13 to Life (14 page)

She caught him once when he spitefully admitted, “That was an excellent move.”

“Do you have something in particular against Derek?” Sarah asked. “You don’t seem to like him and you haven’t been at Junction High long enough to really know him.”

I silently prayed Pietr didn’t look at me when responding.
Don’t let it be because of me
. . . . But at the same time, a tiny bit of
my ego hoped—even as it dreaded—that it was
precisely
because of me.

But Pietr didn’t look at me, didn’t give a clue as to why he might harbor some animosity toward our junior football star other than saying, “I’ve known a lot of people like him before.”

He slouched back down, his body so close to mine I felt the warmth of him seeping through my jacket.

“It’s fourth and goal,” Pietr whispered. “They’re close to scoring. The Jackrabbits need to decide whether to kick or pass.

“They can attempt to fake the Bulldogs out—or pass it—or they can get a kick and hopefully make the goal.” Pietr’s mouth moved beside my ear as he explained, his breath warm. My eyes were glued to Derek’s distant form, wondering if he’d be instrumental in this play, too.

He was impressive on the field, quick and powerful, seemingly thinking on his feet and anticipating his opponents. I hadn’t appreciated his position as a running back until Pietr had explained it mere minutes before, at my prodding.

“It means he’s quick on his feet and good with his hands,” Pietr had grumped.

Amy snorted soda through her nose.

Sarah giggled. “That’s what Jessica hopes.”

I blushed, mad at them all. Equally.

As they got into their starting positions, I could hear Kurt Anderson calling the play—a long line of what seemed to be nonsensical numbers. “They’re well enough positioned to kick and make it,” Pietr mentioned. But as Kurt fell silent, we saw him spin to his right and hurl a short pass to Derek. There was a groan as the Bulldogs lurched toward Derek, surprised.

Derek dodged and headed for the end zone, but a sudden blur tore across the field—a Bulldog rushing from out of nowhere. There was a bone-jarring crash as pads, helmets, and bodies collided, and for one moment the ball popped totally free of Derek’s able hold and I watched him go down in slow-motion, Branson toppling him. . . .

The crowd shouted, seeing the ball leap, taunting, out of Derek’s grasp and more players—Bulldogs and Jacks alike—jumped into the fray, becoming a tangle of heavy bodies and clacking helmets struggling for a single prize.

A whistle was blown on the play, the ref rushing forward and waving his hands for attention.

“He’s calling everything from
holding
and
face mask
to
block in the back,
” Pietr said, his tone slightly awed. “It’s a mess.”

The ref rounded the group of them, encouraging boys out of the way so he could get a clear look at the ball. “He’s determining possession,” Pietr said.

A moment passed as the ref examined the situation, and his expression changed. He squatted and suddenly hopped back up. Turning toward the stands, he stretched both his arms out, beckoning.

“That’s not good,” Pietr said, his voice taking on a confidential tone.

“What?” I asked stiffly. My hands balled into fists on my lap, the worry stone a weight in my palm.

The crowd howled, people jumping up. I heard distressed calls of “oh-God-oh-no-please-God-no” emerge from all around the bleachers as people realized the remaining pile of boys was barely moving.

“He wants both teams’ trainers. Players from both sides are hurt.” Pietr’s voice was calm, his tone distant.

Assistant refs and benchwarmers darted onto the field,
helping carefully extricate players from the heap. The first few players stood and walked off the field to relieved applause.

A stretcher was run onto the field, and Bryce-the-Breaker Branson was loaded onto it and carried off, trainers laboring beneath his hulking size. And just beneath where his body had lain was Derek, still, and surrounded by stunned teammates and his coach. Jenny rushed the field and was held back by a couple of Jack halfbacks as medics ran past her.

“Oh, God,” I whispered.

In my ear I heard Pietr’s breathing grow ragged.

“Jessie—” Amy whispered from behind me.

I turned to face her, my mind reeling. I couldn’t watch. I’d watched before when medics had been too little . . . too late. . . . It was too much and too soon to see something like it happen again.

Pietr’s eyes locked on my own and he gripped both my shoulders, his hands hot through my jacket. “Jess.” His eyes gleamed. I was present enough to know I was stunned. Terrified. “Jess. He’s going to be fine.” He turned me back around. “Watch.”

“Pietr,” Sarah warned.

But he held my shoulders, firmly, letting me know he was there as I watched the madness on the field. Through eyes blurring with tears, I watched the Junction Jackrabbits close ranks around their prone teammate, giving the medics precious privacy before the watchful eyes of hundreds of concerned classmates, teachers, and parents.

The announcer came on and started to ramble, trying to distract us all from staring at the thing we could no longer see but couldn’t avoid imagining.

I trembled beneath Pietr’s steady hold, feeling the walls I’d built so carefully since June falling to pieces beneath the careful
power of his hands. My right hand grasped his, and I started breathing again.

The crowd of Jackrabbits parted. Squinting through tears, I could just make out the two medics, with Derek between them. Walking. I let go of Pietr’s hand and rubbed my eyes clear. I wasn’t hallucinating. Derek was conscious—walking—obviously wounded and awkward, but . . . I spun around in my seat, breaking Pietr’s grip on my shoulders, and Amy and Sarah rushed me, bending awkwardly to hug and reassure me.

From between them I could glimpse Pietr sitting back on the bench, watching me with guarded eyes.

The game resumed, but I didn’t care. Without Derek, what was the point of football? My boredom and subsequent twitching became so noticeable that Amy finally said, “I’ll be back.”

It was part of a code we used.

Pietr must have followed her with his eyes because Sarah ratted us out. “She’s going to see if she can get any information on Derek. Or—better yet—if she can sneak Jessica in to see him
sans
Jenny.”

“Of course,” he said, but I knew he didn’t approve. Wasn’t I aiming too high with my crush?
“Sans
Jenny,” he repeated.

My spine stiffened at his tone. I knew he was thinking.

“Are you going to the Homecoming Dance?”

I turned, temper flaring again. “I already said—” But the words died in my throat.

He was facing Sarah.

She sputtered. Blushed. “Nobody asked me.”

“I guess I’m asking you,” he clarified.

It was horrible. There he was, exceeding my hopes for making Sarah happy and killing me at the same time. At point-blank range. In a way, he was doing what I’d told him I wanted.

But I couldn’t watch. “I’m going to check on Amy,” I mumbled, leaving them, but not so soon that I didn’t hear Sarah’s shy reply.

“Sure, I’ll go to the Homecoming Dance with you, Pietr.”

I saw Amy at the bottom of the stairs, scoping out the Derek-Jenny situation. “You don’t look so good,” she said.

“Thanks. This day’s gone on for-ehv-er.”

“Well, good news is, Derek’s just twisted an ankle—or something like that.” Amy shrugged. “Sounds like a pretty girlie wound for football, if you ask me.”

I just looked at her, pursing my lips.

“Ye-ahh. You didn’t ask me.” Amy smiled with a wicked twist of her lips. “Jenny should be going to get more ice pretty soon, I guess. That’s when I suggest you zip in—and out. Don’t forget to get
out
again. Jenny’ll kill you if she finds you there.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you want to see him? From what I’ve heard, he’s—”

“Stringing me along. Yeah. I’ve heard that, too. But . . .”

She seized my arm and shook it. “You’re kidding. After all you’ve been through, you’ve still got a bit of optimist in you?”

I looked down.

“God, I hope he doesn’t crush it all out of you. I guess you could try to claim you want to interview him for a story about the Homecoming game. . . . I doubt Jenny’d believe you, though.” She let me go. “Shh.” She pointed. “There she goes. . . .”

Together we watched Jenny (with her taped-up nose) head for the concession stand, a small cooler in her hand.

“Go, but be quick,” Amy advised.

And I did—ducking under the stairs and jogging down
the dim hall to where the locker room door was. I opened it slowly . . . quietly. If he was resting, I didn’t want to disturb him.

Derek was propped on a table, sipping Gatorade. He looked good. No, actually, he looked great. “Hey,” he said, seeing me.

“Hey. I just wanted to see that you were okay.”

He watched solemnly as the words dropped away from me. “Even after what Jenny said in the office?”

I sucked in a deep breath, reminding myself that I trained unruly horses, jumped them in bad conditions in competition. . . . But for some reason I was more nervous being in the same room alone with Derek than I’d ever been before. “Yes.” I blushed.

“Good,” he said with a sigh. He ran his fingers through his thick blond hair. “Because I told her all that bull so she’d let you off the hook.”

“It worked,” I whispered, awed.

“That was the whole idea.” He smiled, and my stomach did a flip. “Jenny’s not the smartest girl—or the nicest,” he said. “But she can be convinced to do certain things. . . . She just needs to be able to see how it might benefit her somehow first. What is it you’d say? You can lead a horse to water—”

“But you can’t make it drink,” I concluded.

“I’m just good at getting that
horse
to take a sip and realize how thirsty she is for more.” He winked.

“Oh.” He did seem like he could be amazingly persuasive. Convincing without the slickness some people mistook for charm. “Thank you.” I looked back toward the door, Amy’s warning echoing in my head.

“Yeah.” He followed my gaze. “Jenny better not find you here.”

I headed for the door, but his words stopped me. “Wait. Come here,” he said.

I did. I couldn’t stop myself.

“I didn’t get to ask you—” He swung his legs off of the table and winced.

“Oh! Are you okay?” My hand went to his knee.

“Getting better.” He grinned. His eyes’ broad pupils were like twin black holes. I was sucked into their inescapable depths.

I blushed so hard I thought my ears would start to smoke.

“I can’t ask you to the dance,” he said apologetically. “Not now, with Jenny thinking we’re back together.”

I nodded. My hero was sacrificing himself for my sake. I held my breath—held back my sigh of enamored contentment.

“But—” He leaned over me, taking my face in his hands. His hands were cool against my burning face and he made me look up at him. I saw his eyes grow near, they closed. . . . I closed mine, too, and then he kissed me—a hard kiss, fast and strong like his performance on the football field. My toes curled in my sneakers. My head fogged. I had imagined this moment for years. And it was so much better than my imagination could even dream up. . . . He drew back suddenly, examining my face, his brows slightly pulled together. He licked his lips and let go of me. He was thinking something.

“What?” I wobbled on my feet, unsteady.

But the strain on his features cleared and he smiled. “I like you, Jessica,” he confirmed, as if a kiss like that wasn’t proof enough. “But you’d better go.”

I did. I raced out of the room and back up the hall and out from beneath the stairs, skidding to a stop. Amy was motioning me frantically to the side.

Just on the other side of the under-stair entrance stood Jenny, tapping her foot and shifting the cooler from one hand to the other. Before her, Pietr successfully blocked her chosen
path. Jenny glared at him but didn’t seem capable of just brushing him off.

“So the stress and strain from jumping around so much in cheerleading can actually tear your ligaments and wear out your joints well before your eighteenth birthday,” he was explaining. Slowly. I mean,
real-ly slow-ly.

“What took you so long?” Amy asked me. “If Pietr hadn’t come down when he did, well, I’d be cleaning up what was left of you after Jenny found you with Derek and tore you apart.”

Jenny finally had enough of Pietr’s speech and glared at him, pursing her lips before pushing him aside and racing down the hall I’d just emerged from.

Pietr joined us in the shadows. He looked at me like he’d just done something he’d regret. Then his eyes focused on my lips—like he could
see
the place Derek’s lips had pressed minutes ago. “I’ve got to go,” he said, his jaw tight. “Thanks for an exciting evening.” He paused and added, “
Da. Spahseebuh.
” The last word came out bitterly.

And then he walked away. Without bothering to look back.

I went home that evening, a lump in the back of the Luxoms’ car, listening to Sarah detail every move Pietr had made, every syllable he’d uttered, and all the ways his super dark brown hair (she proclaimed it to be a delicious dark chocolate) glinted with burnt-umber highlights under the spotlights at the football field. She
really
liked him.

Which made me feel even worse because I
really
kissed him.

Amy and Sarah were still determined to drag me to the Homecoming Dance, but I managed to close the car door between us before they could force a resentful
yes
out of me. I couldn’t imagine going to the dance. Seriously—how much did I have to suffer in one week?

Rain began to fall, only deepening my souring mood.

I had walked the new kid around the school, wound up in the office for single-handedly creaming two cheerleaders, watched my crush reunite with his ex, realized I kind of liked the new boy but couldn’t have him because Sarah liked him, got kissed by my crush, and almost killed by his girlfriend. . . .