“Fuck you, I’m on crutches,” Trevor grumbled.
He was, too. One of those superficial sports injuries, the kind that takes you out for a game. Trevor reached questioningly for a crutch, but I shook my head.
“Save it for me,” I said. “I have to buy lunch.”
But I made no move toward the lunch line. For one thing, I had no appetite, and for another, I didn’t trust myself to come back. But it didn’t matter, since I couldn’t have gotten away if I’d wanted to—half the song squad wanted to give me hugs, because omigod, wasn’t it like soooo epic that I’d won homecoming king and where had I been during the announcement?
I mumbled something about having a fight with Cassidy, and they all cooed in the way that girls do, as though sad things and cute puppies are interchangeable.
“Nah, it’s fine,” I said, uncomfortable from all of the attention. “Honestly.”
Charlotte sat there on top of the wall, swinging her long, tanned legs back and forth as she watched everything.
“Just to be clear,” she said, hopping down from the wall and tossing her hair in one fluid motion, “you had a fight, or you broke up?”
I allowed myself to say it.
“We broke up.”
“It’s about time.” Charlotte rested her hand on my arm for the briefest of moments. “Oh, and welcome back.”
The homecoming king’s homecoming. The ridiculous phrase lodged itself in my head and stayed there for the rest of the lunch period, when finally Aaron Hersh got up so I could have a seat, and Charlotte went off to the lunch line with Jill and Emma Rosen, the three of them returning, giggling, with a turkey sandwich and a yellow Gatorade and extra mustard packets, insisting that I didn’t have to pay them back.
I glanced over toward Toby’s lunch table while I unwrapped the sandwich, and it was as though the past six weeks had never happened. Cassidy had vanished, leaving just Phoebe and the boys and too much room between them on the benches.
Luke caught me staring and gave an arrogant toss of his chin as if to say, You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.
“Faulkner? Whaddaya say?” Jimmy threw a curly fry at me, trying to get my attention.
I scooped the fry off my jeans and tossed it back into his container. “Have fun eating it, now that it’s been on my crotch.”
Everyone laughed. Jimmy shrugged before tilting the container of fries up to his face, emptying it.
“Don’t care,” he said. “So you coming or not?”
“Where?” I asked.
“Practice, yo.”
For a moment, I thought he was joking.
“Someone’s gotta keep Trev here company on the benches,” Evan insisted.
I guessed there was no half-assing a descent into hell, so I said I’d show. And really, what was the alternative? Sit in my bedroom trying to pretend my mom wasn’t hovering worriedly outside my door and that Cassidy’s presence wasn’t haunting me from across the park?
When the bell rang, launching me toward sixth-period physics, I passed the bike rack and something made me look for Cassidy’s red Cannondale. But it wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t. And neither was Cassidy Thorpe.
TREVOR AND I took opposite ends of the bench by the water fountain and nodded at each other. I didn’t know him too well; he was a junior, and I thought I remembered him hawking Abercrombie and Fitch’s official fragrance with his shirt off when Charlotte used to drag me to the mall, but that wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation, so I didn’t bring it up.
A group of tennis team girlfriends came by and sat around the picnic table by the water fountain. They chatted among themselves, none of them particularly interested in watching the courts.
“Hey Ezra,” Emma called teasingly, holding up a bottle of nail polish. “Want me to do yours?”
“Absolutely,” I deadpanned, dropping into the seat next to hers with a grin.
For a moment, she thought I was serious.
“Faulkner!” Evan called from the courts. “Hit some volleys with Trev, would you?”
I glanced up from my table of other people’s girlfriends.
“Can’t!” I yelled. “My nails are wet.”
“They are not!” Emma squealed. “I haven’t even started!”
“Rain check, then,” I promised, winking.
“So, uh, want me to grab some racquets?” Trevor asked nervously.
“Go for it,” I said. I mean, why not?
We shared a court with Evan and Jimmy, using the crappy loaner racquets Coach kept in the locker room. Trevor, who only had a minor ankle sprain, tossed his crutches to the side, and hopped up to the volley line. I’d seen him play on JV, but hadn’t expected him to move up to varsity before his senior year.
I put down my cane and stepped onto the court. And it hit me then that Trevor would be fine next week, but I’d still be sitting on the sidelines. I’d always be sitting on the sidelines, and this whole thing was just an elaborately cruel reminder that I could never go back to the way things had been, no matter where I sat during lunch.
I sent Trevor a couple of easy volleys and then some harder ones. It felt great to hold a racquet again; I’d taken off my brace about a week earlier, and the doctors were right, my wrist had healed up fine. But of course I couldn’t really play—not a full game, not ever—and there was no use in kidding myself.
Unfortunately, Coach Anthony caught us coming off the court.
“Faulkner,” he said coldly.
“Yeah, hey Coach,” I said, realizing I was holding a racquet and a cane.
“Are you on my team, Faulkner?” Coach demanded.
“No, Coach.”
“Then why are you on my court?”
I winced.
“Um,” I said.
“We were just foolin’ around, Coach,” Trevor said, shifting on his crutches.
“Fooling around?” Coach’s mouth twisted sourly. “Isn’t that how you got injured in the first place, Barnes?”
Trevor mumbled that it was.
“Keep off my courts, gentlemen,” Coach demanded, “until you can run three field laps with a racquet above your head. I’ll require a demonstration, of course.”
“Yes, Coach,” we muttered, and then slunk back to the benches.
“Three racquet laps, damn.” Trevor whistled at the punishment.
Three racquet laps, I thought. What I wouldn’t give to be able to run even one. But of course I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stretched out on the bench like I was enjoying myself but secretly wishing I’d never come back.
“Omigod!” Emma shrieked, sounding scared. “What’s that?”
She pointed toward the far side of the tennis courts where some large animal was slinking through the bushes that rimmed the foothills, its fur coppery in the sun.
“Yo, that’s a coyote,” Trevor muttered, nervous.
But as soon as we spotted it, the bushes stopped rustling; the animal was heading back into the hills.
“That’s weird,” I said, “you don’t usually see them during the day.”
“Maybe it wasn’t really a coyote,” Emma teased, making her voice spooky. “Or maybe, it was looking for you.”
MY MOM CORNERED me when I got home from school. She’d called twice, apparently. I hadn’t picked up my phone.
“Where were you?” she demanded, more worried than upset.
“Tennis practice,” I said, and she thought I was joking.
“Ezra.” She glared that mom glare. Cooper, who was dozing on the rug under the kitchen sink, woke up and whined guiltily. “Sit down.”
I sat. Lifted my eyes from the place mat as though it was an ordeal. Waited.
“Did you get that girl pregnant? Is that what’s going on here?”
Out of all the things I expected my mom to say, that was so far down the list that it was practically on the waiting list.
“Yeah, and you can plan the bris,” I muttered, which wasn’t my finest moment. “No, Mom. God.”
We stared at each other, and she softened, sensing exactly why I’d been moping in my room all weekend.
“Ezra, honey,” she cooed. “Girls change their minds. It happens. Lord knows I broke enough hearts in my day.”
“Mom,” I moaned, putting my head down.
“I’m just saying, honey. A shower and shave wouldn’t hurt. You can still be miserable and clean.”