forty-one
Harper Apple
Dixie and Quinn call to me, rushing over all full of excitement. I barely hear their chatter as they convey me toward the stands. I feel as if I’ve lifted out of my body. They run onto the field, waving goodbye. I buy one of the cheap plastic ponchos someone is selling, and I sit in the bleachers with the other Willow Heights students. I cheer for their gods as they slide around on the field in the drizzling rain until they’re all so covered in mud it’s hard to tell what color their jerseys are. I’m here, I’m doing what I need to do, but it all feels fake and strange and just a bit off, as if I’ve detached from myself and can’t quite snap back. I guess that’s what being a fake is.
Last year, I was popular in a weird way. Everyone knew I was Royal’s. He’d come over and talk to me at halftime. I wore his jersey like the other Dolce girls and sometimes his letter jacket to show I was his. The other girls admired and envied me, but not because of anything I did. They admired me because of Royal. I don’t have Royal this year, so no one quite understands my place. I could move on to Baron like he said, and no one would dare call me a slut for jumping from one brother to another. Not if I was Baron’s girl.
That’s what Gloria would do.
But fuck that straight to hell. I don’t want popularity nearly enough to let that sadistic psycho lay a hand on me ever again.
When the game is over, Gloria and her sisters drag me with them to the afterparty. We’re early, so we get drinks and sit on the screened in porch on the back of the house. By the time we finish our drinks, I feel more normal.
“So, what’s up with you and Gideon?” I ask Everleigh, who’s on her second drink already.
“Ugh, there she goes again,” Eleanor says, rolling her eyes. “Why are you always all up on our men?”
“Is he your man, though?” I ask.
“No,” Eleanor says, scowling at me. “I’m with DeShaun. Are you going to try to steal him next?”
“He’s a person, not a handbag,” I say. “I can’t steal him. If he dumps you, it’s probably because he’s realized he’s too good for you.”
“Ugh, I hate her,” Eleanor says, turning to Gloria. “Why are we hanging with her again? She’s such a slut.”
“Pretty sure my body count is within the same range as yours,” I say. “So you might want to find some other way to insult me.”
Eleanor goes off in a huff, and Everleigh flops back on the patio sofa. “Me and Gideon are just talking,” she says. “Are y’all talking, too?”
“No,” I say. “I just heard you were maybe hanging out.”
“Well, now that he’s at the big boy table, I get to sit there, too,” she says. “I never got to sit there last year.”
“That’s why you like him?” I ask. “Because he sits at the best table?”
“No,” she says slowly. “BecauseIget to sit at the best table.”
I want to tell her how fucked up that is, but a big cheer goes up from inside.
The football players have arrived.
The Walton girls squeal and bounce to their feet. “Come on,” Gloria says, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. “Time for the next game.”
We head inside, where the kitchen is filled with football players clustered around three kegs, and fans fawning over them. I catch Duke’s eye, and he holds up his red cup to me. I smile and mouth “good game,” to him, tipping my cup back at him. Why not? He kissed my feet. He’s tried to navigate the tension between me and his brother, and of course he’s going to take Baron’s side, but he also voted me into the Swans.
I get a beer and make my way over, and he high-fives me and pulls me in for a hug, lifting my feet off the ground. When he sets me down, someone else wants a high five, and he tucks me under his arm while he talks to the guy, and then a girl, and then another guy. I get this disconcerting sense ofdéjà vousas I stand beside him, letting him hold me against him the way Royal used to. It’s a casual posture, almost like he’s forgotten I’m there, but overtly possessive, too, and completely presumptuous. To anyone looking, we’re a couple who’s so comfortable together they’d never question it.
I ease out from under his arm, and he looks down at me. For a second, I think he’ll pull me back, but he turns to some girl who’s blonder and wearing less clothes. I duck out onto the screened porch, which is huge and now full of people. Leaning against the wall, I sip my drink and watch the crowd. I spot Dixie talking to some friends, and Gloria and Rylan in a corner arguing quietly. There are a lot of Willow Heights kids, but a lot of people I don’t know, too. Colt said there would be Faulkner kids here. It strikes me that I’ve never met more than half the kids at Faulkner High, the two lower grades who’ve started since I changed schools.
They aren’t my people anymore.
Suddenly, my gaze jerks back to the person I just scanned over as I was staring off. Royal Dolce is leaning against the railing inside the screen, watching me.
My heart flips, and for a second, forgets how to beat.
I close my eyes, sure that when I open them, it’ll be someone else, the way he must see his sister in a crowd now and again, only to realize it’s a stranger.
But it’s not a stranger. He’s still there.