Not for all of us. We’re still here.
Did you always want to go to Suffolk? I text Marcos when the lights are shut off, my miscellaneous aching joints iced and rubbed and wished upon.
“Stairway to Heaven” starts playing and the screen flashes brightly in the darkness of my room. Incoming call.
It’s Marcos, and he’s laughing. I want to hear it in person, feel his breath against my cheek. “Yes, Savannah. As a young boy in Texas, I dreamed of the day I could attend community college in New York.”
“You lived in Texas?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
I want to know more about Texas, but the yeah is clipped. “Did I wake you up?”
“I just showered and still smell like guac, so no, you’re fine.” I bet he smells like coconuts now, not fake and trying-too-hard like the guys at his house on Sunday.
“How was work?”
He groans. “One customer said the other guy stole from him, push came to shove, cops had to be called. All they did was tell the guys to stop being dicks and left.”
Yikes. As long as he stayed out of it, though–
“So, Suffolk? Thinking about applying?” I can hear his smile.
I take a breath. “I told you about moving to the city with Cassie, right?”
“Yes.”
“I…don’t think I want to do that anymore.”
“Why not?” There’s no shock in the question, or an accusation, or anything that implies You’re making a terrible mistake that you will regret. He’s curious. Open.
“I don’t think I would be happy if I didn’t give gymnastics a shot. I could walk onto a team next year. Or I could sit on the bench for three seasons and compete once as a senior. No matter what, I can’t do any of those things if I’m in the city.” I’m rambling now. “A wise person once said that he thought I was afraid of failure.”
He groans. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No,” I said, “I think I’m more afraid of not trying.”
The sound of creaking in the background. I wonder if he’s lying back on his bed, looking at the pale-blue walls. “It sounds like your decision is made, then,” he says, but I can’t stop there. I tell him about Richard, Ponquogue’s soccer golden boy, who managed to chase both of his dreams, one of which was one we knew he wanted and the other was one he’d never told us.
There’s more that I don’t say, like how seeing Juliana react to her brothers calling her name made me realize how lucky I am that I don’t have anything to hold me back. Except myself, and the body that’s determined to make me question this every step of the way.
“I’m inspired by you,” he says, and I laugh. “Seriously! The thing is…”
We’re quiet. This is vulnerable territory. With the lights out and a few miles between us, it feels safe.
Finally, he says, “I’m real good at talking myself out of things. Like trying out for the soccer team. I’ve always been better at being a spectator.”
“Why?” I think of what Andreas told me. I think he’s afraid to belong to something. The last thing he wants to hear about is his best friend and me discussing his psyche, though. I have to hear it from him.
“I give myself a million excuses. I have to work, I’m too tired, there are jerks like Tommy Brown.” I nod although he can’t see me. “I think about college and I wonder if I’m too poor or if some guy is going to tell me one day that I only got a scholarship because I’m Mexican, not because I worked my ass off. Then I see you going after what you want, and it makes me want to do it, too.”
“You can still try out for track,” I say, and now it’s his turn to laugh.
“Only if it’s in the spring,” he teases. “Juliana wasn’t lying–I need to get my ass in gear so you’re not ashamed of me.”
That ass looks plenty fine to me.
“What’s stopping you?” he says. “You sound worried.”
There’s the tiny matter of my best friend, who’s hanging onto the slippery ledge. “Cassie,” I say. “There are no schools with gymnastics teams near the city. If I do this, I can’t live with her.”
He’s silent for a moment. “If you can tell off that drunk douche from Galway Beach, you can be honest with Cassie. What if you suggest somewhere else?” There’s shifting in the background, followed by an electronic ping. “Name me a US city, and I’ll see if I can find a gymnastics team.”
I stare at my phone as though I can see him on his laptop. “By the time we’re done,” he says, completely serious, “I’ll know more about collegiate gymnastics than anyone.”
My grin is so wide that my cheeks hurt. He believes in me. He really thinks I can do this, regardless of the huge disadvantage I’m at. “When did you get so wise, Marcos Castillo?”
“I was taught well in the halls of Rivendell.”
I snort so loudly that I immediately bury my face in my pillow. The last thing I need is to attract my father’s attention.
“Let’s go,” he says. “Fairbanks? Los Angeles? Little Rock?”
No, yes, maybe. I imagine Cassie’s reaction to me saying, “Let’s move to Arkansas,” and by the time Marcos hits Nebraska, I’m cracking up because it’s so not New York City that Cass might actually spring for it.
The phone burns hot against my cheek, beeping at me that the battery is running low. Hush, you thing. I don’t know how long we’ve been talking, but I do know that I don’t want to stop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AS RICHARD GREGORY, Sr., once told me on the cusp of failing my first road test, “You can flip over a four-inch-wide beam. Any idiot can drive.”
If I can get my ass back in the gym, I can be upfront with Cassie. I’ve avoided the topic for the past couple of days, but now that the calluses on my hands are hardening, so is my resolve. I’m armed with a Marcos-inspired list of college teams across America that has been Emery-approved. You’re taking the nation by storm! she’d texted me.