I’ve been thinking about that since leaving Alan’s house earlier today. And he’s right. There are things I want to do before I die. And Ryden’s a huge part of that.
I stare at the page, putting the date and context of the entry together with my own memory of that time in my head. The very next day after this was written…
I think I need to have a little chat with Alan.
“We have to go,” I say to Mabel, standing up and brushing the storage unit dust off my soccer shorts. “Same time tomorrow?”
“You got it.”
? ? ?
By the time I get to Alan’s to drop off Hope, that journal entry has replayed in my mind at least twenty times.
Alan comes outside to meet us. “Hi, Hope!” He opens the back door of the car, unbuckles her car seat from the base, and grabs her diaper bag from the floor. She squeals in delight as he makes a stupid face at her.
I get out of the car. “Hey, Alan, you got a minute?”
“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
We lean against the car, and my words come out all flat and accusing. “Why did you convince Meg to have sex with me?”
Alan sucks in air so fast he starts coughing. “What?”
“I read some of her other journals. Mabel got us into the storage unit. She wrote about a conversation you had, when you told her to ‘live her life.’ And the next day, she told me about the cancer and asked me to have sex with her. She was so intense about it, like if she didn’t do it right then and there, she would never get the chance again.”
I run my sneaker back and forth over a loose piece of the driveway blacktop. I don’t usually talk this directly with my guy friends. We tend—tended, past tense, since, you know, I’m kinda low on the friend supply lately—to stick to more surface conversations. And I especially don’t talk this way with Alan, who was always Meg’s friend first and foremost. But I really could not give less of a shit anymore. “Why did you have to go and put that thought in her head?”
Alan pushes off the car and faces me. “Dude, I never said that. All I said was I wanted her to allow herself to be happy. Trust me: your sex life is not very high on my list of concerns. I have my own to think about, you know. And let me tell you, it’s in desperate need of some attention. I’m starting to feel like Lane Kim.”
I stare at him. “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?”
Alan sighs. “I miss Meg. She always used to get my references.”
There’s nothing to say to that, really.
After a short pause, Alan says, “Lane Kim is this Korean character on this old TV show Gilmore Girls. She was played by a Japanese actress, which is complete bullshit, but I guess I can forgive them because they made the effort to include a Korean character on the show.”
“And…um, why do you feel like this not-Korean Korean girl?”
“Oh, because she doesn’t have sex until she gets married and in the meantime lives vicariously through her friends’ recounting of their own experiences. It’s completely tragic.”
“So what you’re saying is, you want a girlfriend.”
“That’s what I’m saying, yes.”
“You could have just said that.” A thought hits me, and even though I’m already late for soccer, I say, “Hey, Alan?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you ever feel, uh, that way about Meg?”
Alan looks at me sideways, like he’s not sure if I’m setting a trap. “Um. Why?”
“I don’t know, just wondering, I guess.”
“Well…yeah. At times.” He steps away. “Don’t punch me.”
“I’m not going to punch you.”
“Appreciate it, man, thanks. Don’t worry, nothing ever happened between us. I told her once in seventh grade that I liked her. She said, and I quote, she ‘didn’t want to ruin what we had by trying to make it something it wasn’t.’”
“That sounds like something she would say.”
Alan smiles. “Yeah. Wise beyond her years, that one.”
? ? ?
Coach is pissed that I was a half hour late to practice again, so he makes me stay late to lug all the equipment back up to the gym by myself.
“Listen, Brooks,” he says, walking casually alongside me as I sweat my ass off, dragging a mesh bag of balls up the hill. “I know things are tough for you at home right now, and I know you’ve had to make some sacrifices, but I need you to know that I’ve got a lot of interest in you from several D-One schools.”
“Several? UCLA is one of them, right?”
“It is. Their recruiter is coming to see you play our third game. I get the impression that if things go well, he’ll be ready to make you an offer that night.”
“Holy shi—I mean, really?”
“Yes. So if you want a real shot at playing in college and potentially going pro, you need to step it up. That means no more being late, no more dragging your feet during drills, no more spacing out on the field and letting goals go by that you should be stopping no problem. Understood?”
I nod, wiping the sweat from my face as we reach the locker room. “Understood, Coach. One hundred percent.”
“Glad to hear it. Don’t let him down. And don’t let me down either.”