a debate
Ty:
Damn, he’s fine.
Damn, he’s a good quarterback.
Damn, he’s nice and sweet.
Damn, he’s a good kisser.
Damn, he’s buff.
Damn, he’s great to his family.
Damn, now that I know about Henry,
I’m not sure Ty and I are right for each other.
Henry:
I love the way his curls f lop around and hang across his forehead.
I love how he never just lets me win. I have to earn it.
I love how he touches me just because.
I love his loyalty.
I love how when we sleep head-to-toe,
he always finds a reason to sleep head-to-head instead.
I love his unconditional support.
I love his spontaneity and crazy sense of humor.
I love his stupid dances.
I love…him.
#
carter
the count? 6 days until alabama
Ten thirty a.m.
In the potting shed, sitting up against a bag of fertilizer.
I just can’t go to school today. I write in my journal:
Love hurts worse than getting slammed by a 250-pound linebacker
After playing war in silence yesterday afternoon, and except for saying, “I don’t want anything to change,” Henry didn’t give an excuse for why he didn’t kiss me. In his defense, I didn’t ask again either. I just sat there hoping he’d change his mind.
Since I never skip, Mom came in to check on me this morning.
“Is it your father?” she asked. “Because he feels horrible about how he behaved at dinner the other night.”
I shook my head.
“Is it Ty?”
“No,” I replied, burying my face in the pillow like Henry does. Remembering what Mike said yesterday, I blurted out, “Oh yeah, Mom, I’m dating Ty now, I guess.”
She smiled and clasped her hands together. “Good. Your father and I like him very much. Come downstairs for some breakfast if you feel better.”
I still don’t feel better.
My cell rings. Before checking the caller ID, I try to guess who it might be. It’s either Ty or Henry. Please be Henry. Please be Henry. I look at the screen. It’s Carter.
“Yo,” I say.
“Woods, what the hell are you doing?” he says. “Get your ass to school or Coach won’t let you come to practice this afternoon.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
Carter doesn’t respond. We’re great friends, but like with JJ, we don’t spend a lot of time talking about hopes and dreams and puppy dogs and shit. We’re just good friends who hang out, eat, and play ball together.
“Want me to get Henry?” he says finally.
“No!”
“Woods, what’s going on? Do you need me to come get you?”
“Yes, please come get me. Let’s go to Waff le House,” I say.
“You got it. I’ll be there in twenty. You owe me, though. I’ll have to skip cooking class, and I was gonna learn how to make dumplings today.”
“I’ll buy you a lifetime supply of dumplings,” I say, hanging up before Carter can change his mind.
I run back inside, take a quick shower, and put on the underwear that Henry liked—the black ones. It’s not like I think Henry will see the underwear today; I just hope they’ll be good luck. God, clues were all over the place, and I didn’t pick up on any of them. When a guy notices your underwear, that means he’s looking, Jordan!
Henry said he didn’t want anything to change, but does he actually mean that? How can you be in love with someone for forever and not be willing to take a chance when it finally hits you in the face like a linebacker?
•••
After Carter and I have ordered enough food to feed ten people, I slide the salt and pepper shakers over in front of me. I stack salt on top of pepper, then yank pepper out. Salt falls straight down onto the table, not spilling a lick. Carter takes the shakers and stacks pepper on top of salt. He pulls salt out, but pepper comes down at a weird angle, spilling all over the table.
My phone buzzes. Ty texts me: Where are you?
I don’t answer him.
Instead, I take a sip of Diet Coke and say, “What’s going on with Ohio State?”
“They’re still interested,” Carter replies.
“And you’re not?”
“I’m going to sign with them—my dad’s got it all set up.”
“But?”
“Um, you know, I love playing ball, but I don’t know if I want it to be my life.”
Nodding, I stack pepper on top of salt.
“It’s kind of like it’s not my life. I mean, it’s my dad’s life. It’s what he expects me to do,” Carter says, running his fingertips through the mess of pepper he spilled on the table.
This is huge. Carter never opens up like this. “What do you want to do?” I ask.
“I dunno…cook?”
“Cook.”
“Yeah, I want to cook, like I want to become a chef.”
This is just insane. No doubt, if he wants it, Carter has a future in the NFL. And he wants to cook?
Is this how people think of me? Jordan Woods is a girl and she wants to play football? Shouldn’t she be playing with makeup and clothes and strutting around the mall? What the hell is wrong with her?
So I guess I shouldn’t judge Carter. No wonder he’s always talking about stuff like Chianti and L’Auberge Wherever.
Thinking about how much I’m beginning to enjoy writing, and how hard this must have been for him to bring up, I say, “Carter, if you want to become a chef, you should become a chef.”
Carter’s gaping. “Really?”
“Yeah—I play football ’cause I love it. You don’t need anyone’s permission to do what you love. You should just do it.”
Carter pouts his lips and clenches a fist. “Okay, I will. I just have to figure out a way to tell my dad and not give him a heart attack.”
“Good luck with that. But can’t you play football and take cooking classes at Ohio State?”
“I guess. I mean, that’s probably what I’ll do, but I just feel like it’s not me, it’s not my decision, it’s not me living my life. I’ve never gotten to figure it all out.”
“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. To get something better, you know?”
“Yeah. So you gonna tell me what’s up with you, Woods? You’ve been weird for like two weeks.”
“Well, most of that was Ty.”
“I kind of figured that. You’re together now, so why skip school?”
“How’s Henry today?” I ask as the waitress brings plates of hash browns and eggs and waff les to our table.
“Fine, I guess. Tired. He said he was out late with Kristen Markum.”
Kristen? Is Henry freaking kidding me? He went out with her knowing what she said about me on Monday?
Hearing this makes my eyes tear up again. I grab the plastic ketchup bottle and squeeze it as hard as I can, spraying ketchup all over my hash browns. I try to bust the bottle, squeezing harder and harder until there’s nothing left but hash browns drowning in a mound of ketchup.
Feeling the empty bottle disappear from my hand, I glance up and see Carter placing it on the table and putting his hand into mine where the bottle was. He squeezes my hand and moves around to the other side of the table to sit next to me. “Talk to me.”
“I thought he loved me.”
“Who? Ty?”
“No…Henry.”
“Of course he loves you…I love you too. And so does JJ.”
I look up at Carter, who puts an arm around me. “Not like that.”
“Oh.” Carter starts to fidget, squeezing my shoulder unnecessarily hard. He doesn’t say anything else—we just sit here for the next hour, picking at the waff les and hash browns and playing the salt and pepper game. I’m glad he’s here with me, even if he’s not saying anything. Sometimes friendship is just that, just being with someone.
Then Carter’s cell phone rings. Peeking at the screen, he takes a deep breath before answering. “Yo…yeah…yeah…” He focuses on my eyes, puffy and stinging from all the tears. “She’s okay…we’re at the Waff le House out on the highway…yeah…bye.”
“You did not just tell him where we are?”
“You need to talk to him.” Carter picks up the check and goes to the cash register, then comes back and drops several dollars on the table. “Henry’s gonna come pick you up. And I shouldn’t be here.” Carter pats my back one last time and leaves.
trades
I hop into Henry’s truck, and he drives. I have no idea where we’re going. In silence, he winds alongside stacks of hay and beneath tree branches that hang over the back roads. Which one of us is going to speak first?
I know he saw my puffy eyes when he first pulled up, but he chose to focus on a Dumpster instead. It’s bad if your best friend in the world would rather look at a Dumpster than at you.
Ty texts me: I need to know where you are.
I don’t text back.
Finally, Henry parks out by the Cumberland River, and we get out and walk toward a dam. Now that it’s September, the weather is turning cooler. I like it. I can smell the leaves—they’ll change color soon. I want to get rid of this tension, so I run down along the banks of the river, heading nowhere. I expect Henry to jog after me, to race me, but he just keeps walking slowly.
Henry doesn’t want to race?
I run for five minutes, then take a seat on a fallen log. I look down into the shallow water at the tiny fish and tadpoles swimming around. When we were little, Henry and I used to go out to the creeks near Lake Jordan. There, we’d spend all day trying to find crayfish, or as we called them, crawdaddies. The trick to catching a crawdad is to grab him right behind the neck like you’d catch a snake. If you don’t, the crawdaddy will nick you with his pinchers. We got pinched all the time, but it was always worth it when we finally caught a giant four-inch-long crawdad.
Now I’m wishing we had never grown up, because I don’t know what’s going to happen today, but it can’t be good. My tears fall into the shallow water, hitting the rocks and fish.
Henry finally sits down next to me on the log, but we don’t touch.
“Jordan?” he says.
“Yeah?”
He picks up a small, f lat rock, then stands and skips it twice across the surface of the water. What a poor showing—I can skip a rock more than two times. I dig around next to the log and find a heavy, f lat stone, dimpled with grooves and peppered with black specks. I stand and skip it three times. I rule.
“How are you?” he mutters.
“Remember when Nomar Garciaparra got traded from the Red Sox to the Cubs?” I start.
“Yeah,” Henry says, picking up another f lat stone. He skips it across the water three times.
I scowl. Oh, it’s on. Bending down, I scrounge beneath the log for another f lat stone. “So later, when Nomar started playing for the Oakland As, he came back to Boston for a game, and it was like he was still a player for the Red Sox. Everyone at Fenway gave him this mad standing ovation that lasted, like, a whole minute.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it was like nothing had changed. The Red Sox fans still loved him, and he got all teary-eyed and shit.”
“Yeah.”
I take my newfound stone and skip it three times. Crap. There must be a stone here that’s capable of doing four skips. “But you know, things had changed. He wasn’t really a Red Sox player anymore. He was an Athletic.”
Henry sighs. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that, even if we aren’t both Red Sox players anymore, we can, uh, still give each other standing ovations when we visit each other.”
Henry f licks another stone, but it only does two skips. Then he laughs, wiping curls off his forehead. “Woods, I don’t speak Shitty Sports Metaphor Language. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I go over to him and touch his arm. “If you had told me you liked me as more than a friend, I totally would’ve agreed that the feeling is mutual.”
Henry nods. “But you didn’t know that before,” he whispers. “Until you heard how I felt.”
“Yeah, I’d just never considered it. You’re like my brother…well, you were like my brother.”
“And now?”
“And now…” I pick up a big rock and throw it into the water, causing a huge splash. That felt great. “You’re a lot more than a brother.” I turn to stare at him again.
Henry picks up an even bigger rock and throws it into the river. It makes a much larger splash than mine. Damn it.
I search for a bigger rock, find one and pick it up, launching it into the river. My splash totally kicks Henry’s splash’s ass.
“Woods, I just want to stay Red Sox.”
“What?”
He laughs. Turning to face me, he puts a hand on my hip, rubbing it softly with a thumb. “I love you…”
“I love you too,” I blurt.
He smiles, but it’s not a happy smile—it’s like a resigned smile. “I really do love you, Woods, but I like what we have now. And if we go off to different colleges, it’ll be horrible. We’d be apart all the time. I couldn’t handle that. I’m already dreading it.”
“Me too…”
“And if I’m already dreading it, and we’re just best friends, imagine how bad it would be if we were more…what if we broke up? We’d never get over it. Well, I never would.” He picks up another rock and feeds it to the Cumberland.
“I get it. But Kristen Markum?”
His face goes all red, and he kicks some rocks into the river. “Won’t happen again.”
“You mean, you’re not going to screw around with girl after girl anymore?”
“I dunno. I gotta cope somehow.”
“Your coping,” I say, making finger quotes, “is fucking with my heart. You were breaking it long before I even knew how you felt. I’ve been worried about you.”
“You don’t think your being with Ty has just about killed me?”
“Dude!” I laugh. “It’s been three days or something.”
Henry grins, stretching out his hand toward mine. “Friends?”
I take his hand. “Red Sox forever.” And then, thinking of Kristen Markum, I shove Henry into the river, creating a much bigger splash than any of my rocks.
•••
That evening, as I’m writing, Ty comes into my room without knocking. I barely have time to hide my journal.
“Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” he asks in an agitated tone.
“I’m sorry—I’ve had a rough day.”
“I don’t care, Jordan,” he shouts. “When I call, you need to answer the phone.”
This is all too much. I close my eyes. Through clenched teeth, I say, “Excuse me? Don’t talk to me like that. Ever. Understand?”
When I open my eyes, I find Ty curled up at the end of my bed, tears rolling down his face. “I thought something had happened to you,” he whispers. “I thought—”
“You thought what?”
“You might be hurt. Or dead. I didn’t know about my parents for hours…I couldn’t reach them on their cells.”
I crawl down and pull Ty’s head into my lap, stroking his hair. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
Ty stays in my arms for the next hour. What causes the worst pain I’ve ever felt? Watching a quarterback, who prides himself on maintaining control, fall apart.
stupid fish plaque
the count? 5 days until alabama
After our weekly gorging at Joe’s, JJ and I are hanging back at my place, playing some Nintendo Wii. JJ’s kicking my ass at the game where, riding a cow, you race around a dirt track and knock down scarecrows for points.
“Woods,” JJ says, as he pummels a few scarecrows with his cow, “you’d better not miss any more practices. I hate snapping to your pretty-boy boyfriend.”
“Shut up, man,” I say as I totally miss a line of five scarecrows. Why do I suck so bad at video games?
“Ty’s so picky,” JJ continues. “Like, if I don’t hike the ball at just the right speed and angle, he gets ticked off.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“You’d better. Or Carter and I are going to kick his ass.”
“Please don’t kick my boyfriend’s ass,” I say, exasperated. Why are all the men in my life acting like total boneheads?
The door to the basement squeaks open, and I hold my breath, waiting to hear who opened the door. Is it Henry? Please God, let it be Henry. At school today, we didn’t speak at all, which is strange considering we have four classes and the same lunch period together. How are we supposed to be Red Sox forever if, after one day, he’s already acting weird again? I wish Carrie had never told me why they broke up.
“Jordan?” Dad calls out from upstairs. “May I see you in my study please?”
I drop the Wii controller on the f loor and trot up the stairs to the study, where I stand in the doorway.
“Come on in.”
Dad’s sitting at his desk, shuff ling through paperwork. He never invites me in his study—it’s like his inner sanctum of football. He might as well have a “No Women Allowed” sign on the door because Mom hasn’t been in here in ages. I don’t even think it gets cleaned—it’s full of empty pizza boxes and Gatorade bottles, coated in layers of dust.
“Take a seat,” he says, gesturing at the leather sofa where he and Mike watch film of past games. My head says there’s no way he’d ever watch film with me, but my heart is hoping that’s why I’ve been invited here. Doubtful. When I sit down, I hear a crunch, so I stand up and find that I’ve just sat on a Cheeto. Gross.
“Jordan,” Dad says as I wipe orange dust off my butt, “I was wondering if you’d like to go to the go-kart track and out for milkshakes tonight. You know, like we used to?”
“Like when I was ten?”
Dad nods.
I lift a shoulder. “Not really.”
“Okay,” he mutters while staring at his paperwork. “Listen, I’m so sorry about what I said at dinner the other night. You’re right—I didn’t know anything about Ty or his family.”
I shrug.
“Can you forgive me?”
This is about Ty? I’m so mad at Dad right now, I could easily smash his f lat-screen TV. I want to grab his stupid football-shaped lamp and hurl it out the window. And though it’s sacrilege, I’m considering smashing his Joe Montana autographed picture.
“I can forgive you about Ty, but how could you say I’m selfish? I’m just trying my hardest to do what I love. You compliment Henry and Ty, but you never ever mention me! You’d support every other football player on the freaking planet before me!”
I can’t believe I said that out loud. I throw my head back and peer at a trophy case, realizing he has one of those plastic singing fish plaques on his shelf. I thought Mom threw that out years ago! He’s gonna be in huge trouble with Mom for keeping that dumbass fish.
Dad turns to see what I’m looking at. “Oh hell,” he says, rubbing his head as he looks at his fish. “You’re not gonna tell Mom, right?”
“Depends,” I say.
“On?”
I pull a deep breath. “I want your support. I want you to come to my games.”
“Jordan—I love you, but I’ve seen what this game can do to people…” Dad stands up and stares out the window at Lake Jordan. “I don’t want that for you.”
“Why’s it okay for Mike, but not for me?”
“I’ve seen the concussions, I’ve seen knees wrecked, I’ve seen legs broken in four places.” Dad exhales deeply. “Mike can handle all that.”
“So can I! You’ve always gone to his games. You never come to mine. And I’ve worked so hard.” I’m tempted to stand up and smash that stupid fish plaque over his head.
Dad’s eyes meet mine. “I know you work hard and I know you’re a great player…but I get scared. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you…I couldn’t handle it.” His voice trails off.
“But I love football and have a chance at playing for Alabama!”
“Why do you want to go to Alabama so bad?”
“It’s the best football team in the country.” Duh.
Dad picks up a pen from his desk and clicks it a few times. “I don’t think they’ll ever let you play.”
“What are you talking about? Of course they will.”
“Don’t you find it a bit weird they invited you to visit campus and basically offered you a full ride before seeing you in person?”
My head droops a bit. I wondered the exact same thing. “Maybe they saw some of my tapes from last year.”
“And then they make you pose for a calendar? It’s like they want you to be their trophy. And I would’ve said the same thing if this had happened with your brother, you know.”
“Dad, I’m one of the best football players in Tennessee. Did you ever think Alabama may actually want me to win some games for them?”
Dad shakes his head and clicks the pen some more before chewing on the end of it. “You understand the long hours? The hard hits you’d take at the college level? Dealing with sixty Jake Reynoldses all the time—the jerks who will constantly degrade you?”
“Yes, Dad. I understand all of that.”
Dad looks at me for a long time, then picks up a football from the f loor and tosses it to himself.
Twirling the ball as he goes over to stare out the window again, he says, “Jordan, I love you and I’m so proud of you. I’ll try to be better.”
I feel a snag in my throat and swallow hard. “I love you too, Dad.”
“So, I called down to Texas to speak with Buddy Simpson about your boyfriend.”
Buddy is one of Dad’s old friends. He used to play for the Cowboys and now just hangs out in Texas not doing much of anything except following the football circuit. If something’s happening in Texas regarding football, Buddy usually knows about it.
Dad tosses the ball up and catches it. “A bunch of schools were interested in him after last year, but he’s been ignoring all their calls and emails,” Dad says. “Even Florida showed some interest.”
“So he lied to us?” I reply, tracing the lines of my palm with a fingertip.
“Yup.”
I take a deep breath. “I’m not surprised. He’s really only concerned with what happened to his parents…and making sure his sister is okay…”
“I’d like to help him—and his sister. I’m worried about him.”
Thinking of Ty crying last night, I say, “I’m worried too.”
“Taking care of a sister and a sick mother is not something a seventeen-year-old should have to do.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I can do, though. He doesn’t like being taken care of. He likes being in control.”
Dad tosses the ball to me. I catch it and toss it back to him. “Well, let’s give him some control then. Tell him I’ll loan him whatever money he needs to take care of his mom. But he has to pay me back with interest.”
I smile. “I like that idea.”
“Think he’ll go for it?”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Good. You know, Jordan, even if he was just some guy on the math team, not some great football player, I’d still want to help him out.”
Sometimes the great Donovan Woods can actually be pretty cool.
#
it gets worse
the count? 4 days until alabama
As I pull into the school parking lot before our third game, my cell rings. Mike.
“Hey, bro, guess what?”
“What?”
“Alabama’s athletic director sent me another email. He said a friend of his, an Alabama alum, is coming to look at me tonight.” Since recruiters are technically only allowed to watch a player once during the season, sometimes college coaches ask boosters or alumni to come see the rest of the games. It’s kinda shady, but that’s just the way things work. “And he thanked me for doing the photo shoot,” I add.
“Great.”
I shut off the truck’s engine. “Are you coming with me to visit campus Tuesday?”
“Can’t. Big history exam that day.” As I get out of the truck, Mike says, “Listen, you need to dress up when you go. Wear a dress and fix your hair, okay?”
“Why?”
“Remember when I talked to the coach at your first game?”
“Yeah.”
“He told me that if you join the team, the coaches will expect you to act like a lady.”
“What? Why?”
“I dunno. Probably ’cause they want to give off a certain impression.”
“Oh.”
“Well, if you want to play for Alabama, you’ll have to do what they say. You might as well go ahead and start now.”
“Okay,” I reply with a shaky voice. “I guess I can do that.” Even though it’s not me at all. What does acting like a lady have to do with rocking on the football field?
I remember when I decided to play ball. I actually started out as a cheerleader, for a Pop Warner team, the Hornets. Mom dressed me up in skirts and ribbons and handed me pompoms. Henry played quarterback, and instead of cheering, I was searching for crickets behind some trees, because good bait is always important. The ball went out of bounds—I ran to grab it, and hurled it, and the ball f lew farther than any of Henry’s passes. He caught the ball, ran back to me, and said, “Darn, you’re good,” with this big smile on his face, his two front teeth missing. “Wanna come out for pizza and air hockey after the game? With me and the team?”
That day, I traded my pompoms in for cleats. And Henry became a wide receiver. And part of my heart became his.
I go to the locker room and get changed into my pads and uniform, and then head out to the benches. I see Henry chatting with Carter, beneath the moonlight and the starry sky. I’m about to go tell him about Alabama and the talk with Dad and Ty freaking out on me, but Coach takes me aside.
“Coach, Alabama’s sending someone to watch me tonight!”
Coach doesn’t smile, just clutches his clipboard to his chest, and stares out at the field where some of the guys are warming up.
“Woods, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you can’t miss two practices without saying a word to me.”
I focus on my cleats and mumble, “Sorry, Coach.”
“If it weren’t for Alabama, your ass would be on the bench, and Ty would be playing. Got it?”
I look up into Coach’s eyes. “It won’t happen again. Promise.”
“It’d better not, or Ty will be our starting quarterback. You’re the leader of this team, Woods. These guys expect a lot from you. If you don’t care enough to show up at practice, or at least talk to me about whatever the hell’s going on in your life, then you don’t deserve to be captain.”
I’ve fucked so much up.
I just need to get this game over with. Prove to Alabama that I’m such an awesome player, it doesn’t matter how I dress. So good that I could even wear kilts and play bagpipes all over the place, and they would still love my football skills.
“I’m sorry, Coach.”
“Get going on drills,” he demands, gesturing at the field with his clipboard.
I jog over to Henry and pull him away from everyone, but instead of being all loose and playful like he usually is, he seems stiff.
“What’s up?” he asks, with his hands on his hips.
“Remember when I first started playing ball? And I was looking for crickets and then I threw the ball back to you?”
“No.”
What? We used to joke about this all the time. How I destroyed his future career as quarterback of the Titans.
“What do you need?” he asks, focusing on the cheerleaders, who just came out of the locker room and are getting set up on the track surrounding the field. The crowd starts waving and cheering as Carrie does a back-handspring.
“Just need to talk about some stuff,” I reply. Is he okay? He won’t look me in the eye. “Want to come over after the game? To watch a movie?”
“I can’t.” He waves his arms around in a circle, warming up.
“Oh. What are you up to tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why won’t you come over?”
He stares down at the field before saying, “Because I don’t want to, Woods.”
I stuff my helmet on my head and bite into my cheek. He’s never done this to me before.
“I need some time alone,” he says.
“Captains,” a ref yells, and Henry jogs to the sidelines without speaking to me again.
Tears trickle out of my eyes as I slowly buckle my chinstrap.
All I know is, without him as my friend, I’m just a shell. Just a playbook without any plays.
••
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