“Just calling it as I see it,” I said with a shrug, but I walked back to position anyway.
Her next try was a little better. She did take the running start but still bent her knee too much. The shot was on-goal but had nowhere near enough leverage to get past me. I jumped left and easily trapped it in my hands. I settled into position and rolled the ball back to her.
“One more try, Rumple,” I said, “and then you’re gonna have to spill it!”
She smashed her lips together and scowled at me before taking a deep breath and placing the ball back on the white circle. I was still standing straight up—not even close to being ready to jump—when I watched her take a couple of steps back, and her thigh muscles tightened deliciously. I may have been a bit too focused on the shape of the muscles instead of what she was doing with them. The angle was more firm, her quadriceps more sure of what they were doing—something that only occurs when muscle repeats a movement often enough to create long-term muscle memory.
She took two steps forward, curled the toe of her foot back toward her, which would make for a higher angled kick, and straightened her leg like a fucking pro. Straight, long, lean, and enough leverage to fling the ball right at the top left corner of the goal.
It flew up fast. My balance was off—I hadn’t even been trying to bother jumping since I thought it was obvious she wasn’t going to get enough power to kick it fast enough. A goalie has to know which direction the ball is going to go before it’s kicked to have a chance at stopping a penalty. You already have to be moving before your opponent’s foot touches the ball. I wasn’t ready, and I would have had to jump in exactly the right direction long before I realized it was too late. I dived anyway, landing on the ground too low to be of any use. She nailed the top corner.
Score one for Rumple.
Holy shit.
I looked up from the dirt to her smirk.
“Varsity striker,” she said with a raise of her eyebrows and a thumb pointing back to her chest.
“You bitch!” I yelled out, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the same time. I rolled to a sitting position and reached behind me to grab the ball out of the net. I cringed a little as I stretched to reach for the ball, and my ribs ached from the movement.
Nicole raised her eyebrows at me.
“You conceited little bastard,” she retorted. “Always thinking you’re better than everyone else. It’s about time someone took your ego down a peg.”
I smiled and shook my head at her.
“You did that on purpose,” I accused. “You conned me.”
“And you fell for it.”
I couldn’t argue with her there. I snickered and dribbled the ball between my legs. She continued to stand over me with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
“All right,” I sighed. “What do you want to know?”
I figured it was going to be something about my past conquests with the girls in this school, and I wasn’t looking forward to talking about it with her. I mean…I didn’t see her that way, and I didn’t want her to think I did. Or maybe I was going to have to confess about the flowers—I could cope with that. I kind of wanted her to know.
She hooked her thumbs into the little decorative pockets on her shorts and leaned back on her heels a bit. I looked up to see her biting on her lip, her smile now gone.
“What happened when you went home Sunday?” she said as her eyes grew dark.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, but at the same time, I felt my stomach drop. There was something in her tone…something I didn’t like. Not at all.
“Tell me how your rib got broken,” she said.
My body went cold.
No.
No fucking way.
“I told you,” I said quietly.
“You told me you got it cracked in a scrimmage,” Nicole said. “And that’s bullshit. I want to know what really happened.”
“I told you what happened,” I repeated. I stood up, popped the ball into the air with my toe, and grabbed it before I started heading back to my Jeep, taking long strides through the damp grass.
“Hey!” she called out. “We made a deal!”
“Fuck you!” I yelled back over my shoulder. My hands were shaking, and my breathing was quick, making my side hurt. I tossed the ball to the ground and walked faster.
“Tell me what happened!” she continued from behind me. “Why didn’t you want to go home, Thomas? Why?”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yanked open my car door, fully intending to just fucking leave her there. I didn’t need this bullshit—some bitch conning me and then pulling this kind of shit. No fucking way.
She managed to wrench the passenger door open before I could lock it, and I tossed the ball into the back seat without looking in her direction.
“I won,” she said. “You have to tell me.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I said again, my voice lowered, “or you can fucking walk home.”
“We had a deal.” Her voice didn’t sound quite as forceful now. “Are you backing out on me?”
“I told you what happened,” I said again.
“The deal was for the truth,” she countered.
As if I needed the reminder.
I started the Jeep and gripped the steering wheel, trying to decide if I should just get her home quickly and never speak to her again or dump her ass in the school parking lot right now. I was still panting, and my head was getting swimmy. I needed a pain pill…or maybe a drink.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I heard her whisper. “I swear I won’t.”
My foot tapped the accelerator, revving the engine but still not going anywhere. I just stared straight ahead, trying to silence that tiny piece in my brain that wanted to tell her everything. No fucking way.
I continued to grip the steering wheel even as I watched Nicole reach over to turn the key back to the off position. The engine whirred for a moment before dropping back into silence.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her get up on her knees in the passenger seat and crawl partway over to me. Her hand slid around the back of my head, and she pulled me close to her. That’s when I could smell her, and as I inhaled, she threaded her fingers through my hair and pushed it back behind my ear.
No fucking way…
No way…
No…
I can’t…
Please…
I turned my head toward her, something inside of me letting go…giving up. I didn’t know what this was, but I couldn’t stop it. I buried my face against the skin of her neck and wrapped my arms around her waist. I heard myself scream over and over again—my throat going raw from the force of it—until my body just collapsed against her, and she held on to me.
Just like she had before.
“It’s not his fault,” I whispered against her skin. “It’s mine…it’s always been my fault.”
Oh shit.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no…
My mind continued to scream even though my voice had failed.
There was nothing I could do. The words were out.
My mind was empty.
Or it was full, and I just couldn’t see past the fog inside to know the difference.
The warmth of the girl holding me in my car in the middle of the school parking lot was the only thing keeping me grounded, keeping me from completely going over the edge. I was still close, and as the tension throughout my muscles slowly released, the spring inside my head just wound tighter. I closed my eyes as her fingers brushed across my temple in their seemingly endless task of pushing my hair away from my face.
My head was now in her lap, and my arms were wrapped tightly around her waist as she held me, comforted me, and hummed quietly. The emergency brake was uncomfortable against my side, but at least it was my right side. My left side ached. My throat ached. My head ached.
But it was so, so easy to forget about all of that because I was wrapped up in her arms and her scent. I clung to her as if
she were the railing of a balcony on the top floor of a hotel, and my drunk ass had just stumbled over it. It hurt to try to hold on to her, and part of me just wanted to let go and let myself fall—be done with it.
Rain started plopping against the roof of the car—slowly at first but then harder. I still didn’t move, and Nicole didn’t seem to be going anywhere, either. The inside of the windows fogged up, making it hard to tell just how late it was. I wasn’t sure if the dim light was due to the cloud cover or if it was really that late.
I needed to get home.
I raised my head a bit and ended up with my forehead against her shoulder as I finally met her eyes again. She looked so worried. I couldn’t keep my eyes on hers, so I looked away again, focusing out the window though there was nothing to be seen.
My shoulders tensed as I thought about what I had just done and said. What the fuck was I going to do now? She knew. Somehow she knew even before I said it, but she didn’t understand why he had to do it. I’d taken everything that mattered from him, and he had every right to be pissed about it.
“It’s not his fault,” I said again, my voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain. I coughed, my throat still hurting.
“What happened?”
“He was drinking the night before,” I said. “He had too much. He doesn’t usually drink at all…just that day. He was angry, but he didn’t mean it. I just fell.”
“You fell?” she repeated. “How did you fall?”
“He only just…pushed me away,” I told her. “There’s one of those vanity table things—some antique—in the hallway. I cracked my rib on that. It wasn’t his fault; it was mine.”
“He pushed you,” Nicole said, “and you hit a table, and that’s when your rib broke?”
“Yeah.”
“How exactly is that your fault?” she asked quietly.
“It’s all my fault,” I said. My arms tightened around her, and I ducked my forehead into her shoulder. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”
“My dad said it was a car accident.”
“But she wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me.” I proceeded to tell her about my forgotten gloves and how Mom went back for them.
“It was an accident,” Nicole insisted when I was done. “Everyone forgets things sometimes…”
“I don’t anymore,” I mumbled.
“What did you say?”
“It never would have happened if it weren’t for me,” I growled under my breath. “Would she have even been in the car then if I hadn’t forgotten my gloves? Huh?”
“That’s not the point, Thomas. You were just a kid…”
“That didn’t stop it from happening,” I said, “and it doesn’t change the fact that if I hadn’t been so fucking stupid, she’d be alive now.”
“You are not responsible—”
“Yes, I am!” I yelled as I pushed away from her, wincing and grabbing my side. Moving away didn’t work, so I just dropped my head back on her shoulder again. “Tell me she still would have been on that road if I had remembered all my shit! Go ahead. Tell me she would still have had a reason to drive back home! You can’t, can you? And you know why? Because it’s my fucking fault!”
Nicole leaned back against the seat and tilted her head to look at me, her expression pained.
“Even if it was,” she said, “and I am not agreeing with you, but even if the accident was your fault, that doesn’t mean he gets to treat you like this now. It happened six years ago.”
“It’s six years later, and she’s still gone,” I said, repeating Dad’s words to me from the previous day. “Nothing changes.”
“It’s supposed to change,” Nicole insisted, “but you guys are stuck.”
I closed my eyes and thought about the word stuck for a while. I had to admit it did kind of fit.
“Thomas, you need to tell someone about this,” Nicole said softly. “My dad could—”
“No!” I turned my head to hers and gripped her waist. “No, Nicole! You promised! You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”
Nicole shook her head.
“I won’t,” she said. “I just think you should.”
I tried to take a deep breath, but between the uncomfortable position in the car and my rib, it wasn’t working well. I didn’t want to let go of her, though. Even if I couldn’t breathe at all, holding her and feeling her hands in my hair was good. I didn’t want to ever let go.
“No one can know,” I whispered into her shoulder. “No one.”
I thought maybe having someone who knew about it might make it just a little better, but I didn’t know what that was going to mean to Rumple. I also didn’t know where we were supposed to go from here. Even though Jeremy had his suspicions, this was entirely different.
“What now?” I asked quietly.
I had turned the car back on, but we were still sitting in the school parking lot. I leaned back in the driver's seat, my fingers clutching the center of the steering wheel. I felt strange—nervous, embarrassed, empty—and I simultaneously wanted to get the hell away from this girl and also hold her tightly and never let go. It was freaking me out.
“I still think you should tell my dad,” she responded—again. “But I'm not going to push it—not now. He has no right to treat you like that.”
“Going to your dad is pointless,” I said—again. We'd gone over a lot of this in the past hour. “I'm over eighteen. What's he going to do? Even if I was still underage, you obviously haven't been around long enough to understand my dad's hold on this community.”
“Then move out.”
“I can't do that.”
“Why not?”
“I just…can't,” I said with a sigh. “I can't do that to him. He needs me. Besides, I don't really have anywhere to go.”
“That's what I thought a couple of months ago,” she responded. “I never would have considered coming to live here before then. I didn't think I had anywhere to go, either.”
“Why did you leave?”
“You lost the bet,” she reminded me.
“I don't care about the fucking bet,” I said, my voice a little harsher than I had intended. “I want to know.”
She glared at me and then looked back toward the passenger window. Her fingers twisted around themselves in her lap.
“You know all my dirty laundry now,” I said. In truth, she only knew a portion of it, but whatever. “Tell me.”
Nicole pulled her legs up so her tennis shoes were on the edge of the seat, which I tried not to let bother me too much. Anyone else and I would have flipped out at the thought of mud on my leather. She took a deep breath.
“This goes nowhere, right?”
“Of course.”
She sighed again.
“My high school in the suburbs of Minneapolis was just like this town—no girls' soccer team,” Nicole said. “I played just for my club the first couple of years, but I wanted to play for the school, too. There weren't enough girls to form a team, so I decided I was going to try out for the boys' team.”
She laughed dryly.
“I honestly thought I'd have some kind of battle on my hands, you know? But they were okay with it. A lot of varsity players had graduated the year before, so they were a little low, and I guess I impressed them. So I made the team, and not too long after the season started, the team captain, a midfielder named Dennis, asked me out. We seemed to hit it off really well and started dating pretty seriously.”
She paused and ran her hand through her hair.
“I'd never really had a serious boyfriend before,” she continued. “He was my first…you know? I mean, we had been dating a couple of months, and it did seem kind of natural. He was really sweet…at least, I thought so.”
I held on to the bottom of the steering wheel, gripping it tightly.
“He said he loved me, and I thought I loved him, too.” She stopped again, and I heard her sniff. I looked over and could see her tearing up a bit. I released the wheel
and reached over to grab her hand, and she didn't protest.
“Go on,” I urged.
“We won our division championship,” she said. “There was a big party afterwards at this other guy's place. His parents were out of town, I think. At least, there weren't any adults there. We were drinking, and I had quite a bit. But then…then Dennis asked me if I wanted to try something else.”
One of the tears escaped and dropped over her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the hand I wasn't holding.
“It was stupid. I know it was, but he and Alex—the guy who was throwing the party—they took me to one of the bedrooms and gave me something. They told me it was ecstasy and that it would make me feel really good. It did, too. I remember it all, but it's kind of fuzzy. I know I agreed to it…to what they wanted to do…but…”
I closed my eyes for a second because I had a pretty good idea of what was coming, and the dread that was beginning to rumble around inside of me was numbing. I didn't want to hear this. I didn't want to know she had been with someone else, but I had asked for it. I wanted to believe what my father had believed, that she was innocent…
…and potentially mine.
I pushed my hormonal thoughts away.
“I think they planned it,” she whispered. “I think they planned the whole thing. They took pictures of each of them…with me. I remember agreeing to all of it, but I wasn't in my right mind, you know? And then the next Monday…at school…”
She grabbed her hand away from mine and covered her face before she blurted out the rest. I knew everything that was coming as soon as she mentioned the drug—Frankie was into that shit. I still didn't want to hear that I was right.
She blurted it out anyway.
“I let them both fuck me, take pictures of it, and then the pictures were all over the school. I went from pretty happy with a boyfriend, a starting position on the soccer team, and a fairly active social life to nothing in the matter of a day. Dennis dumped me, the pictures got back to my Mom—which is a whole other story—and every time I walked into school, I had to pull copies of them off my locker. Every guy on the team—and most of the rest of the school—started asking me out then. Every one of them stating very clearly that they were looking for someone to fuck, and they knew I was obviously willing to do anything with anyone. I won't even get into what the girls did.”