D-Bag, D’s Nuts, D-Breath, D-Cheese.
I wanted to be alone.
But Chip hopped across the aisle, and I scooted closer to the window to let him onto my seat. Our thighs rested against each other, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You crying?”
“No.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I sniffed and wiped my eyes again.
I didn’t say anything.
Neither did Chip. He just sat there next to me, like he didn’t mind the silence.
Finally I said, “I let that guy past me.”
“So did I. So did everyone. So did Diego.”
“Diego was on their number 12.”
Chip sighed.
“We’re a team. We win and lose together.”
“But I let everyone down.”
“No you didn’t. I promise.” Chip rested his hand on my knee and shook it back and forth. “Hey. You didn’t.”
“Then why do I feel like I did?”
“Because you care. Because you’re too hard on yourself.” He squeezed my knee. “Because you’re Darius.”
I stared at Chip’s hand. It was kind of square shaped, and his fingers were shorter than his palm.
It was a nice hand. I could feel its warmth through my joggers.
It made me sweat a little bit.
“It just feels like I’ve been doing everything wrong lately.”
“That sucks.”
He gave me another squeeze and met my eyes.
My chest felt tight. My ears burned.
“Um.”
I looked down at my knee. Chip still had his hand there.
I took a deep breath.
“Yeah.”
Jaden, Gabe, and I were all quiet as we got dressed for Conditioning the next day. I think Gabe was even more upset about the game than I was. Coach Bentley let slip that there’d been a recruiter from UC Berkley there.
I’m sure, if nothing else, they’d left with a favorable impression of Robbie Amundsen, the Trojans’ indomitable number 7.
Grandma had made sure to find out his name.
And then made sure to tell me when I got home.
And then asked me for help googling to see if he was already committed anywhere.
(Arizona State University, of all places.)
When we got to the weight room, Coach Winfield was standing in the corner, talking to Trent, who held his left foot behind him in a calf stretch. Both of them glanced over at us as we came in.
“Get stretched out,” Coach Winfield said. “You’re doing a five-mile run.”
I did a couple basic stretches—lateral lunges, inchworms, stuff like that—and then lay facedown on the ground. I arched my right leg over my left, twisted my hips, and lowered my foot to the floor.
It hurt so good.
“Kellner, what’re you doing on the floor?” Coach Winfield asked.
“Getting ready for his next date,” Trent muttered.
It was loud enough for everyone to hear, but quiet enough for Coach Winfield to ignore.
“What’s that, Bolger?”
“Just teasing, Coach. He ate ass at yesterday’s game.”
“What?”
“Grass. He ate grass. When he tripped.”
“Hmm.” Coach Winfield narrowed his eyes but let it go.
He always let football players get away with stuff like that.
The Sportsball-Industrial Complex at work once more.
“Hey. Darius blocked twelve shots yesterday,” Gabe said. “When’s the last time you got up off the bench?”
“All right, cool it.” Coach Winfield let football players get away with all kinds of stuff, but he never let soccer players talk back.
He loomed over me as I switched sides, arching my left leg over my right. “Kellner?”
I let out a slow breath. “Hip extensors. Coach Bentley told us to do it before running.”
“Hm.”
He didn’t say anything after that, just wandered off to check on a trio of sophomores from the cross-country team, who had probably run ten or fifteen miles before school even began.
I was pretty sure Coach Winfield was a little frightened of Coach Bentley, because if we said she’d told us specifically to do something, he always said the same thing: “Hm.”
And then he always let it go.
“You’ve got thirty seconds, gentlemen. Let’s go.”
Jaden offered me a hand. I hooked our thumbs and let him pull me up.
“Don’t listen to him,” he said, nodding toward Trent.
“I won’t.” Trent Bolger was like a warp core without antimatter: powerless. He kept trying the same old tactics to make me miserable, but I had grown up. I wasn’t so easy to bully anymore.
I even had friends.
The very foundations of Trent’s worldview seemed to depend upon me always being a Target.
Coach Winfield whistled. “Let’s go, gentlemen!”
I stuck with Jaden and Gabe as we ran down the halls, out the side doors, and toward the track. Five miles meant twenty laps. The cross-country guys looked longingly toward the road, but we weren’t allowed to leave school grounds during class.
“What is it with Trent, anyway?” Jaden asked as we dodged around a line of goose poop stretched diagonally across the track.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s been like that pretty much since first grade.”
“You ever want to just, like, kick him in the balls?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I sighed.
And then I said, “Having been through that myself, I don’t think I’d wish that on anyone. Not even Trent.”
Gabe spun around so he was jogging backward, looking at us.
“Yeah but, is it just me or is he way worse lately?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced behind us where Trent was running by himself, ahead of a couple seniors who had only signed up for the class because they’d nearly made it to graduation and needed one more physical education credit.
“I think he’s kind of mad that Chip tried out for soccer. That he’s on our team now. He and Trent were always on the same team before that.”
“Yeah, but they still hang out all the time,” Jaden said.
“I guess.”
I wondered how much of their hanging out turned into babysitting these days.
Was Trent angry about that too? Or did he like babysitting Evie? Holding her in his lap and chasing her around the house and listening to her giggle?
“I don’t know if Trent has any friends. Other than Chip, I mean. Maybe he’s mad he has to share.”
I didn’t point out that Trent was sharing Chip with me in particular. That we studied together. And I’d even been to his house. And sometimes, we sat together on the bus, and talked about nothing, and Chip rested his hand on my knee.
I couldn’t point any of that out.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Well,” Gabe said, “I know I’m supposed to have school spirit or something, but I hope he gets creamed at the homecoming game.”
I grinned.
“That would require him getting off the bench.”