Playing Hurt

Clint

offensive move





Why, of all the basketball players on earth, did I have to get this one? Why couldn’t she have been a guy? Or at the very least, a ball player who’d let herself completely go, and who didn’t step out of cabin number four wearing short shorts that show off her long legs? And why did I have to get a ball player who makes it clear, by the angry tightness in her face, that she holds grudges?

“Biking,” I suggest, trying to act cool and detached as we stand on her front porch. “Earl rents out mountain bikes up at the lodge. That path behind your cabin goes straight to this waterfall—”

“A waterfall?” she repeats, her face softening for a moment. “I’ve been hearing rushing water ever since we got here.”

But just when I think she’s about to agree, she shakes her head, crosses her arms. I can’t help but notice that when she hugs her ribs, her cleavage bulges out of her tank top.

“We could ride straight up there—” I start.

“And then fly back down the hill, out of control, and wreck against a tree,” she grumbles.

“Kayaking,” I say.

She frowns at me, juts her jaw out. “Kayaking’s just asking for it.”

Okay, so I deserve the attitude she’s giving me today. So I was an ass last night. So I took what could have been a nice celebration and turned it into one of the most awkward nights of all time. All because she’d asked about hockey. Because I’d wanted to hurt her as much as she’d hurt me. So I’d taunted her with basketball. I’m no dope—I knew she’d never play Horse with me. I did it to be mean. So I get whatever she wants to dole out today. As much as I hate it, it’s fair.

“I … I looked up hip surgery,” I try to tell her. “I know high-impact stuff’s out of the question, but kayaking—”

“Some wooden banana that hugs my jury-rigged hip and keeps overturning doesn’t exactly score up there next to penicillin on the list of Great Ideas of All Time. It scores closer on the list to—Beta VCR players and eight-track tapes. The Ford Pinto. Sneakers made out of nails. Rat poison that tastes like grape jelly—”

“Okay,” I snap, just as the screen door behind us flops open.

When her dad steps onto the porch, I take a step away from Chelsea, drop my hands, relax my face. Stupid of me to start feeling angry with her, anyway. And if her dad thinks we’re not getting along, he could fire me.

That’d look real good with Earl.

Forget Earl, the voice in the back of my head starts barking. It’s not about Earl, and you know it. You want to spend time with her.

I shake my head. I do not, I want to convince myself. I don’t care what she does. But I find myself hoping like hell, as I glance at Chelsea, that she won’t tell her dad she’s had enough of my boot camp.

“You two have a nice celebration last night?” he asks. It’s kind of rough, how he talks to her. I don’t know if he means it to come across that way.

“Fine,” she growls, staring off in the opposite direction. Refusing to look at his face.

Her dad sighs loudly. He rushes down the front steps, heads down the dirt path toward the lodge.

“What’s that all about?” I say before I can stop myself.

“You know what we used to celebrate?” Chelsea tightens her lips and raises her eyebrows.

I get it. Another jab at me. Another way to tell me what I jerk I was last night. Can that whole thing really have only happened last night? I stare at Chelsea. At this rate, it’ll take about forty years to get to the end of her vacation.

“Orchid hunt,” I suggest. “Nice gentle hike. Never seen anything as pretty as a Minnesota orchid.”

As soon as she relaxes her face, washing the angry scowl off, I know what I’ve just said is absolute bull. Chelsea’s far prettier than any old flower.

But she agrees—at last. Nods an okay. “Just let me grab a camera,” she says. The boards of the cabin porch thunk beneath her feet as she hurries inside to get it.

We get in the truck; my old GMC’s the only one willing to do any talking. It creaks and groans and shimmies, but Chelsea only stares through the windshield. And when we get to the lake, she throws open her door and starts stomping toward the water’s edge.

I lean forward, fish the camera Kenzie keeps loaning me out of the glove compartment. And I dive out of the truck, rushing to catch up.

“Chelse,” I try, but she ignores me.

I stare at her back, wondering what it is about a ponytail. Just a simple blond ponytail, fastened up high on the back of a girl’s head. And what is it about Chelsea’s ponytail, in particular, that lays a thick fog all across my brain?

As soon as I wonder, the answer appears: It’s the way that ponytail exposes the sweet, soft skin on the back of her neck. It’s the way the breeze teases strands free, begging a guy to imagine what it would be like to slide that ponytail holder out, to bury his nose in her hair.

I shake my head. Knock it off, Clint.

“Chelsea!” I call, trying to get her to turn around.

But that ponytail is all Chelsea’s willing to give me. She sloshes through the fringe of the lake in a near-stomp. She doesn’t press forward like the athlete I’m told she once was, though; her feet don’t have purpose, her arms flop around sloppily. She’s rusty. Out of practice.

“Careful,” I try to warn her.

But she only slams her feet against the earth more forcefully. Shoves the soles of her sneakers so deep into pockets of mud that she occasionally has to pause to wrench herself free.

I press a little faster, trying to catch up. When I get close enough for my toes to kick water onto the backs of her calves, she starts to pump her arms and rush ahead, increasing the space between us.

Just as I decide to let her have it, the space, she takes her long-sleeved shirt off and ties it around her waist. The tank top underneath shows off the curve of her slender shoulders. I swear, her tanned skin is the same shade as a just-baked piece of pastry. It literally makes my mouth water.

I do not want this, I remind myself. My body, yet again, disagrees.

The sun reaches through the branches of the swamp maples overhead, spills across my shoulders. But Chelsea is what warms my body.

This is stupid, I try to tell myself. But my body feels what it wants to anyway.

“Chelsea,” I call. “Chelse!”

“I’m on it,” she shouts over her shoulder. She’s kind of mall-walking, pumping her arms, the silver exterior of her digital camera catching the sun and tossing it around wildly. “Look—I’m hiking, see? Don’t have to ask me twice, don’t have to wait a whole minute and ten seconds to get started. No way. Not quitting, not me.”

“Truce!” I finally shout.

For the first time since she stepped from the truck, she stops. Just stops, without turning around, her breath gasping out of her body so harshly that her shoulder blades heave up and down.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay—I was out of line last night,” I say to her back. “Let’s forget it, just move on from here. Nothing high-impact. Just a nice hike. Photograph a few orchids along the way. Never—never seen anything as pretty as a Minnesota orchid,” I say again, even though it sounds ridiculous. “No busybody trainer handing out advice you never asked for. Promise.”

She sighs so loud, the sigh has an actual voice to it. “I just miss it. Miss it so much, it makes me crazy. Basketball, I mean.” She turns only enough to show me her profile. “To be out there, on the patio behind Pike’s … To be around basketball, to be on the fringes, when I can’t really have it. Not like I used to. It just—it kills me. It’s like—like I’m in jail, and I haven’t had food in two days, and there’s a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake on the other side of my bars, just beyond my fingertips, out of my reach when I stick my arm through. Maybe that sounds over-the-top, but I guess that’s how I feel. Over-the-top.”

“Okay,” I say.

Her blue eyes dart to me. “Okay?” she repeats. “Just okay.”

“All anybody can ask for is an honest effort.” Good personal trainer talk. No emotion. The way it should be.

“But I—I’m different now, after the accident,” she says. “I mean—honest effort—it’s not the same now. I’m—not what I used to be.”

“Okay,” I say softly.

She nods, turning a little more, showing me the pink glow of both her cheeks. But the knots under my skin refuse to loosen, because this feels close, too. Like we’re a couple, and we’re making up after a fight. No matter what I do, Chelsea keeps burrowing herself deeper—only I don’t know when I allowed her in. Wasn’t every door inside me already padlocked before she even came to the resort?

Still, I’m staring at her beautiful face and the only thing I can think is, I wonder what he’s like, the boyfriend. A twinge of jealousy pops up, followed by a rush of anger, just like it did last night when Chelsea announced she had a boyfriend. But why? Why would I even care?

Why can’t I stay non-emotional?

We slosh farther along the cool edge of the water, into a marshy area that smells a little like sweat-soaked skin. A stream cuts across our path, shallow and gurgling. Chelsea starts to follow it, walking upstream, putting the lake behind her. Above us, cars careen down a highway, the roar of their engines slicing through the still air.

My eyes dart down the stream, past Chelsea’s shoulders. A shiver travels down my back as I realize where we’ve wound up.

“Did you find one?” Chelsea calls to me. “An orchid?”

“No,” I say, my voice wobbling. “Look, let’s go back the other way.”

What’s wrong with you, Morgan? I start chastising myself. But I know—I’d been staring too hard at the curve of Chelsea’s shoulder to realize just where she was headed. To realize she was heading to this ravine.

Never should have driven here in the first place, I try to tell myself. But I’d been too upset, too focused on the silence in the truck, to think about anything else. Anything but Chelsea.

“I did! I found one,” Chelsea shouts triumphantly. She hurries even farther ahead of me, toward a white and pink bloom.

But the bloom disappears, and so does Chelsea. I’m not feeling the heat of a summer morning, but brutal cold. It’s not the first week of June, but early March, and winter’s still got northern Minnesota in her icy clutch. I look down to find that I’m holding the silver lid of a thermos instead of a camera. Pop’s pouring black coffee into it. And I’m not standing in the ravine; I’m looking down on it as I steer my GMC along the highway above. Snow has painted the world pure white. My breath comes out in clouds. My arms are covered in the sleeves of a parka. My forehead itches against the rim of a wool stocking cap. Through the windshield, I see the sun slowly rising. Marking the beginning of yet another day of unanswered questions.

“What you really need is some sleep,” Pop is telling me. “You need to try, at least.” He says it loud, because the radio is on. That damned radio.

“… the search for missing teen Rosaline Johnson continues,” the local DJ announces. “Last seen leaving to attend the local pond hockey tournament …”

“And I knew it, right away,” I say. “She didn’t show up, and I knew something was wrong. But I kept playing?” I grip the steering wheel even tighter.

“Not your fault, Clint,” Pop insists, as he has for the past eight solid hours of driving. “If you’d just get some rest—”

“Yeah, well, we still don’t know where she is. We still don’t know what’s happened to her. And something has happened. That’s somebody’s fault. I’m not going to stop just to sleep. No way.” I hit the brakes and skid onto the shoulder. I slam the gear shift into park.

“So why are you stopping?” But even as Pop asks it, I think he already knows.

Up ahead, red and blue lights are splashing across the snow-covered branches. Police cars are parked on the highway, blocking traffic. And suddenly I’m out of the truck. I’m running.

“Clint,” Pop calls. But I’m already sliding down the bank, my boots sinking into inches of snow. Pop’s feet crunch behind me as he tries to catch up. My lungs are on fire, burning against the cold.

Black uniforms stand ahead of me. One of them sees me, holds his hand up. “Son,” he shouts, “you don’t want to be here.”

“Rosie?” I screech. “Rosie?”

Pop catches the back of my parka, but I break away. I race forward, feet sinking. Everyone is screaming, and ahead—I can see it now—a windshield, cracked, and that paint, that damned white paint, camouflaged by the snow. A Miata, roof caved and crunched. It rolled, I think, my eyes darting back up to the highway. I drove by this place a hundred times the past couple of days. I just didn’t see her. She always drove too fast anyway, like a maniac, even in bad weather. How many times did I warn her?

The officers all join in, raising their hands, all of them calling, son, son … I slowly begin to realize that the scream bouncing against my skull is coming from me. Rosie, Rosie …

“Hey—over here.” Chelsea’s voice makes the landscape turn green and muddy and empty of police officers. Cars fly down the highway above my head, oblivious to what happened two years ago in this very ravine. But I’m still shaking all over.

Rosie’s gone.

As I make my way toward her, Chelsea kneels down next to a fleshy-looking bloom. Her camera flashes. She reaches for the orchid as though about to pick it, but I lunge forward and grab her arm, wrench her away.

“Come on,” I snap. “We’re leaving.”

“But, I—”

“Don’t argue with me,” I bellow, because being here, reliving it, makes the accident seem fresh. Not like a memory at all, but like something that’s happening now. I can’t believe I let my guard down long enough to wind up here.