I let him push past me and watch him climb into the car.
Two hours later, I decide on toast instead of Cheerios. Two hours after that, I give up on seeing Dad for the rest of the day. I’m not really sure where he goes when he disappears like this, but he usually ends up at the Sam Hill Saloon, because they’re the only bar in town. I’ll probably hear from the bartender at some point, but that won’t be until later.
It’s a sunny day so I grab my sunglasses. At the last minute I decide on a hat too, because let’s face it, Dad’s right. I look like shit. My right eye is purple and black, just like someone punched me. There’s a raised welt with an angry red gash covered in butterfly bandages over my ear. Which means the hair is shaved there. It’s a unique look.
Which is in direct violation of the fourth key to invisibility: Blend in.
I trudge down the street to the park and find my favorite bench, along the path away from the shelter at the bottom of the hill and the playground at the top. It’s tucked under a copse of trees so it’s quiet and always in the shadows, no matter how sunny the day. The bench slopes a little with the side of the hill, so I lay on my back with my head on the uphill side and crack open A Day No Pigs Would Die. Number twelve on the list.
I’m halfway through chapter three when I start dozing off and decide this one might be a DNF. I roll my head to the side and start reading the back of the bench instead. It’s infinitely more interesting. In the middle near the top, someone has carved MARCUS EATS PUSSY so deeply that it would leave an imprint on my back if I leaned there too long. Next to it reads, NATE IS A DOUCHE in smaller letters, but neater than the Marcus comment.
I trace my finger through the words, wondering if it’s my Marcus. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d watched him climb the hill on the day of his sister’s wedding. He was definitely heading toward this bench…until he saw me and pulled up short.
At the memory of that day, I shudder. I honestly didn’t know he didn’t recognize me. I feel supremely stupid for thinking he might have been into me, but I’m not going to lie (at least to myself) and say it didn’t feel amazing to have his arm around me. And, God, that smile could melt my bones.
So, despite my humiliation over everything that happened that day, I come here when Mom is haunting me more than usual, or when I just can’t stand to be in the house with the ghost of Dad anymore. Marcus called this his bench. I think of it as ours. Being here takes my mind off everything else. And everything else is far worse than my mortification over Marcus.
I sit up and trace Marcus’s name again. What did he call this place? Graffiti Park? I close my eyes and imagine a younger version of my hot water polo coach sitting here. I remember the way his fingers stroked my shoulder as his arm rested behind me, and those muscles I didn’t know I had contract again. My skin prickles into goose bumps and my breath gets short.
“Arrrgh!” I growl, opening my eyes. Why do I let myself fantasize about Marcus?
I cringe with the obvious answer. I’m infatuated.
But he’s my coach. And twenty-three.
Fifth key of invisibility: Avoid relationships.
With anyone.
Hooking up with Marcus would be the equivalent of spray painting NOTICE ME in fuchsia across my body in that walking-down-the-hallway-naked nightmare.
Not that hooking up with Marcus is even an option. There’s not a snowball’s chance that he’s even interested in me that way.
I breathe deeply and focus back on my book, trying to settle my raging hormones. They’ll pass when I don’t have to look at him every day. I have to get a job to pay the hospital bills, which means no more water polo. Out of sight, out of mind. Problem solved.
I just need to keep Marcus Leon out of my sight.
Chapter 5
Marcus
By the time I finish up practice and grab a quick dinner, I just make my seven o’clock shift at the gym. A friend of mine, Brenda, runs the place. She was in my graduating class at Oak Crest High, which is how I got this job and scored my current living arrangement with her older brother. She’s in the back room with a small group, leading a cardio class, and there are three guys up front at the free weights. I’m surprised to see one of them is my roommate, Bran. He’s usually here in the mornings because of his work schedule behind the bar at Sam Hill Saloon.
I head over to the bench press to spot when I see him struggle with his last few reps.
“You off tonight?” I ask, helping him hook the heavily weighted bar on the rack.
He swings around and sits. “Yeah. Mom’s got the bar. Took a get-my-head-screwed-on-straight break.”
Bran and Brenda’s parents have both ends of the spectrum covered. Their dad owns the only gym in town, and their mom owns the only bar.