Chapter 15

Friday was the first practice in a while where Coach didn’t ride us like we were screw-ups. In fact, he was in a downright amazing mood. We did the least amount of warm-up we’d ever had to do before and spent a fair amount of the practice looking at film from the game, with Coach explaining where things went right and where we could still fix things.

I thought Coach might say something about the long passes I completed during the game and how we gave up a whole quarter by banging our heads into their defense with running plays over and over, but he didn’t. I’d kind of hoped the success with that would have opened the door to a new kind of offense, where I got to really let loose, but I guess just running the ball forever was the way to go.

Elijah was still on the warpath, trying multiple times to corner me in the hall, but I managed to always be in a crowd. It wasn’t that I was scared of him, but I just had too much going on to throw it away with a suspension.

Or worse, getting benched and giving my starter spot up to Gabriel.

Since practice was easy and the coach let us go early, I scrapped the extra practice with the guys and took off for home right after Elijah and his guys went back into the locker room. I thought maybe I’d made a mistake when Hunter slowed down and looked right at me as I headed for the street, but either Elijah was too lazy to go beyond chasing me to the parking lot or they didn’t remember the way to my house because no one followed after me.

My walk wasn’t alone, however.

I was walking quickly, mostly to put some distance between me and the school so I wasn’t in direct line of sight if Elijah came running out, and turned a corner to see someone else making the walk toward my neighborhood.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who it was, since the Chinese girl, whose name was Li, I’d finally learned, stood out. She was taller than just about everyone in the school and had long, straight black hair that was pretty distinctive.

I decided that seeing her walking was a sign and picked up my pace to catch up with her. Either she had the fastest walk of anyone I’d ever met, or she heard me and picked up her pace because I wasn’t closing the distance between us very quickly.

“You’re walking like you’re trying to escape me,” I called out, jogging to catch up.

She must not have seen me because she turned and looked a little surprised.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Nothing, really. I’m going the same way and just wanted to say hi,” I said, falling into step next to her.

“How many times do I have to say I’m not interested?”

She picked up the pace even more, I guess trying to shake me.

“A few more times, probably,” I said as I matched her stride. “Look, I’m not trying to be annoying, and I’m definitely not hitting on you; I just ... I feel really bad about how the guys treated you. The fact that I was ever friends with people like that...”

“So I’m what? Your penance?” Li stopped abruptly, spinning to face me.

“I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“If you feel so bad about what your friends did, why aren’t you trying to fix things with all of the other people those jerks mess with?”

“I am. Or I’m trying to. You’re definitely not the only person I’m constantly chasing.”

“I bet.”

“No, seriously. You can ask around. I could give you a list if you want.”

“And what makes you think any of us want your help making things right?” she asked.

“I don’t think you want them to treat you like this, so you want ... something to change, right? I don’t know exactly what to do, but I at least want to try. Is that such a bad thing?”

“I guess not,” she said after a moment, turning and starting to walk again.

I walked in stride with her again. This time, she didn’t speed up to lose me.

“It’s more than that. I’ve also noticed you’re always by yourself. That can’t make you happy.”

“I like being by myself. Just because you hate being alone doesn’t mean I do. Not everyone needs a fan club.”

She should check with the football players, and maybe even the cheerleaders. I definitely didn’t have a fan club.

“Maybe that’s true. But not wanting a fan club isn’t the same as wanting to be alone all the time. And I don’t believe you prefer it. Or maybe I can’t believe it.”

“Oh really? And why’s that?”

“Because people aren’t built for that kind of isolation. Plus, I’ve seen how you watch other people at lunch, especially the groups. And not in a ‘God, I hate those people’ kind of way.”

Li stopped walking again. “That’s seriously creepy.”

“It’s not like that,” I said quickly. “I just ... I’m worried about you. I mean, after what Elijah and they did to you, I can get why you don’t...”

“You shouldn’t,” Li cut in. “I didn’t ask you to feel guilty about me.”

“No, but I feel guilty all the same. The question still stands. Don’t you get tired of being alone all the time?”

Instead of answering, she started walking again. I didn’t say anything or push her, just walked next to her.

Finally, she said, “It’s not worth letting anyone trick me again.”

“That’s fair. I can promise I’m not trying to trick you, but there’s no way for you to know that for sure. I get why you’d be hesitant.”

We reached the corner and she looked north; I needed to keep going straight, so I stopped. Surprisingly, she stopped, instead of leaving me behind.

“Look, if you really want me gone forever, just say so and I’ll respect that, otherwise I’m probably going to come back to check on you again. But maybe think about whether that’s what you actually want.”

Li adjusted her backpack strap, studying the ground. “I guess ... you can keep checking. But I’m not promising anything.”

“I’ll take it,” I said with a small smile. “See you around, Li.”

I turned and headed for home, leaving her behind. She was still like a wounded puppy who’d been kicked a few too many times. Skittish and ready to run.

I’d take our talk as a victory. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And sometimes, ‘something’ was enough to start with.

Saturday was actually productive, and more than just doing the yard work and changing the oil in Eduardo’s mom’s car. At first, Eduardo was still really quiet while we worked, but I guess doing something boring for a long time with someone else finally got to him, because he started talking.

It started with some jokes and messing around, probably not the smartest thing to do when working with yard tools, but it was something. Then, just random conversation about nothing important. The kind of BS-ing guys do.

My knowledge from the dream life came in handy again when we went to change the oil in his mom’s car. Eduardo had never done any kind of car maintenance, so I was able to walk him through it and teach him how to do it. I think that got him to open up more than anything else, and while we worked, he told me a little about his life in Midland.

Most of it was just the same as my life here, although I guess his was a little less rambunctious. What still wasn’t clear, even after all of that, was how he’d end up initiating into a gang. Not that I ever really knew any gang people in my life, or my dream life for that matter, but nothing about his personality struck me as being that type.

He was too soft-spoken. Too afraid of people. And too kindhearted.

Hell, that had been one of the things the papers had said about him after he was caught. That everyone who knew him was shocked he’d ended up in a situation like that, that he’d kill a deputy. At the time, I’d just chalked it up to the kind of nonsense the papers liked to write, because it made the story catchier, but they were right.

In exchange for the work, his mom made some kind of chicken and rice dish for lunch that was delicious.

And my time with him finally worked. Monday at school, I managed to get Eduardo to move over to eat lunch with me and the rest of the guys, who accepted him with open arms. It really said a lot about the people I was choosing to be friends with. Had I still been buddies with Elijah, he would have made Eduardo jump through hoops to even be talked to, and then constantly belittled him to make sure he knew his place.

Elijah’s weekend seemed to have gone a lot less smoothly. He seemed to be unraveling. He tried to corner me again just before lunch but he was predictable as always and I was keeping an eye out for him, so I was able to avoid him. He had some kind of argument with Jake that ended up getting loud enough for us to hear Jake tell him, “That’s not fair,” and storm off.

I could imagine what Jake thought was unfair. It was following Elijah’s ‘plan’ that ended up with him riding the bench through our first win. The other thing I couldn’t help but notice was that Hunter wasn’t sitting with them at lunch. He actually wasn’t anywhere at lunch.

I thought maybe he missed the school day, home sick or something, but on the way to the field house to get changed for practice, I turned a corner and saw him standing by his locker.

He’d just pulled open his locker door and an avalanche of crumpled paper cascaded onto the floor around his feet.

“Son of a bitch!” Hunter said, slamming his fist into a neighboring locker.

He dropped to his knees and started gathering the wadded-up balls of notebook paper. My first instinct was to keep walking. Hunter had made it clear whose side he was on.

But, I’d been exactly the kind of jackass Elijah and the rest of them still were, and I was out here asking people for forgiveness and trying to get a second chance. It would be hypocritical to just write Hunter off.

And there was a more strategic element to not walking by. It was obvious where this came from. And why. Elijah had given Hunter a death stare throughout most of the game, especially every time Hunter completed a play instead of botching it. And I’d seen the two of them argue, both during the game and at Friday’s practice.

Elijah was the kind of guy that any sort of deviation from what he wanted was the same thing as treason. Elijah wanted Hunter to keep burning down his high school football career in the name of a feud, and Hunter didn’t want to.

So Elijah was sending him a message.

I walked over and crouched down next to him. Several of the pages had insults and slurs against him, mostly in the direction of questioning his sexuality.