Waiting on the Sidelines (12 page)

The stinging sensation on my cheek was warm, almost like a burn. My head was flung to the side and my hair was in my eyes. I didn’t see her arm coming at me, but the slap Tatum delivered to my face in the cold weather made a ringing sensation in my ear.
So this is what it feels like to get slapped, I thought.
And then there was spit. In my face.

I turned away in disgust and quickly wiped my face with my arms. A nearby coach from the other team came over and grabbed Tatum by the shoulders, moving her away from me. I heard yelling and Becky’s voice was nearby. Suddenly someone was wiping my face with a cloth. It burned. It burned so badly.

I opened my eyes and saw Sean frowning at me. I winced as he touched my cheek. “It’s going to bruise, Noles. I hate to tell you. What the hell? Are you ok? She went all ape shit on you!”

After everything, Sean was still there for me. I was grateful and hopeful that we’d still be friends. I couldn’t process what had just happened, but I knew my fellow runners were getting ready to move into their lanes.

“I, I … I have to run,” I said, handing him the cloth. “I’m OK, really,” I said, looking over Sean’s shoulder into Reed’s stunned eyes. He narrowed them and looked down and when his face came up again he was wearing an expression I’d never seen before. He looked cold. Furious.

I headed to my lane and readied myself for the race, stretching my legs and trying to ignore what was probably a beet red hand print on my face. I turned to see Reed standing in front of Tatum, his hands stretched out to either side of him, his voice raised. He looked livid. She was crying and he was yelling. When he finally tried to walk away, she ran after him and grabbed his arm. He brushed her off and said some words that I couldn’t make out, but I could tell they were cruel, even if deserved.

I came in third overall. It was maybe my best race. I channeled my anger, sadness, confusion and fury over getting slapped in front of everyone into my running. Becky waited for me at the finish line and didn’t leave my side until we were on the bus. She insisted I sit next to her, which was probably the best idea I’d been given all day.

As we settled in, Sean passed down the middle aisle and looked at me with sympathy. He moved on without saying a word. I hoped that in time things between us wouldn’t be awkward.

Reed was a few people behind him. I felt my heart speed up as he came closer to our seat. When he got to us, he stopped for a second. He didn’t make eye contact, but he threw his sweatshirt on my lap. “Keep it for the ride home. It’s going to be cold,” he said. He kept going to the back of the bus and took a seat across the aisle from Sean. I turned to see his feet dangle in the walkway as he sat sideways taking up the entire seat.

Tatum was the last to get on with her groupie friends. They all sat near the front, and huddled around her to console her.
What lemmings, I thought.

The drive home seemed to take twice as long. I laughed to myself when we passed the point where I thought my warm-ups were probably strung along the highway. When we pulled into the school, I grabbed my bag in my lap and looked at Becky, shaking my head.

“I’m exhausted,” I said.

“Uh, yeah,” she laughed. “Hey, why don’t you come home with me tonight?”

I smiled. That sounded really nice. But I really just wanted to curl up in my own bed. I may throw myself a pity party. Or maybe not. But I just needed to stop my mind, slow things down. I could only do that in the comfort of my own home. “Thanks, but I’m soooo tired. I just want to go home and drop. I’d love a ride, though?”

She smiled and said no problem.

Becky dropped me off at my house at about 11 p.m. and I pulled the keys from my bag to unlock the door. Everyone was asleep, thank God. I didn’t really want to explain the hand on my face tonight.

I stripped my clothes and pulled on my cotton pajama pants and a T-shirt and climbed into bed. I laid there flat on my back staring at the ceiling trying to make sense of the last eight hours. When I rolled to my side I noticed Reed’s sweatshirt on the floor. I reached over and pulled it to me, hugging onto it. I closed my eyes and started to feel myself drifting when I heard the buzz of my phone.

I reached over to pull it from my night table and saw a text from Reed.

Why didn’t you tell me?

This was tricky. I stared at it for about five minutes before I decided honesty was my new path. Hiding things didn’t work out so well for me.

I was ashamed.

I waited for him to respond. He did instantly.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

I waited again. He followed it up with more after a few minutes.

I’m so sorry, Nolan. I had no idea. Becky told me about your warm ups. About the eyebrow. You could have told me. I would have believed you.

I shrunk under my covers. I was so embarrassed. Becky knew about the eyebrow. And she told Reed.

I am so embarrassed.

Honesty. I was going to be honest. I waited.

Don’t be. You’re not the one who should be embarrassed. Tatum should be. And so should I, for ever going out with her.

I read his text a few times before responding.

Did you two fight over this?

I waited, knowing what I saw. I wanted details, but I didn’t want to be pushy. It took him about 15 minutes to write back again, and I was just about to give up when my phone buzzed.

We’re done. We were done a long time ago, but this really nailed it. I failed you, and I’m sorry. Dating Tatum is exactly the kind of thing my brother would do. I’m the one who should be embarrassed, not you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.

I wanted to keep this going. I wanted to confess how I felt about him. But I knew that wasn’t right. So I resorted to simple things.

Hey, you were there. You gave me a sweatshirt. That saved my ass! :-)

A few minutes later my phone buzzed again.

Ha! It was seriously cold. Tatum really knows how to be mean. Do you still have the shirt?

Honesty.

I’m sleeping with it.

And now I’m suffocating from a panic attack. That was too honest, too honest. How do I take that back? My phone buzzed.

Good. Sleep tight.

I didn’t send anything after that. I wanted to end on a high note. Somehow after my nightmares I came out into my wildest dreams. I knew he was just being nice to make me feel better after my ordeal, but it was enough for tonight. I drifted off and slept the night straight through, not waking up until noon on Saturday. I felt refreshed and my bruise was barely showing. I was pretty sure I’d be able to hide it from my parents and avoid any more uncomfortable conversations for the rest of the weekend.

The last few weeks of school passed without much incident, despite Tatum’s best effort. She posted a few nasty things on Facebook about me and Sean, but she hadn’t counted on Sean being such a stand-up guy. He would spam her postings with comment after comment about what a liar she was.

And despite my crushing of his heart, Sean and I started to hit a nice friendship groove much quicker than I could have hoped for. I think it helped that Becky had a bit of crush on him and he wasn’t so opposed to her either.

Our little group was quickly expanding—most Friday and Saturday nights, Sienna, Sarah, Becky, Sean, Reed and I all piled into Sean’s truck and headed into town for real shopping malls, movies and restaurants. Reed and I were also back to our old selves. We spent most nights before bed texting. Sometimes he would try to quiz me on stupid sports references, and I would amaze him with my brilliance (albeit, not admitting that I was Googling most of the answers). We’d recommend songs to each other and watch stupid videos on YouTube. Everything felt natural, and safe. Only once did our conversation turn to Tatum. Reed still felt guilty, and he seemed to feel like it was his responsibility to make up for her wrongs against me. I wouldn’t let him go there, though. If there was one thing I was determined about, it was that if I was ever going to receive kindness, of any kind, from Reed, it would be because he wanted to give it to me…not because he wanted to make up for his nasty ex-girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend. That made me smile.

Summer hit and I was determined to get a job. My parents didn’t really want me to take one on this young; I had just turned 16 before school let out. But I also wanted some independence. I wanted to be able to put gas in the car, and maybe, just maybe, pick up an old clunker that was a step up from the Oldsmobile. (Not that I wasn’t thrilled when my parents had officially given it to me at my 16
^th
birthday party, but still.) I was a pretty straight-laced teenager, and I’ve never really given them a reason to doubt my responsibilities, so the last time we sat down at dinner to talk about my employment they relented.

My dad got me an interview with the big aquatics center in Chandler, the first main town north of Coolidge. It was a cashier job, but I had hoped that I could train and test for lifeguard before the summer was over; the lifeguards made $13 an hour.

Not thrilled with the idea of me driving by myself 30-45 minutes through the desert, my dad’s original plan was that he would time his deliveries and drop me off and pick me up on his way in and out of town. But that just wasn’t realistic. He wouldn’t even be able to take me to the interview.

Luckily, my mom was a pretty strong woman and reminded him that Mike had been driving himself at that age, and he went a lot farther than 30 minutes away. Plus, Mike was still just a phone call away if I ever had an emergency while they were at work. My newly minted driver’s license was dying to be used when my dad finally gave in. Of course, just to make sure I wouldn’t speed and would be well surrounded by mass of automobile, I’d be driving the Olds.

I set out early for my interview on the Monday after school let out. My interview with the pool manager was at 11 a.m., but I gave myself a little more than an hour just to be safe. My dad gave the car a once-over before he left that morning and gave me one final lecture about safety on the road, proper signaling and the appropriate breaking distance. I mused to myself about how worried my dad was about me as I rolled down our rocked driveway and made my way to the highway.
If he was really that worried, you’d think he would have sent me in the pickup he bought off of Sienna’s dad last month instead of the Oldsmobile, I thought, coming to terms with the realization that the Oldsmobile would be…is now… mine.

By the time I was a full 20 miles out of town I started to get excited. This was the farthest I had ever been alone, on my own. It felt…amazing. I turned the radio up and rolled down my window to let the warm sunshine-baked air touch my cheek and arm. The small hills on either side of me were speckled with cactus and desert brush, green from the recent rains. The blacktop had recently been paved on this stretch of the roadway and the jet black looked cool against the dusty brown of the surrounding landscape.

I was already halfway there and still had nearly an hour to make it to my appointment.
I could stop at Starbucks, I thought. I always wanted to do that. It felt like an adult thing to do.

I was startled a little when the radio cut out a few times. The speakers were making loud popping sounds every time, almost like the radio was shorting out. I shut it off thinking maybe if I turned it on again in a few minutes it would kick in – that’s how we usually fixed things on the Olds.

When I killed the tunes, though, I became very aware of the sounds the car was making. Almost sputtering. I tried giving it more gas, but it just sputtered more, jerking and whining, louder and louder. Finally, everything on the car just felt limp. I forced my steering wheel to the side of the road, but it was hard to turn. I was traveling at a crawling speed by the time I got to the dirt area off the road and out of the way of traffic, not that there were many vehicles traveling on this stretch at 10:15 a.m. on a weekday.

Son of a… I hate this fucking car!

I got out on the passenger side; at least one thing my dad told me stuck. I pulled the hand towel from the glove box and headed to the hood to unhook the latch. The hood was always blazing hot, so I wrapped the towel around my hand while I held it. I had no idea what I was looking at, but something smelled burnt even though nothing really looked out of place. I walked back to the driver’s seat to try to start the car again and it just clicked and then sat there silent.

I beat my hands on the steering wheel a few times and threw the towel up on the enormous dashboard. I put my head down and looked at my watch. I had 45 minutes.
OK, I just need to get Mike here in time. I can still make it.