Playing Hurt

Chelsea

pivot





Clint,” I say, as we all pile out of the cab. Brandon flashes me a look as he rushes toward Pike’s. I flash him a nasty one right back. The silence that filled the truck all the way to Baudette was unbearable—he had to notice that. And I’m going to burst if I don’t get to the bottom of this, find out why Clint keeps pushing me away.

Brandon shakes his head at me the moment before he disappears through the door. I hurry after him, trying to catch up with Clint.

“Come on. Clint. Talk to me,” I plead, following him inside.

The lunch rush has left every table in the entire restaurant decorated with wadded-up napkins, and plates empty except for the stray French fry and uneaten tomato slice. Ice-filled glasses have created random patterns of watery circles on tabletops. The air hangs heavy with the smells of cooking oil and sunscreen, lake water and Noxzema.

My tears are like a whole pack of dogs on leashes; no matter how I try to tug them back, they just keep barreling forward. I tilt my head toward the ground while Brandon attacks Gene, flopping his banner out onto the floor. Cecilia smiles at him as her hair hangs down over her tired face.

But when she looks back our way, at me and Clint, still river-soggy and awkward, her eyes hang on awhile. She stares at Clint’s angry, clenched jaw, and at my face, hot with embarrassment, until Brandon finishes his breathless sales pitch to Clint’s dad.

“Brandon,” she says, tossing a long brown strand of hair away from her eye as she pinches two empty glasses between her fingers, “we’d be happy to hang the banner in the window. In the meantime, why don’t you let Clint walk you around town? He can show you all the best places to post your signs. Chelsea can stay with us until you guys get back.”

Brandon sprints toward the door, grabbing Clint’s arm on the way out. He races onto the sidewalk, dragging Clint, so happy he’s half-skipping. He starts joyfully singing Paul Simon’s “Cecilia.”

I’m still shaking my head at him when Cecilia calls, “Come back here, Chelsea,” nodding once toward the kitchen.

I follow her into the kitchen, but I still feel like crying—maybe even more so now. I think if she says one word to me, my eyes will turn into lawn sprinklers, spraying water all over the entirety of Pike’s kitchen. The stainless steel appliances will all be dripping, exhaust hoods to grease traps.

“You don’t mind helping me out in dish?” Cecilia asks.

I don’t—even though it’s a little weird. It’ll give me something to do with my hands, at least. And I won’t have to look Cecilia in the eye. I can tuck my head down, stare at my hands, and she’ll never have to know that I’m ready to bawl over her son. That I’m ready to lose it because he’s told me no. He doesn’t want me the way I want him.

I’m about to start searching for a towel—sponge—pair of gloves—I can’t bear to open my mouth to ask Cecilia where to begin—when I realize Gene’s standing just behind me. Cecilia was talking to him. She grabs a Coke bottle from the refrigerator while Gene crosses to a dish sink, then motions for me to follow her down a short, narrow hallway lined with red brick. She swerves into a tiny office, desert-like in its decoration. A laptop marks the center of a wooden desk, the screensaver casting a funky blue glow on a gray metal filing cabinet, rusted at the corners. A desk chair is the only other piece of furniture in the room.

Cecilia puts the Coke next to the laptop and stands in front of the screen, typing as she tells me, “Clint hasn’t had a girlfriend for two years. It’s probably a strange thing for a mother to be talking about—Clint would kill me if he knew I was—”

“Clint’s my trainer,” I protest, fidgeting just inside the door.

Cecilia glances up at me through her eyebrows. A grin spreads crookedly into one cheek. “I’m not just someone’s mother,” she informs me. “Believe it or not, I had a whole life before Clint. Before Gene.”

I twitch uncomfortably. What does she want from me? Why is she telling me about Clint’s dating history? Why is it any of my business? When will this stupid day ever end?

“Clint had one girlfriend growing up,” she says, squinting at the print on the computer screen. “A childhood friend who became something more.”

She clicks her way into a site and stares at the screen, her jaw locked. “But I suppose a story from somebody’s mother doesn’t have as much weight as a text message, does it?” she asks. “Or, say, an old article online? I understand you’ve been hurt, Chelsea,” she adds softly. “From what little Clint’s told me, I think you have every right to be scared.”

I open my mouth to protest, but only get out an “I—” before Cecilia holds up her hand. She eyes me like Scratches does when I interrupt his hunt to call him inside to dinner.

“Clint told me you’re scared of everything he wants to do. Scared to bike,” Cecilia says. “Scared to go kayaking. Just imagine how terrified Clint must be. I know how he—” Cecilia cuts herself off, tugging on her bottom lip. “Wounds of the heart are the hardest to medicate. The slowest area of the body to heal.” She steps away from the computer and points at the office chair. The soles of her sandals click as she leaves the room.

By the time I dislodge my own feet and circle behind the desk, the screensaver’s come back on—an old photo of Clint in a hockey jersey, a sweaty fringe of black hair hanging down into his eyes.

I pick up the Coke and take a long pull, my eyes glued to Clint’s face. I finally jiggle the mouse and find myself staring at the website for The Northern Light, the Baudette newspaper.

Bold print stomps horrifically across the screen: BODY OF MISSING TEEN FOUND IN RAVINE.

I frown as I start to read. After an extensive two-day search for Rosaline Johnson, the car belonging to the missing teen was spotted below Highway 72. Her body was discovered in the wreckage; paramedics indicated Johnson died on impact. Police suspect recent snowfalls impeded the discovery of the white Mazda.

Still not completely sure what I’m reading, I skim the rest of the story. Stare at the picture of the wreckage, thinking something about it seems awfully familiar.

I scroll down the screen, click to the second page of the story. Here, the details swirl around a hockey tournament that Rosaline never made it to, and about a distraught boy who’d made appeals on local news stations to anyone who might have seen Johnson … A second, smaller picture shows someone crumpled into a heap on the back of a squad car. Johnson’s boyfriend, Clint Morgan, at the scene of the accident, the caption proclaims.

Whoa! What? My eyes spring straight back to the beginning of the caption. I reread it six, maybe seven times.

In the picture, Clint’s slumped against the police car, his chin against his chest. He looks a little like a forgotten doll, the way he’s propped on the trunk. But the area behind him—I’ve seen that place before. I recognize it, even though the snow has long since melted. I can smell the earthy wet scent of a nearby creek, feel Brandon’s camera in my hand. As I stare at the black-and-white photo, dots of pink pop—patches of orchids. I know this is the ravine Clint dragged me out of. And now I know why.

I’m on my feet, hurrying down the brick hall, not even feeling my legs.

“Bo’s Bait and Tackle,” Cecilia calls out as I pass the kitchen door. Her words are a lasso around my waist. I backtrack until I’m standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She’s bent over the sink, one eye looming just above her shoulder, a trail of brown hair dangling over her cheekbone. “Clint knows the owner’s family,” she explains, flashing a crooked smile at me. “And I know my son.”

I’m not running, exactly, but I’m close. My blond hair flies behind me as I pump my feet. And I can feel my arms flopping kind of crazily, like I’m making my way toward the scene of an accident. I can feel urgency scrawled all over me, bright as a smear of red lipstick. The kind of urgency that doesn’t exist between “just friends.” Or a trainer and trainee.

The old guys clustered outside of Bo’s, swapping old-time stories, let their voices trail off to watch me. They have the same kind of shock plastered on their faces that they’d have if one of their bosom buddies showed up at Pike’s with a woman other than his wife.

This can’t be happening, I think I hear Clint mutter when I reach his side.

“Clint—” I say.

“I’ll go get Brandon,” he tells me, acting like he’s got to go inside to find him, like Brandon’s not standing in the front window taping the four corners of his poster, his Pink Floyd T-shirt in full view of the street. Clint’s trying to pretend his way out of this conversation.

But it makes sense now. I get it. Why he acts the way he does. Why he shakes me away. I want to tell him—it’s okay, Clint. I want to convince him. God, we’re just alike.

“Clint,” I try again, grabbing his elbow to keep him from disappearing inside the bait and tackle.

“Mom told you,” he blurts, his tone sharp with annoyance as he turns away from the front of the store (and the men watching with round eyes and drooping mouths) and hurries back toward the street. “The whole tragic poor-Clint story.”

“That’s what you were talking about before,” I say. “Why you gave up hockey.”

“She was coming out to watch me. Stupid hockey tournament,” Clint mumbles.

“It’s impossible to play hurt,” I say. “We both—we couldn’t play hurt.”

He clinches his jaw, like he’s clamping his mouth shut on his response.

“I think—” I whisper. “I think you feel what I feel. When you kiss me, it seems that way.”

He turns, staring over his shoulder, reminding me we’re still being watched.

“I don’t want any promises from you,” I say, too quietly for the old men outside the tackle shop to hear. Even as the words come out, they sound stupid. But it’s not like I’m used to begging a guy for his attention while standing in the middle of a street. What am I doing? “And look, I don’t want to feel this way about you either,” I add. “But I do. I can’t stop it, and I can’t take it back. I just want a chance.”

My whole body is throbbing with desperation.

Clint runs a hand through his hair. “You’re just going to leave.”

“Yeah, I am. But not today. Not for a while yet.”

Clint starts to shake his head, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. I can see his answer floating up there in his head: No. But before he can say it, I take a step toward him so we’re standing as close as we did in the river when we’d kissed. I slide one finger behind the waistband of his shorts, snaring him, while I slide my other hand down into his pocket. He stares at me, eyes like a cornered raccoon’s, while I fish for the compass he always carries, liking the feel of being so close to his skin, not wanting to pull away too soon.

I finally pull my hand out, dragging the compass into the light. “Look,” I say, staring down at the dial, which is pointing right at him. “This thing knows which way I’m supposed to go.” I feel as exposed as a sweatshirt worn wrong-side-out, or like pocket linings dangling outside of a pair of jeans. My heart, my hope, hang in the afternoon sun.

“Hey, guys,” Brandon shouts, bounding down the steps of the tackle shop. “What’s up?” He scratches the back of his neck nervously as he hurries toward us.

“Just give us a chance to see where it goes,” I say. My eyes are wide with fear, my tongue so dry my words stick against the roof of my mouth. “It doesn’t have to be all serious, right?”

“Guys?” Brandon calls. “Got my flyers hung—did you see, Chelsea?”

No, I didn’t. My eyes are pinned to Clint. His face is chiseled with the kind of concentration I’ve only seen on my own face, flashing across the screen on the TV in my bedroom.

Clint opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, finally, but Brandon is on top of us now. He’ll hear everything.

“Tomorrow night,” Clint whispers as he takes his compass back, his words coming out so quickly I’m not quite sure he’s actually said anything. Maybe, I think, it’s just me playing out a fantasy. I follow him to the truck in a kind of daze.

“Come on, time to get you guys back to the resort,” Clint tells Brandon, swinging open the passenger side door of his GMC.

As I climb inside, he places his warm hand in the small of my back, as if to let me know I haven’t just dreamed the whole thing up.