Smashed (17 page)

After coming back three times, the band was really gone. Kids on the outskirts of the arena had already bolted, hoping to escape before the traffic jammed. The cries of the die-hards
around me and the sound of my own voice faded and then died as the auditorium lights came on. The spell had been broken.

Alec grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd, careful not to let me go. It felt right to be with him, like we’d been restored to what we should have been all along, to where we’d been months before. We were moving quickly together, pushing our way around slow movers and the clusters of kids who lingered, passing joints. On the stadium stairs, we dodged drunks—some barely alert, some fully gone—who slouched on the steps or lay prone, completely blocking our path.

“Watch your step,” Alec said, and guided me to one side to bypass a pool of vomit.

It was easier to move through the lobby. We raced by the concession stands, cut through the long line of tired girls that snaked outside the women’s bathroom, and reached the doors to the outside quickly.

The cold night air was a slap in the face, a wake-up call. I was holding Alec’s hand. Was this what I wanted to do?

“Where’re you parked?” Alec said.

“First floor.” I pointed toward the parking garage next to the Holiday Inn.

“Nice,” he said, and took off again, me in tow.

We wove through the cars that stood idling, bumper-to-bumper. Up the sidewalk and just ten feet inside the garage’s main entrance was my car. He dropped my hand and I pulled the keys from my pocket. He took them and unlocked the door.

“I’ll drive,” he said. “If you want. You look beat.”

“I’m okay,” I said, confused. “Where’s
your
car?”

“I came with Scott. He said he’d swing by your house and pick me up—”

“He doesn’t have to do that. I can drive myself.”

“It’s no problem.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s one o’clock. We won’t get to Westland until after two, and I can’t bring you into my house. My mom
is
home tonight. She really is.” I looked toward the cars backed up on the street. “There’s no knowing when Scott’s going to get out of this mess.”

Alec fixed his eyes on my face, and for a moment I stood accused—and not just by him, either. By my
self
. Could I just dump him after he’d given me this ticket—given me this whole amazing night? Did I even
want
to?

Alec blinked and the moment was gone. He put his hands on my shoulders, nodded, and kissed my forehead. His breath smelled sweet—no beer.

“I’ll see you in school Monday,” he said, and walked off through the parking garage to find his friends.

“Thanks for the ticket,” I called after him.

He raised his hand to wave without turning back.

All the way home, the car racing down dark country roads, the Fly’s latest CD blasting out the windows, images of Alec and the concert spun through my head. I wanted to be there still, in that moment, with the music swallowing me up, in a time and place where nothing mattered, where Alec’s hands slipping down my arms felt wonderful—not risky, or dangerous, or criminal. I replayed that moment in my mind over and over until it hurt.

How could one person confuse me so much? How could I be so convinced one moment that he was threatening me—threatening to reveal our secret—and the next feel so . . .
what
? Like there was some real connection between us? What did I really feel? What did I really want?

What I wanted was the old Alec, the one from our early days on the beach. The one who listened to me talk about my father and who told me about his mom dying. The one who knew all about my field hockey team and our opponents and our chances at winning the States. I wanted the Alec who mowed my lawn
and weeded the garden just to help me out, and who left work to pick me up at the beach during a hailstorm even though we hadn’t spoken in a week. I wanted the Alec who had handed me a concert ticket, no questions asked, and who looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

I wanted Alec to
be
the wonderful guy he’d been all those times.

But he wasn’t, and I knew it. He’d been trouble, nearly from the start. Or maybe it wasn’t even him. Maybe it was me. Or the two of us together. Maybe we were like a potent cocktail, a mixed drink whose single ingredients were harmless enough but when put together knocked you out flat. Maybe we were just a bad combination.

All the way home that night as my car bumped down the back roads from Portland to Westland, I reminded myself of what I knew was true—that he wasn’t the guy from the beach or the guy at the concert. At least, he wasn’t
only
that guy.

No matter how much I wanted him to be.

*     *     *

Nearly a week passed since the concert and Alec hadn’t approached me at school, hadn’t called me. Sometimes I thought about the way he’d kissed me on the forehead in the parking lot after the concert, then walked off to find Scott. When I said I’d drive myself home, I’d braced myself for a scene, but then off he’d gone, so easily. He must have realized it, too: The spark, the attraction that had pulled us together, didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough.

We caught each other’s eye in English class one day and exchanged small smiles. We’d shared an incredible night at that concert and it had changed everything. We’d struck a truce, I was sure of it, reached an unspoken understanding. We weren’t back together, but he wasn’t going to try to force that anymore. Maybe he’d even forgiven me for the accident. Could I dare to hope it? He was certainly acting that way. It seemed like he’d let go of everything that had happened between us. We were in a new place, a place I could live with. It was a place from which I could finally move on.

*     *     *

Night was closing in quickly around the gym. I’d stayed late with Coach Riley and watched some video footage of myself playing. She’d wanted me to see it before she sent it out to a few colleges. I heaved my heavy backpack into the backseat of my car and reached for the driver’s side handle.

“Katie.” Alec’s voice emerged from the shadows alongside the gym.

“Oh. Hi. I thought I was the only one left around here.” I gestured aimlessly at the deserted parking lot.

“Amazing concert, huh?”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad you made it.”

“Me too.” I smiled. “Thanks again.”

“No problem.” Alec leaned against my car, his gym bag at his feet. “So what are you up to this weekend?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said. “Hanging out with Matt and Cassie probably.”

“Cheryl’s parents are out of town, did you hear? She’s having a little gathering at her house Saturday night. Nothing big—invitation only.”

“She should watch it. Coach Riley’s laid down the law with the whole team this year. It’ll screw up everything if she gets caught.”

“Riley doesn’t have a clue,” Alec scoffed. “This isn’t exactly the first party of the year.”

It was late and I didn’t feel like arguing about it. Cheryl would do what she wanted to do. I opened my car door and started to climb in, but Alec reached out and touched my arm.

“Can I take you?”

“What?” My heart began to race.

“To Cheryl’s.”

“Alec . . . No, I’m not going. I’m not going to parties right now.”

Impatience flickered in his eyes. “Okay, how about a movie? Just us.”

My heart thumped.
Not again. Please, not this again
.

“What do you say?” There it was, just like before—that tone when he spoke to me. It was barely a question; it was a command, a given. His voice said I would go with him.

“Listen, I had a great time at the concert, but I think we should just—”

“Just
what
?” He kicked at some loose gravel and it skittered across the parking lot in the dark.

“I just don’t think we should hang out together.” There. I’d said it.

“Christ, Katie. What’s the big deal?” His voice was loud now, carrying across the empty parking lot. I looked around furtively. No, no one was there.

“I just don’t think we should.”

“
Fuck.
” He clenched one hand and banged his fist once, hard, on the hood of my car, then turned to look at me.

“I took a fucking bullet for you. What else do you want?”

“I didn’t . . .” My eyes were riveted to the hood of my car, to the dent the size of a softball he’d just made on it, my heart banging in my chest. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t asked him to take that bullet for me; I’d let him do it.

“What the
fuck
is the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me.” My voice was trembling. I climbed into my car and shut the door quickly.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Martini,” he said, practically jamming his head in the open window. “That’s where you’re
fucking wrong
.”

Hands shaking, I started the car. I needed to get away from him; I needed to get away fast.

I glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see him pick up a rock and hurl it into the dark after me.

This time, at least, he missed.

No one knew how scared I was of Alec now. No one knew about the imprint his fist had made on the hood of my car. To anyone who asked, I said a tree branch fell on my already-battered Escort. All I’d told Cassie was that he’d asked me to go to the movies and got angry when I’d said no—nothing more. Bound to Alec in a tangled knot of guilt and fear and remorse, I couldn’t escape what had happened between us. I threw myself in to the only thing that made sense: field hockey, a place where the rules were clear.

Our winning streak was still unbroken. By the end of September, we were 7–0 with just five games left in the regular season. If we kept it up, it would be the hockey team’s first undefeated season in seven years; getting there was our first goal. It was something we could accomplish before the play-offs and would guarantee us the perfect seed going in.

Coach Hollyhock came to our eighth game to see me play. I took to the field, my heart pounding. Cassie smiled and nodded
her assurance to me from her place at wing, but my thoughts raced out of control:
What if I had a bad game? What if she decided she was wrong, that I wasn’t Division I material after all? Could my dream be destroyed in a single afternoon?
The thoughts terrified me.

The whistle blew and the first pass came to me; I botched it, my stick missing the ball completely. Luckily Sally was there and covered for me, carrying the ball toward our goal while I tried to shake off my first mistake of the day in front of Coach Hollyhock. The opposing goalie kicked Sally’s shot right out of the circle, where one of their links grabbed it and took off. Ten minutes later, the other team had scored.

I glanced at the sideline. Coach Riley gripped her clipboard. She was nervous today, too, wanting me to do well. She nodded at me now. “You know what to do, Katie!” she called.

She’s right
, I thought.
I
do
know what to do
. I’d been in a daze, a jumble of nerves the whole first fifteen minutes of the game. It was time to snap out of it. Something in me clicked. The other team had scored! We were behind and a team with a 4–3 season record was threatening our winning streak. This was
not
going to happen. Especially on the day a university coach had driven three hours to see me play.

Sally took the center pass so that I could receive it. I passed it immediately to Cassie in a play we’d rehearsed a hundred times. “Switch!” I called to her, and she swept in toward the center of the field just outside the circle. I’d moved out to the left, where she’d come from, and received her pass back to me—something the other team never expected. As their attention switched to
me, I sent the ball back across, smack into the circle where Cassie, Sally, and Sarah were all ready. Cassie’s stick touched it first, and Sally finished it off. It was beautiful. The whole thing depended on quick, precise passes. Any hesitation, or a ball shot off course, and their defense would have been all over us.

Coach Riley threw her arm around me at halftime.

“You’re doing great,” she said in my ear. My confidence—and the whole team’s—back in place, we rolled over our opponents in the second half and won the game 4–1.

Coach Riley, my mother, and Mr. Tenney, our athletic director, stood talking to Coach Hollyhock at the edge of the field. Coach Hollyhock looked young and fit, muscular and strong. She was tall, like me, maybe even taller. Coach Riley had told me that she’d been an All-American at the University of Connecticut ten years ago. A quick smile lit up her face when she saw me coming.

“Nice game today, Katie,” she said, and stuck out her hand. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Coach Hollyhock.” I shook her hand.

“Coach Riley and Mr. Tenney have been telling me all about you,” she said. “They speak very highly of you.”

“Thank you,” I said, my cheeks flushed.

Coach Hollyhock, my mother, and I left soon after, going downtown to get a bite to eat. All I had to do now was make a decent impression at dinner and hope my mother did, too. But she was recruiting me, not my mom—that’s what Cassie had said. It would be okay.

*     *     *

“Katie’s father is not in the picture,” my mother was saying. “It’s just me, and it’ll be a struggle to get her to school next year at all.” She put her fork down, cleared her throat, and paused. “Anything you can do to help her would be appreciated very much.”

My mother wiped her hands with her napkin and tried to look Coach Hollyhock in the eye, but I could see it was a struggle.
She’s a Yankee
, I thought. Raised to be self-sufficient, she’d rather drown than ask someone on the shore for help. She was putting aside her pride to ask Coach Hollyhock to help get me to college. Field hockey she didn’t understand, but getting out of Deerfield—
that
she understood. And she knew I needed to go to school to do it.