"So he just, like, falls asleep without warning?"
"Yes, Bill."
"Even after a good night's sleep?"
"A good night's sleep doesn't have much to do with it," I tell Bill Burcheron, co-captain of the football team, as he sits across from me at lunch, piles of cellophane wrappers and paper containers littering his tray. "He can't help it. He has an easier time staying awake if he catches a nap during the day and sticks to a regular sleep schedule, but mostly, it's out of his control."
Over the past few weeks, I've become Titusville Junior/Senior High School's designated Narcolepsy Expert, a title Kieran or Kayla would probably earn if anyone would bother to talk to them long enough. After The Incident, most people seem to be treating the Laniers like zoo animals, observing them from a safe distance and talking about them as they stare.
"Does coffee help?" Lauren Pipher, Bill's girlfriend and my teammate, asks me, the girth of Bill's letterman coat around her so overwhelming, her head seems comically small. "I'm too hyper to go to bed if I drink coffee at night."
"Caffeine can mess with his sleep cycles and make everything worse, so he tries to avoid it."
"Sucks for him," Lauren says, pouting.
A sigh escapes me in spite of myself. I'd been looking forward to a lunch period of ignoring everyone and reviewing my reading assignment on the Reconstruction for American history class, but instead, I'm enduring another round of "Let's Learn about Narcolepsy," courtesy of Lauren and Bill. Tomorrow, I'll probably suffer through this again, thanks to somebody else. And the day after...
"So what happens when you two...you know." Bill shrugs. "Like, does he fall asleep when..." His voice trails off and he puts his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if the gesture is an appropriate substitute for what he wants to say.
"When what, Bill?" I sit back and fold my arms across my stomach. Of course, I know exactly what he's getting at, but watching him squirm is too much fun.
"You know," he insists, which provokes a gasp from Lauren, whose brain apparently just decided to clue her in.
"Bill! Oh, my God."
"Well, I was just curious," he says, as if inquiring about the sex lives of his girlfriend's teammates is no big thing.
"Sooo rude," Lauren continues. "I mean, it's not like people go around asking us about the stuff we do in private."
Ewww, I think, although I'm guessing that most guys in the cafeteria right now-and probably more than a few girls, too-know exactly what Lauren and Bill do in private thanks to Bill's gigantic ego.
"It's okay," I assure her, before turning my attention back to Bill. "To answer your question, we're just friends, so what happens to him in those...situations isn't any of my business."
"Sorry," Bill mumbles. "I mean, everybody thinks you're a couple-just so you know."
If Kieran and I are a couple, then we're having the most boring, chaste relationship this school has ever seen. Besides English and history, Kieran and I pretty much only see each other in the hall on our way to classes we don't have together. Since I have basketball practice every day after school, we've never had the chance to hang out at each other's houses or around town like most people would when school gets out. We text a lot and talk on the phone about class assignments and books we like to read when we're not reading stuff for school, but neither of us has suggested driving to Sumner to catch a movie or to go to the mall or anything else that might resemble something that passes for dating activity around here. So we're not even remotely together, but considering Bill's about the eighth person to ask without asking if Kieran falls asleep on me when we get physical, I'm guessing the truth doesn't really matter because as far as everyone's concerned, Kieran and I have been hot and heavy since he went face down on my desk in Advanced English.
Kieran's had two other "moments" at school since the day we met. The first time, he was in Mr. Wilmstead's algebra class. He told me he dozed off for about thirty minutes and nobody even noticed. I had Mr. Wilmstead for geometry, and I'm assuming nobody noticed because half the room was probably asleep themselves. The second time he passed out, he was in art class and slumped over on the watercolor he was working on, which led to him spending the rest of the period in the bathroom wiping paint off his face. He's also had a few of these kind of waking blackout moments when we're together. We'll be walking down the hall or discussing stuff in English class and he'll seem completely alert. Afterwards, I'll ask him about something and he doesn't remember that we were even talking in the first place, as if he's got some kind of fleeting amnesia.
All I give Bill for informing me that the whole school thinks Kieran and I are Doing It is a "whatever" shrug of my shoulders, so he drops the subject and steers our conversation to Kayla. "So, Kieran's sister's kind of hot."
"Um, Bill...hello? I'm right here," Lauren shrieks.
"Oh, come on-I didn't mean it like that. I meant, like, anyone would think she's hot. Like how people say, 'oh, this movie star's so hot' or whatever."
Lauren pretends to be interested in a french fry left over in the paper container on her tray, rolling it around between her thumb and forefinger, while Bill turns his attention back to me. "So, what's her deal anyway? Her name's Kayla, right?"
Honestly, I don't know what Kayla's "deal" is, because she's barely said ten words to me in the time she's been here. Since we're apparently on track to compete for class valedictorian, we have the same schedule except for electives. Kayla, however, always sits in the front row while I'm in my usual seat in the back corner of whatever room we're in. We ended up next to each other in Advanced Chemistry because Mr. Collins insists we sit alphabetically, but we're usually too busy taking notes to say more than "Hi," and "Later," and since Cassie and I have been lab partners all year, I don't get much of a chance to talk to Kayla during lab, either. The few times we've both ended up walking to class with Kieran, we've only spoken a couple of words to each other about whatever's being discussed at the time. So besides what Kieran's told me here and there-she's a runner, she pretty much looks after Kieran whenever she can, she likes the outdoors-I'm clueless about her.
But I do know that Kayla wears this fake smile whenever she sees Kieran and me together or whenever we're all walking down the hall on our way to class, like she's just barely tolerating my existence. I haven't worked up the nerve to ask Kieran why his sister doesn't seem to like me, mostly because I'm not used to people not liking me and I'm a little afraid to find out what I've done to piss her off.
The bell rings before I can respond to Bill's question about Kayla that I'm lost for an answer to anyway, and everyone stands and files towards the doors like trained monkeys, dumping the remains of our lunches in the garbage cans and recycling bins and leaving the trays on a cart on our way out into the hall. I race upstairs to my history class and take my seat in the back center of the room, and as I pull my textbook and notebook out of my backpack, Kieran slides into the desk in front of me and says, "Hey-I've got news."
Of course, the bell rings before he can tell me. "Give me a minute," he whispers, and Mrs. Denton immediately starts scrawling on the board. I begin writing, as her tests are notoriously based on her notes, but before I've scribbled more than a few lines, Kieran's hand bumps the outside of my left kneecap, prompting me to look up. He's leaning forward and still facing the front of the room, his right arm flexing as he takes notes, but his left arm dangles over the back of his desk chair. My hand closes over his and he transfers a wadded-up notebook page to me, which I lift to my desktop and smooth out.
I think I talked Kayla into taking me to your game Saturday, he's written.
Kieran's wanted to come to one of my basketball games, but they've all been during the week and he and Kayla aren't allowed out on school nights. Considering she hates me for whatever reason, hanging out at one of my games probably isn't high on Kayla's "to do" list, but once Kieran learned our last game of the regular season would be on a Saturday, he's been itching to go.
How'd you manage that? I scribble back and carefully crumple the paper, trying to make as little noise as possible. I tap Kieran on the shoulder with my pen, and the next time Mrs. Denton turns to write on the board, he angles his arm behind his chair, his open palm resting on my knee. Taking a second to bask in the sensation of his hand through my track pants, I slip the note underneath the desk and rub the paper along his fingertips. He grabs the wad of paper and quickly swings his arm over his seat, the feeling of dried sweat on cotton/polyester blend sending a chill through me in his absence.
Less than a month of friendship, and we've already perfected the Crumpled Paper Note routine. But some days-like today, when Kieran's hand lingers on me a little longer than usual-the routine seems more perfect than others.
A few minutes later, Kieran brushes my knee again, but just as I'm about to reach down to grab the note, Mrs. Denton turns away from the board and fires a question at me. "Zara, tell the class what the Fifteenth Amendment did."
I have no idea what she can see from the front of the room, so I swallow hard and pretend everything's normal. "It gave former slaves the right to vote," I say, my voice steady. "People could vote regardless of race, color, or whether or not they'd been slaves."
"Right. Although individual states already had laws and continued to pass laws disenfranchising former slaves..." Mrs. Denton doesn't miss a beat and continues with her discussion, directing her gaze to the other side of the room in order to fire a question at her next victim. While Cassie bungles a question about military control in the Southern states, I take the crumpled note from Kieran's waiting hand.
I think I just wore her down, he tells me in his straight-up-and-down printing style, the curves in his letters more like right angles. He's also drawn some sunbursts in the margins next to his sentences-one of his favorite things to draw, I guess, since he's always doodling them in his notebook in English class. She told me to ask Mom and Dad, and they said it's ok as long as she's with me. I guess she didn't feel like she could fight me anymore, and when I bugged her about it yesterday, she gave in.
Maybe I should be nervous over the fact that for the first time, someone outside my family-and someone of the male gender, no less-will be attending a Titusville Lady Titans game for the express purpose of watching me play, but since I consider Kieran a friend more than anything, I'm not. And once Saturday night rolls around, even after I search the stands during warm-ups and find Kieran and Kayla sitting alone on the top bleacher, Kieran waving and Kayla giving me her usual lukewarm smile, I'm anything but rattled. I'm in The Zone, the headspace of automatic movements and behaviors I've worked on perfecting since my dad first threw me a big orange ball in my grandparents' paved driveway. As soon as I step on the court, Kieran, Kayla, my family sitting in the front row behind our team bench, and everyone else in the gym disappear, my focus solely on shooting layups, firing three-point shots, making expert-if-not-no-look passes, and executing plays.
Right from the start, the Sumner Lady Panthers are no match for us. They should be fired up and ready to avenge a four-point overtime loss to us on their home court last month, but the Panthers come out sluggish, losing the tip to Marissa Keep, Ashley's older sister and our senior forward. Marissa throws the ball to me and I dribble to the top of the key, left arm raised and fingers flexing to signal the play for our first offensive set of the game. Everyone moves into position, defenders giving pursuit, and I lob a pass to Candace just a few feet from the basket. She easily pivots around her defender to lay in a quick two points, and everything goes downhill for Sumner from there. We pull away to a 20-11 lead at halftime, helped along by a combination of four three-pointers from Marcy Gillette and me. Sumner tries to mount a comeback in the second half, but we hold them off to win 41-37, securing our place at the top of our conference. I score an individual season-high thirteen points in addition to notching five assists and two fouls, both frustration fouls in the fourth quarter when Sumner looked like they might come back.
The half-full gym-a sizeable crowd for one of our home games-erupts in applause and cheers at the end of the game. "Look out State-here we come," Marcy belts out as the rest of the team dances around her, all of us screaming, hugging, and pointing solitary fingers to the sky reminding everyone we're Number One, at least until our Regional game next week. In the midst of the celebration, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn to see my mom beaming with parental pride.
"Honey-I'm so happy for you," she yells over the chaos, pulling me into a hug. The giant Booster Club button on her sweater with my name and number grazes my arm, the plastic cold against my skin. After a few seconds, I pull back and notice my grandparents toddling toward us from the bleachers.
"Nice show, Zip-i-dee-doo-dah," Gramps booms, his talent for nicknames only rivaled by my dad's. He also wears a giant "Zip #11" button, but unlike my mother, who can't be counted on to do such things, he's sporting a sweater in the school's navy blue along with khaki pants and a Titusville Titans baseball cap covering his few wisps of white hair. Gram, shorter and rounder than Gramps, wears an almost identical outfit, although since she has a full head of silver-blonde locks drifting down to her shoulders, hiding bald spots isn't a concern and so she's skipped the ball cap. Their School Spirit Twins routine would embarrass me if I didn't love them so much and weren't grateful that they attend every game, both home and away. And I love my mom for being here, too, of course, but I almost have to laugh at how she's dressed more for a day at her arts and crafts store on River Avenue than for a basketball game-oversized forest green sweater, tight jeans, and calf-high black leather boots, her blonde hair back in its usual sloppy style that's not quite a ponytail and not quite a bun. Her Booster button is the only sign of the Titusville school spirit she probably never had herself, even when she was a student here.
"Thirteen points for you tonight, if I counted right" Gram smiles at me, her pale cheeks flushed unusually pink with excitement, the color settling into her wrinkles and frown lines.
"Yeah. Let's hope I can pull that off next week at Regionals."
Mom shakes her head at me. "You. Always thinking ahead. Next week is next week. Let yourself enjoy the win for a minute. This is the biggest thing to happen to this school in a long time."
"As evidenced by the standing room-only crowd," I say, smirking, but Gramps points out "Well, at least the Boosters set up a nice spread for you in the cafeteria."
The Booster Club's been planning a little celebration-basically, sandwiches and sodas for players and their guests-since we clinched the conference title two weeks ago.
"You should ask our new neighbors if they'd like to join us." Gram nods up into the stands.
Everyone else has made their way to the floor or left the gym entirely, but two figures sit alone in the top row, the boy dozing away on the girl's shoulder. I look up at them, and Kayla rolls her eyes and hitches her shoulders in a sort of "Eh. What are you going to do?" resignation over Kieran's current state. I smile and give her a sympathy shrug, and for a moment, we almost seem like friends.
Almost. But not quite.