“Davis, no one is playing football this year and life will go back to normal. It’s not over. Do your classwork so you don’t fail, and you’ll be able to play in college. I wouldn't be surprised if you still get offered something. They have to pick up new recruits, don’t they? It's not like others are playing for them to watch.” The microwave dings. I take the plate over to him, setting it down.
“Davis.” I reach up and push some of his hair back that he clearly didn't mess with when he got out of the shower. “I’ll let you wallow in this for a few more days. Then it's done.” I give him a stern look. He reaches up, grabbing my hand.
“Using my own words against me?” He squeezes my hand, a smile spreading across his face.
“I’ll use whatever I have to.” I lean down and kiss his cheek. “Because I love you. Now eat.”Chapter SevenBerkleyIt’s been three days. Three days since I had to pull over on the side of the road all because Chandler told me she had a crush. I can’t believe I ever had a crush on you. That sentence played over and over in my head until I couldn’t see, and my hands were shaking. I stopped the car and banged my head against the wheel. Past tense. She had a crush. It doesn’t mean anything now. There was a window in time when, maybe, I could have had her. I think back, trying to remember if she ever showed any interest in me, but every time I see her, Davis is at her side.
My best friend who didn’t blink that night when we came home from a baseball game to find my dad banging his secretary on the dining room table. My best friend who prevented me from cracking a brass candlestick over my old man’s head and probably kept me from jail. My best friend who pretended the secretary was his girlfriend so my mom didn’t find out what was going on in her house. My best friend who has never spoken a word about that night, not even as a joke.
My best friend whom I want to decapitate right now. His head is in Chandler’s lap. Her hand is combing through his hair. His eyes are closed, and she’s laughing at something Mike Benjamin said about our AP Government teacher. Davis makes a sound, something low and satisfied, and my eyes see red.
Chandler leans down and her long, chestnut hair falls like a curtain around their faces.
Snap!
“Dude.”
Her head comes up. I zero in on her lips. Had she been kissing him? Are they redder than they were thirty seconds ago? Who kisses someone for only thirty seconds? I guess people who kiss all the time. People for whom kissing is normal and an everyday occurrence.
“Dude.”
“What?” I bark at Mike. He says dude one more time, and I’m stabbing my pencil in the side of his neck.
“You’re bleeding all over our notes.”
I look down to see that my mechanical is snapped in half. With a small cry, Chandler jumps to her feet and rushes off, presumably to get a towel.
“Is that a...metal pencil?” Mike plucks the pen out of my hand. He turns the bent thing one way and then another.
Syracuse leans over Mike’s shoulder. “Maybe lay off the steroids.” He smirks.
“He doesn’t do any of those,” Davis says in my defense.
“Yeah, he’s an arrow,” Mike tacks on.
“An arrow?” Syracuse’s brows come together.
“Yeah, what’s it called?” Mike makes a circle with his hand.
“A straight arrow,” I offer.
Mike snaps his fingers. “That’s it.” He turns to Syracuse. “Straight arrow. He doesn’t do anything. No drinking, smoking, drugs, sex.”
“I drink sometimes.” With Davis only. I don’t trust myself around Chandler.
Syracuse frowns. “That’s fuck boring. What’s the point of all of this”—he waves a hand around the large room that serves as my game room, theatre space, and general fucking around—“if you aren’t doing things to enjoy it?”
“I enjoy it fine.”
“If I had the money, I’d actually do something with it,” says Syracuse as if I never spoke.
Chandler appears at my side. “Like what?” Her tone is slightly acerbic. I arch an eyebrow at her. She scrunches her nose as she dabs the blood away. I want to lean into her, so I don’t really pay attention to Syracuse as he starts babbling.
“If I had this kind of money? I’d fly out to LA, hang out with celebrities, snort coke off a stripper’s ass, stack my house with a bunch of—“
“It’s my dad’s money,” I interrupt because Chandler’s expression is turning from mild amusement to annoyance.
“So?”
“So money isn’t going to buy you happiness.”
“Says someone who hasn’t ever worried about it,” Syracuse shoots back.
“Let’s stop talking about this,” Chandler intervenes.
“It’s easy for you to say that money doesn’t do shit because you’re sitting in your mansion, wearing your thousand dollar sneaks, driving a car that could feed my family for five years, but you don’t know shit.”