The Championship

III: The New Family

"You just had so much going on going on last year, and I just didn't want to tell your in case you got upset or-"

"It's okay mom, I understand." I told her as I squeezed her lightly. I really didn't want to start thinking about junior year again, because I knew it would only upset me more than Jason's comments earlier today did..

"Oh Sydney" Mom sighed, she had that 'my poor baby' look on her face and I just wasn't in the mood to deal with her sympathy or anyone else's at the moment.

"Mom, I don't wanna talk about it" I said rather stiffly.

"Right, I'm sorry my sweet girl" Mom shook her head. "I just don't understand how things went so wrong-"

"Mom!" I shouted before she continued, "Not tonight."

She shook her head silently. She knew better than to push it.

"I think I'm gonna go for a drive, maybe stop by the park. I'm meeting my friends at 9." I told her, she hugged me, told me she loved me and I left.

It was eight o'clock, so I had an hour before I needed to be at Matthew's. I drove slowly to the park near my house and parked, taking my time getting out of the car and walking toward the old, rusted swing set that most definitely needed to be replaced.

There was somebody sitting on the swings, and as I got closer, they seemed more and more familiar.

"Jason?" I asked. He visibly jumped as he was clearly lost in thought before I'd walked up.

He turned around, "Jesus- oh hey Sydney." His voice didn't have its normal mocking tone. Instead, he sounded tired and almost sad. It was a total 180 from the way he had been earlier at practice. I guess maybe I had been mentally preparing for some sort of fight, but all of that flew out of the window.

I sat down on the swing next to him. He simply glanced at me before looking back at the sunset background over the tree line.

We sat in a comfortable silence, neither of us saying anything and though I supposed I should still be mad at him from what he said earlier, it felt like there was something more going on.

It had been almost ten minutes of just sitting in silence when he finally said something, "Do you ever wonder," he was quiet for a minute as if figuring out how to put his thoughts into words, "why no matter how many times someone hurts you, you keep forgiving them?"

His question stunned me into silence. I'd always thought Jason had a perfect life and perfect family, and while it was totally plausible that he was just going through some dramatic teenage episode, the pain is his voice made me believe otherwise. I opened my mouth to respond, to agree with him, to tell him just how much I related to that one statement, but the words didn't come out fast enough.

"I'm sorry, Sydney" he said, turning to face me for the first time since I sat down, "I was such a dick today, and you didn't deserve any of that."

Both his voice and the look in his eyes were honest. 

"It's okay," I said softly. I wasn't quite sure what this moment was, but it was here, and it was now.

"No, it's really not. I shouldn't have said any of those stupid, untrue things to you." he shook his head and looked down at the grass. "I just-" he stopped himself. "Sometimes it's just a lot."

I nodded. I knew. The sun slowly went down until all that was left was the soft blue light of the sky as the cicadas began to sing, the temperature began to drop, and Jason and I continued sitting in silence.

The silence continued until 8:55, five minutes before we were supposed to be at Matthew's house.

"Did you drive here?" I asked him, and he shook his head. "Do you want a ride?"