Chapter 30 I Held On

Chapter 30 I Held On

Wren

The game started and the cheer squad started at the same time.

Not loudly. Priya never started loudly because loud was something a teacher could hear. She started quietly, in the row directly in front of mine, turned slightly so her profile was toward me and her voice carried back without it looking deliberate.

"Starting to get crowded up here," she said. The girl next to her looked at me and looked back at the field.

I kept my eyes on the field.

Mia was already on her feet for the first play. She did not cheer the way most people cheered, which was general noise in the direction of the action. She cheered specifically, commenting on what she saw like a commentator who had done her research.

"That is a screen pass," she said, sitting back down. "Cole does those when the defense is pressing early." She pointed at the field. "Watch. He is going to set up a run to the right on the next play."

"How do you know that," Jake said.

"Because the defense shifted left to cover the pass and that opened the right side. Cole sees that. He is already thinking three plays ahead."

"He told you all of this."

"He explained the system. He drew diagrams." She looked at the field with full focus. "He is a very good teacher when he actually slows down enough to explain things instead of assuming you already know."

"Wren said the same thing," Jake said.

Mia glanced at me. "She did."

"About Jake," I said. "About Jake specifically."

"Yes but it applies generally," Mia said.

The ball went right on the next play. Westbrook gained eight yards. Mia made a small sound of satisfaction.

"Called it," she said.

Jake pointed at her with a foam finger. "You are genuinely scary."

"I prefer prepared," she said.

I watched them and kept my eyes moving between their faces and the field and the row in front of me where Priya and two others had settled in. By the second quarter Priya had shifted her position twice. The first shift was subtle. The second was less so.

The comments started low. Aimed. The kind that were calibrated to be heard by exactly one person and no one else.

I catalogued each one.

I had been doing this for three weeks. I had the wording. I had the times. I had Serena's name as a witness to the volleyball incident. I had twenty-two items in a folder on my phone and I was building toward something and sitting in these bleachers with Priya three feet in front of me was going in the folder the moment I got home."

"How do you know that," Jake said.

"He explained the whole system. He drew it on a napkin at dinner." She pointed at the field. "The left side is where he looks first but that is the fake. The real play goes right most of the time."

Jake looked at his foam finger. "I thought I was the sports one."

"You are the general sports one. I am the Cole sports one."

"That is not a category."

"It is now," Mia said.

I listened to them and kept my eyes forward and told myself the whispered comments from the row in front were not landing. Some of them were landing. I was cataloguing them the way I catalogued everything, noting the content and the delivery and filing it all in the part of my brain that had been collecting evidence for three weeks.

By the second quarter Priya had leaned back twice. The first time she said something to the girl beside her that I caught the end of. The second time she said it slightly louder and I caught more of it.

I did not react.

"Wren," Jake said quietly after the third comment. He had moved slightly in his seat so his shoulder was closer to mine.

"I am fine," I said.

"You have the face."

"What face."

"The one from the bus," he said. "The one where something is happening and you are deciding not to react."

I looked at him.

He was ten years old and he had described my expression with more accuracy than most adults managed.

"I am fine," I said again.

"Okay." He moved his shoulder back but not all the way. He kept it at an angle.

I thought about Cole shifting on the bus two weeks ago. Jake doing the same thing now. I thought about what it meant that both of them did it without discussing it.

Jake had acquired a second foam finger at some point. He was now holding one in each hand, an orange finger extending from each fist, like someone conducting an extremely enthusiastic orchestra.

"Where did the second one come from," I said.

"The man behind us offered it. He said he only needed one."

I turned around. The man behind us raised both hands in a gesture indicating he was not involved. He was holding nothing.

"Jake."

"He gestured in a way that meant I could have it."

"That is not how gestures work."

"It is how this particular gesture worked." He held both fingers toward the field.

Mia was on her feet again.

Priya leaned back.

She did it slowly, like she was just shifting her weight, and she said the thing she said directly into the space beside my ear. It was not loud enough for anyone else to catch. It was loud enough for me to hear every word.

My hands went completely still on my knees.

Jake's shoulder was still at the angle.

Mia had not heard. She was cheering something on the field that had not yet resolved.

I counted. One one-thousand. Two one-thousand.

I thought about the folder. I thought about twenty-two items about to become twenty-three.

I held on. That was the whole thing that day. I held on and counted and thought about the folder and did not let Priya see the moment land the way she intended. I held on and at the end of two hours I was still there.

That was enough. That had to be enough.