And it’s like he can read this on my face because he says, “Good night, Beth,” and he flicks the light off and then we’re back in the dark.
I don’t say anything. I just feel my way toward my room. I undress and crawl into bed. I’m not tired, despite what I said. And I thought my buzz was gone, but I guess it isn’t because when I lie down my head starts spinning. I close my eyes and almost enjoy it, like I’m a kid again on a merry-go-round. Round and round I go, without a care in the world.
CHAPTER 6
Lickety-Split
Josh
After tennis practice on Monday, I wait for Dad to pick me up. I’m not in the best mood, and I wasn’t hitting well today. “You’re gonna have days like this,” Coach Runyon said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” This was after I’d slammed my racket on the ground. When I picked my racket up, a lot of the guys stared over at me, because I never really show emotion on the court.
Nick usually waits with me after practice, but he’s off talking with Sarah. I try not to look over at them, but I can’t help it. Nick has his hands in his track pants pockets and is swaying back and forth, while Sarah smiles up at him adoringly. I think he could be saying anything and she’d still look that way. Girls have always had crushes on Nick, but before Sarah came along it’s like he didn’t notice or care. I hear Sarah laugh and then Nick laugh back at her, and I feel like bashing my racket on the ground again.
Dad’s late. I look over toward the soccer field. My friend Raj is on the team, junior varsity, and I see him huddled in a group, talking to the coach. The huddle breaks and he runs out with his teammates onto the field.
Sam would probably be on that team. Maybe one day he will be, when he comes back to school. If he comes back.
Stop it. Stop thinking about him.
“Josh!” Nick says, walking up to me with his tennis stuff and backpack. In the distance I see Sarah getting into a car. “You still waiting on your dad?”
“Yeah,” I say. I want to ask, How’s Sarah? in a mocking way. But I keep quiet. I look at his hair, which keeps getting longer and longer. “You need a haircut,” I say.
“What?” He runs a hand through it. “No way, man. Sarah wants me to grow it out.” He grins big, thinking I will, too. I roll my eyes. Raj actually cut his hair, because Madison H. said she liked it short. Since when did my friends start acting like they don’t have minds of their own?
Just then, Nick’s mom pulls up. She rolls down the window and waves at me. “You need a ride, Josh?”
“No thanks, my dad’s coming soon,” I say.
Nick looks at me. “Later, bud,” he says, tousling his hair like he’s giving me the finger.
Dad finally pulls up after a few more minutes.
“Sorry, kiddo,” he says when I hop in. I don’t say anything back, just give an annoyed look, but he’s oblivious.
Dad has NPR on, as always. A lady with a soothing voice is interviewing some man. He’s talking about the brain, and junk food, something that has to do with science and chemicals and cravings and how companies know how to exploit the taste buds. I like that science can explain almost everything.
“How was practice?” Dad says when a commercial comes on.
Shitty, I want to say. “Okay.”
“And how was school?”
Dad knows I hate this question. “Okay.”
“Okay then. Everything is okay,” Dad says with a chuckle. I feel his eyes on me, but I just look at the scenery out the window. It’s not like we have big conversations all the time, but today I’m just not in the mood to say much.
The commercial ends, and the NPR lady comes back on and says stay tuned for local news. After another commercial, the local host is on. I’m really only half-listening, but suddenly I hear the name Russell Hunnicutt, then Sam Walsh.
“In a Calhoun County courtroom today, Hunnicutt pleaded guilty to seventy-three charges, including kidnapping, sexual abuse, attempted murder, and child—” And right then Dad changes the channel.
“Hey! I want to hear that,” I say.
“Josh,” Dad says.
“What? Dad, turn it back,” I say.
Instead, he flicks the radio off completely.
“What’s the big deal?” I ask.
“I just didn’t want hearing that stuff to upset you.”
“I’m not a kid. It’s all over the news anyway. It’s not like I don’t know anything.”
“I understand,” he says. “It’s just. Well, some of it’s pretty serious. Stuff you shouldn’t have to think or worry about.” At your age, he refrains from saying but I know that’s what he means.
We cross Woolsey Finnell Bridge, the water of the Black Warrior River muddy and cresting high on the banks since it rained last night. “How can there be seventy-three charges?” I ask.
“I don’t know. It’s very upsetting.” But I can tell he does know, he’s just not telling me. And attempted murder?
At home, I think of going online and digging around. But I just look at my laptop, like it’s some mysterious box I’m too scared to open. The easiest thing is to just get my homework done.
Later, once Mom is home, I hear the two of them fixing dinner in the kitchen. I creep downstairs. Usually what they talk about is super boring—Mom’s job, Dad’s research and students and faculty crap. But today they’re talking about Sam.
“Well, it’s a blessing,” Mom says.
“I guess you’re right,” Dad says. “Sam won’t have to testify at a trial. He won’t have to relive any of that stuff.”
I walk back upstairs and shut myself in my room. I still have homework to do. But when I sit down at my desk I just stare at my textbooks.
I’ll take a break. That won’t kill me.
I think about getting out the Box. The Box is where I keep all this stuff that I don’t want anyone to see. My Archie comic books. A few copies of Sports Illustrated that I saved because of the pictures inside—pictures of some of my favorite male tennis players in action. There was also my rock collection that I’d built up for years with Dad’s help. My Star Wars action figures that I used to line up on a shelf above my bed. My old stuffed bear that I stupidly named Teddy. I started the Box a few years ago, after the first time Nick came into my room and walked around, noticing all this stuff (but not the magazines, those I always stashed in my desk). “What’s this?” he’d asked, smirking, holding up Teddy by his leg. When he saw the Star Wars figures, he’d said something like, “Nerd heaven.” He wasn’t mean about it, really. But I knew, after that, I had to get rid of that stuff, or hide it. I mean, I was in sixth grade—time to grow up.