The second I walked through the door, on Tuesday morning, I knew our school had won.
Green and silver banners decorated the halls, and the school speakers actually transmitted the morning announcements for the first time in months. A cheerful voice recounted the highlights of the game against Marvin Ridge and provided the details for the championship game.
All the hype was understandable. I couldn't remember the last time our school had gotten this far in a tournament.
"It was a brilliant idea to name Jimmy the co-captain," Matthew said, patting Arson on the back. "Who knew that when he didn't start fights, he was actually good?"
Arson smiled, visibly proud about sticking to his decision, even when all the other members had been perplexed that he picked Jimmy. "We all just underestimated him because he's a sophomore."
The team was in the spotlight all day, and the guys couldn't walk two feet without getting congratulations from the students and the teachers.
If this sudden popularity should have told us anything, it was that things would go downhill very fast.
It possibly started when I saw Bradley walking down the halls with a girl I had seen before in English class, congratulating him on his scores. I didn't think much of it then, and I barely even noticed their excited chatter during class.
Something finally clicked when I saw Bradley lean in to give her a quick kiss before she walked away.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been alone. Arson and I had been walking to the cafeteria, and I saw him tense next to me. Before I could react, he strode towards Bradley, pulled on his hood, and knocked him into the nearest wall.
Using his right hand made him wince, but he didn't let go of his grasp on Bradley's shirt. "What are you doing?" Arson asked, speaking through his teeth.
Bradley was much more muscular than him and probably could have gotten himself out of the hold if he had wanted to, but he simply held up his hands in defense. "What's your problem, man?"
"Arson," I hissed, tugging on his sleeve when the argument started gathering attention. "Let go of him."
He didn't budge as if my words couldn't reach him. "How could you do this to Brooklyn?"
Bradley seemed to have finally understood, and his mouth formed a quiet "oh".
I noticed Brooklyn and Jayce walking down the halls, and I waved to get their attention. When they finally saw me, they ran toward us. Brooklyn placed her hand on Arson's shoulder and pulled him away from Bradley.
He turned to her as Bradley fixed the collar of his shirt. Arson looked at Brooklyn with confusion painted on his face.
"He was—" he started.
"I know," she interrupted him. "We... uh, well, we sort of broke up." Then she sighed, maybe finally fed up with the lies. "Arson, we weren't dating."
His eyes narrowed at her, and something flickered in them that I had never seen before. "What do you mean?"
As he waited for her to explain, he took a deep breath, as though he already knew her answer.
Jayce and I just stood there, glancing at each other with anticipation. I wished I hadn't been there. It felt like I was eavesdropping on a conversation I wasn't meant to hear, but it would be odd to walk away now.
Brooklyn glanced down at her fingers before looking up at him. "You kept mentioning Emily," she said, her voice barely audible. "I was—" She sighed before speaking again— "I was jealous. And it just came out, and I said the first name I could think of."
"Ouch!" Bradley said, and Brooklyn scowled at him.
"Not now." Jayce elbowed him in the side.
The guy couldn't catch a break today.
"So, you were playing with me?" Arson asked, and hurt flashed in his eyes.
He tried to turn around, but she held on to his left wrist.
"Arson, you don't get it," she said.
He turned back around. "No, I think you don't. Listen, Brooklyn." The name made her flinch as if she had never heard her name pronounced this way before. "I don't deserve to be led on. Neither do you, for that matter. You know perfectly well how I feel about you—or at least I think I made it clear enough. You could have just been honest with me. I have been from the start."
"Wait—"
He looked down at her hand holding his wrist and gently removed it. "I think it's best we leave it at that." He walked away from the entrance of the cafeteria without saying another word.
Brooklyn turned to us and gave us her best attempt at a smile. "I completely forgot you two were here. Go ahead, you can say it. You did tell me it would end this way."
Neither Jayce nor I said anything.
"He's right," she mumbled, mostly to herself. "I'm an idiot. I hurt his feelings by trying to protect mine. I ruined everything."
"No, you didn't. It's Arson. He won't hold it against you... for too long. I'll go find him," I told her, as Jayce pulled her into a hug.
It didn't take long to find Arson. He was in the gym, struggling to dribble with his left hand, like yesterday.
I quietly sat down on the bleachers. I didn't know what to tell him. Even after all these hours of reading, I still struggled with words.
I liked to think that just being here was enough, but I anxiously waited for him to say something.
I knew he noticed me, but he didn't speak for the next fifteen minutes. His shots missed the hoops, he couldn't catch his dribbles, and he couldn't seem to focus.
After he finally exhausted himself, he fell down next to me, sitting on the floor and leaning against the seats.
I racked my brain for something clever to say.
"I didn't think you would skip lunch for anything," I joked. Immediately after I spoke, I wanted to bang my head against something because that was the last thing anyone should say at a time like this. "You know, since you... well, uh..." Could someone shut me up?
He didn't laugh. "I'm not hungry."
And this would be a normal response for anyone else, but this was Arson. He was always hungry.
"Am I stupid?" he suddenly asked, spinning the basketball between his hands.
"No, of course not."
"How did I not see it? I mean, Brooklyn's blunt and spontaneous. That's one thing I like about her. Why would she lie?"
"I'm sure she has a good explanation," I said because that's the only thing I could come up with.
"You're kidding."
"She really likes you." When I realized that didn't make any sense, I continued, "She probably didn't want to face her feelings for you because they were—" Words. Think words— "too real."
We loved illusions. They protected us from pain. They were a defense mechanism that we forged around ourselves to guard us against the truth. Truth made everything real... too real. And we didn't like "real". We were drawn to lies like moths to whatever light they could sniff out.
The doors of the gymnasium opened, and Victoria walked in, wearing her cheerleading uniform.
"I didn't know anyone was in here." She hesitated before backing away.
"No, stay," Arson said, and I tried to conceal my displeasure at that. "You're here to practice, right?"
"Yeah, that's the only time the gym's free."
I thought the rest of the team would soon follow her in, but no one else came.
"Did she kick them all out?"
Arson shrugged. "I think she practices by herself every day during lunch. The kids are not particularly nice to her, so she's never at the cafeteria."
I wonder why. I bit my lip to retain myself from saying it out aloud. I had to remind myself that I didn't know her. That's what Riley would tell me.
"I think you would like her," he said, and I scoffed.
"Are you just saying that to change the subject?"
"Oh, trust me, I've got plenty more ways to change the subject," he said with a small smile. "Championship game tomorrow evening. We're playing the reigning champions: Northwood. We're so going to fail Mr. Andrews's project tomorrow morning. Also, your birthday's this Saturday. I'm excited about it."
"I'll sleep it off," I told him, watching Victoria dance from the corner of my eyes.
She didn't look particularly cheerful as she jumped up and down in complicated moves I couldn't name.
"Not if I get a say in it," Arson said.
"You don't."
He laughed, and it was as though he hadn't been questioning everything he knew just a few minutes earlier. He couldn't hold on to negative feelings for long, and I wished I could be like him.
"How do you do it?" I heard myself ask him. "How is it so easy for you to get out of yourself?"
"What do you mean? That sounds awkward. I don't do that."
"How does it come so natural to you to be... I don't know, so comforting?"
"Comforting?" His eyebrows rose slightly. "I just want to help." He offered me his hand to stand up when the bell rang. When I took it, his face morphed into a grimace. "Wrong hand."
I let go of it as quickly as I could, but he only laughed.
"It's fine. It's getting better as long as I don't put too much pressure on it." He sighed, walking out of the gym. "I wish I could skip class. But my grades can't suffer any more than they already have."
"You don't want to get kicked out of the team, do you?"
He gave me a wistful smile. "At this rate, there wouldn't be much difference."
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"You guys don't have to do this for me," Brooklyn whined as we entered my living room, later today. "I'm okay."
I had invited Jayce and Brooklyn over for a spontaneous sleepover at my house. Well, as spontaneous as it could be considering the fact that I spent my last two classes planning every single detail of it.
Jayce carried two tubs of ice cream in her hand. "We know, but we want to," she said, kneeling on the floor.
I thumbed through the DVDs on the shelves under the TV, trying to find a movie they would like.
"Bride of Frankenstein?" Brooklyn read, looking over my shoulder. "Night of the Living Dead? Seriously? Do you actually watch these?"
"They're classics." I shrugged, rearranging them on the shelf in the proper order.
"Okay then, maybe we should just talk." Brooklyn settled next to Jayce and leaned against the couch.
"Good idea. Let's talk about you and Arson," Jayce said, and Brooklyn took a mouthful of strawberry ice cream with the small little plastic spoons that came with it.
"Let's not. There's not much to say about it. He's right. I was stupid. I was fake-dating Bradley, and I couldn't even act like it around Arson."
"What are you going to do?" Jayce asked.
"Nothing. He won't even listen to me. I wouldn't listen to me either." She dug into the ice cream again. "It's fine. What's up with you two?"
"Brooklyn." Jayce gently pried the ice cream tub away from her. "You don't have to pretend to be okay and look after us all the time. Let us be here for you too, just this once."
"I'm okay," she said, even as tears welled up in her eyes.
And she really seemed to believe that. The thing about illusions was that when we lived in them for so long, they became much more real to us than reality was. And as with a deep pit, we couldn't get out of it alone.
"No, you're not." I stopped tidying the shelves and turned to her. "You're not, and neither is he. You have to talk to him."
She soberly nodded. "You're right. I will, first thing tomorrow."