Playing Hurt

Clint

protective equipment





I practically kick the gas pedal to the floorboards. Instead of revving and racing forward, the GMC just kind of flinches, as if to ask, What’d I ever do to you?

The black sky beyond the windshield doesn’t just swirl, it weaves itself back and forth, reminding me of the pigtails Rosie used to wear.

That sky’s telling me I ought to be full of remorse. Instead, my mind insists on imagining … I’m seeing my hand reach right up a sundress to smooth the indentation of a surgical scar.

A horn blares behind me. But I’m speeding away from the resort so fast, the orange lights of the cabin windows zip straight out of my rearview mirror. Still, though, that horn gets closer, almost like it’s challenging me. The horn blares again as a truck flies around me, passing me, nearly clipping the front bumper of my pickup.

I hit the brakes; so does the blue Chevy ahead of me. In the glow of my headlights, two doors open and Greg and Todd step out, talking at me at the same time.

“… been looking for you …”

“… had to drop Brandon off at his cabin …”

“… you at Willie Walleye …”

“… never saw Kenzie so mad …”

“Got two,” Todd says, laughing as he shakes his head at me. “Two women on the line. From zero to sixty in two seconds, flat.”

Rage takes control, balls my fist, sends my knuckles racing for Todd’s face. His jaw cracks against my hand when my punch lands on the side of his face.





Chelsea

violation





I’ve barely stepped inside the cabin when a low, “Hey, Chelse,” makes me yowl like Scratches does when I sneak up on him.

“Brand?” I croak.

“Yep.”

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can make out the silhouette of his head above the edge of the small living room sofa. The ratty sides of his Vans glow in the strip of moonlight that filters into the room from a nearby window. Judging from the smell wafting from the plate in his lap, he snagged some sort of barbecued late-night dinner before leaving Willie Walleye Day.

“What’d the two of you do, come home by way of Brazil or something?” he asks.

“You waiting up?” I tease, trying to sound cool and nonchalant. But the truth is, Clint’s mouth still burns against my own. I touch my top lip, thinking maybe he’s even left some sort of print behind, the way girls stain boys’ mouths with their lipstick.

“Yep,” Brandon says again, his voice muffled by a mouthful of whatever he’s eating.

“What for?”

“Because you are the most transparent person on the planet,” he snaps.

It crosses my mind that maybe he even saw us through the front window. Does he know I just kissed Clint? My whole body feels as stiff as a petrified tree.

“There a reason you left today without taking your cell?” he asks, leaning into the moonlight to toss his paper plate onto the small wooden trunk that serves as a coffee table. He glares at me, disgusted, as he tosses my cell onto the coffee table, too.

“It gets crappy reception out here—you know that,” I insist.

“It’ll work in town—you know that,” he challenges.

I flinch as he frowns at the little purse that’s still wrapped around my wrist, a purse that’s in no way too small for my cell. My Whac-A-Mole anger pops, even though I’m attacking it with my rubber mallet like a mad woman.

“What are you, my conscience?”

“Do I need to be?” he asks, his upper lip bulging out over the top row of his braces. “Greg and Todd had to stop by the lodge before they dropped me off.” He tugs a wad of paper from his back pocket. “Know what these are?” he asks. He flicks his wrist; small squares of paper scatter across the coffee table, next to the stacks of batter-smeared notebooks Mom’s been writing recipes in.

I shake my head at the small pieces of paper.

“Messages. From Gabe. He’s been calling the lodge looking for you.”

My stomach dips down, and I feel a sick tingle travel the length of my arms.

“How come you got back after me, even though I played at the festival all day?” Brandon asks. No, accuses.

“You obviously just got here yourself—haven’t had time to completely finish your dinner,” I counter. “Besides, it’s not late. You couldn’t stay too late—you had to get out of there before the real band showed up for the street dance.” I’m speaking so quickly that my excuses trip and pile all over each other, becoming as indistinguishable from one another as a heap of football players after a tackle.

I touch my mouth again. It’s a dead giveaway, I know it is. So is the way my eyes are surely pleading with Brandon not to say anything else. But he’s my little brother, and if there’s anything little brothers never do, it’s bite their tongue.

“What’s the deal, Chelse—” he starts.

I actually stomp my foot and shoot out a shhh at him.

“Are you—”

“I’m nothing, okay, he’s my—we just went—because—kayaking—” These words come out pathetically, even though I’m trying so hard. Kind of like when you shake and shake a nearly empty bottle of shampoo, pumping furiously, and all that comes out are a few watery drips of foam.

“It’s not like you’re not seeing people,” I say. “Going out. I’m on vacation, dope.”

“A vacation from Gabe, you mean?”

“Brand,” I hiss.

“I don’t like this, Chelse. Gabe has been with you through all the shit, you know? He stood by you through everything, after the accident. And now you’re—”

“Calling him tomorrow.”

“No way,” Brandon barks. “You’ve called him later at night than this. I know how you guys are—used to be—at home.”

“There is no ‘used to be’ about me and Gabe.”

“Then prove it,” Brandon says.

“There is no cell reception out here,” I growl.

“You really think you’d have to fight a hundred people to use the pay phone in the lodge? Place is completely empty right now—”

“Why don’t you lay off? I’ll call him when I want to,” I shout.

But Brandon shakes his head, shouts back. “You’d have complete privacy right now. Why wouldn’t you want privacy to talk to your boyfriend on his—”

“There a problem in here?”

I flinch, look up to find Dad standing in the doorway, a solid black silhouette like those outlines of heads and shoulders I always see on TV, at target ranges on prime-time police dramas.

But I’m the one that feels like the world’s aiming right at me.