O. blows out a breath. “I’m not proud of what I did,” he says. “But I’m proud of the things we did together.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Anyway, I forgive you.”
“Screw you, dude.” O. clenches his fists. I think maybe we’re going to get into it, but he stops himself.
“You know what? I forgive you, too,” he says.
“Forgive me for what?”
“For using me to get famous.”
“Am I famous now?” I say.
“Pretty famous.”
“That doesn’t suck.”
“No, it most certainly does not,” O. says.
There are catcalls inside the locker room. Guys horsing around. The team vibe. I miss it. At least that part of it.
A tiny part of me feels like I am making a mistake.
“I got to motivate,” O. says.
“So what now?” I say. “Do you think you can be friends with someone who’s not a football player?”
O. opens the locker-room door. “You don’t know me well enough to know the answer to that?”
He’s right. I already know.
“It was a good game,” he says. “But it’s over. Now I have to get ready for the next one.”
He nods once, and then he goes inside to join the guys.
73. buses come and they go.
“Andy! Wait up a second,” April says.
I’m on my way out of school, and I think about ignoring her, rushing out the door so fast she can’t catch me. The thing is, I see her in AP. I see her in Gym. It’s not like I can avoid her forever. So I stop.
“What’s up,” I say.
“You know,” she says. “Lots of things.”
We walk out together. I don’t think we’ve ever walked out the front of the school together. It’s a new experience for us.
“We didn’t get to talk after the game,” April says.
“You heard that I quit?”
“Everyone’s talking about it.”
“What are they saying?”
“They’re angry,” she says. “But I think it’s because they miss you.”
They. Not I. Big difference, right?
“I think I’m going to write for the lit journal,” I say. “Try something new and different.”
School buses fill up and rumble away in clouds of black smoke. I haven’t been out here at this time in a couple months. It’s funny how you can go away and come back, and things are just the same.
“How do you like being a cheerleader?” I say.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I mean, I think I’m pretty good at it.”
“I think so, too.”
“The truth is it’s not really my thing, you know?”
“So why do you do it?” I say.
“Why did you play football?”
“I quit football.”
“But why did you play in the first place?”
“There were things that I wanted from it,” I say.
I look in her eyes. Soft blue, even softer than when I first met her. Maybe she’s changed her contacts.
“Those things you wanted,” she says. “You don’t want them anymore?”
“I want different things,” I say.
April looks off into the distance. She shivers and pulls her sweater around her.
“You could quit, too,” I say. “Drop the cheerleading. Get back to something—I don’t know—more your style.”
“I’m different than you, Andy. I actually like being popular.”
“I didn’t exactly hate it,” I say.
She laughs. “Anyway,” she says, “I can’t quit. The girls need me.”
“For what?”
“I help them with their homework.”
“I knew you helped Lisa, but—”
“All of them,” she says. “We have a study group together. How do you think I got into that clique in the first place? Half of them would be going to state schools without me. So it’s pretty much guaranteed they’ll keep me around.”
“Wow. Isn’t that… I mean, isn’t it—?”
“Kind of creepy? Definitely. But it doesn’t really matter now. Once you’re in, you can make changes. Influence things. Maybe bring someone into the group that you actually like. You know what I mean?”
“It’s an interesting idea.”
“You can’t do that from the outside,” April says. “From outside you’re behind the window looking in. What can you do from out there but tap on the glass?”
Another bus rumbles away. I look at April, the sun hitting her from the side and lighting up her hair. She’s still beautiful and smart and has great teeth, but there’s something different about her now.
No, it’s not her.
It’s me. I see her differently. Everything in her life is a chess move, and I don’t like it.
“I have to get to cheer practice,” she says. “See you around?”
She says it like it’s a question, like she’s expecting me to make a move. Or at least try to.
The old me would have gotten really excited about that.
I say, “Take care, April.”
And I get on a bus.
74. i see yee.
I’m sitting alone in the cafeteria.
Eytan has some UN thing to do during lunch today, so I’m not hanging out with him until later. There are a lot of people who don’t want me at their table now that I’m not a football player. Some people are calling me a quitter, saying I abandoned the school. Other people don’t care so much, or they missed the whole thing entirely.
There are a few places I could sit if I wanted to, but I don’t feel like it. When you sit with people in high school, it’s like you’re declaring your allegiance. Kind of like registering to vote for a particular party. I’m not ready to be with any party. I want to be independent for a while.
Hip-hop music is booming through the cafeteria. A few hundred students signed a petition last week, and Caroline Whitney-Smith agreed to pipe in the school radio station while we eat. It’s better than people sneaking in iPod speakers and having music turf wars.
Nancy Yee walks by with a tray in her hands. She doesn’t look at me.
I don’t know why, but I say, “Do you want to sit, Nancy?”
“Why? So you can insult me again?”
“So we can talk a little.”
She bites her lip like she’s having trouble making up her mind.
“Just be warned,” I say. “I’m kind of radioactive right now.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Guilt by association.”
“I don’t believe in that,” she says.
“The rest of the school does,” I say.
“That’s their problem.”
That does it. She sits down and arranges her tray. Salad and french fries, with nine packets of mustard stacked along the side. I look at her like she’s crazy.
“That’s a crime in some countries,” I say.
“I love condiments. So kill me,” she says, and she rips open a packet with her teeth and squeezes mustard all over the fries and salad. “You want a taste?”
“I try not to trigger my gag reflex in public.”
She laughs and pushes her hair back from her face with two fingers. Her acne is still there, but it’s so faint now, she just looks like she’s blushing.
“Your face looks pretty good,” I say.
I’m not sure if you’re supposed to say things like that to a girl. Probably not.
“Thanks,” she says. “My mom took me to the dermatologist. The doctor said my hair was making my face break out. I don’t get how my hair and my face can’t work together. I mean, they’re both on the same body, right? They’re even right next to each other. You’d think they’d get along better.”
“I get what you mean,” I say. “I wonder why I feel hungry if it’s only going to make me gain weight. I’m already fat, right? So why would my body make me hungry if it will only make the situation worse?”