“Okay, well.Text me,” I say, rolling my lips together as I walk away. His hand lingers on mine, his fingers brushing across the back of my palm as the distance grows and he says nothing in return, until finally, he’s not touching me at all.
36
Andy
Ben finally blows his whistle, the blare so loud half of us roll our eyes and the other half practically jump out of their skin. I fall somewhere in between. Annoyed and on edge, the way I’ve felt most of this past week.
I’ve kept to myself, only meeting Will a few times to assuage my father but also me and my conscience. It wouldn’t feel so heavy if I could see Sloane without feeling like a fucking fraud. All of it—the tabs I’ve kept on Will, Glenn’s threat, Sloane—are so, so heavy. But there’s something grounding about spending time with my old friend, something that makes the distance I’ve put between Sloane and I, until I can figure out how to fix this, more bearable.
Ben has us running shooting drills because Josiah missed every lay up in our last game. The team still pulled a win out of our ass but Ben, ever the perfectionist, insisted we played like shit. We find a good rhythm, bouncing, passing, and shooting amongst each other and I find myself getting lost in the steady beat of the ball hitting the court's maple flooring, until Scott’s niggling little voice brings me back to my dreaded reality.
“I see Will isn’t back yet…” his nasally voice filters into my trance and I feel anger reverberate through my jaw. I know my dad probably has something on Scott, something to make him this god damn annoying, but still—my empathy seems to run out whenever he’s in my vicinity. I ignore him, moving to the other side of the court to shoot. Missing, I hear Scott sidle up behind me again. “You should know, I’ll have to tell Glenn.”
I sneer, turning toward him. “Fuck off, Scott.”
He shrugs innocently as I swipe his ball, dribbling it between my legs before taking a shot.
“Nice!” Grant yells. He’s taken court as Ben’s second in command and honestly, he’s given me more pointers about my game over the past few weeks than he has the past few years with Will here. It’s made me notice just how talented the majority of this team is, like maybe we were all playing under water, drowning in the presence of our former captain. I nod back appreciatively before jogging over to grab my ball. I move to the layup line and again can hear Scott’s heavy breathing behind me.
“Look man—it isn’t personal, but?—”
“Can you just fuck off?” I feel the eyes on us before I have time to process how loud that came out. A slimy grin spreads across Scott’s face and I shove him, a little too hard considering he splays himself dramatically against the hard wood flooring, cradling his elbow. I roll my eyes, storming past him and slamming open one of the double doors, in desperate need of some air. February wind slaps me, its icy tinge burning the sweat from my cheeks.
I’m squinting into the bright mid morning sun when I hear, “Thank god. It’s freezing out here!”
Just a few feet diagonal from me is Ian in a plaid overcoat and comically long scarf. He leans against one of the colosseum-like pillars that surround the basketball arena. “I take it you weren’t expecting me.”
“What makes you say that?” I know I’m more irritated than he deserves, but I know there will be questions about what just happened with Scott and my mouth is already turning sour from the lies I know I’ll have to tell the team.
Ian’s face pinches at the retort and I push my hand through my hair, trying to regain my bearings. I’m definitely on the verge of imploding, after all that’s happened this semester. I feel like I’m back at square one, back to the person I was at the beginning of the year, just counting the days until I can escape this place, escape my dad, armed with a college degree that’ll maybe help me never look back. After what happened with Carmen though, it feels like the thumb he has on me is immovable. An impenetrable thing that will slowly suffocate me until I’m just gone. Every bit of good in me squeezed from my being. The idea that this will stop after leaving Astor is laughable now because I doubt my father will ever let me go. Regardless of what I do next, there will always be what I did before, for him. It’s a stain he knew, when he asked, I’d never be able to wash away.
“What’s got you all shaken up, brother?” He’s joking, I know, but the familiarity in that last word has me sucking in air, because it’s real. It’s true—it’s factually what we are to each other.
I think of Will and Ben, how even with all that’s happened this year the connection between them is so strong you can feel it the moment they’re in the same room. Only in the past few months have I started feeling it with my own brother, this unspoken bond, the one I feel with Carmen every day. Like no matter what we do to each other, what we say to each other, at the end of the day we will be on each other's side. That’s whyit’s going to hurt so much more when I say what I’m about to say.
I swallow past my nerves, my jaw grinding as I face him.
“I can’t do this with you anymore.” It comes out quiet and icy like the air around us. Ian stands there for a minute looking every bit like the way I used to see him. His face is too inquisitive, like he’s hunting for a secret he can splash on his newspaper and if he looks at you just hard enough he’ll find it. It softens quickly though, into the expression I’ve only recently got to know—kind, empathetic, misunderstood—and I feel sick. Sick over the fact that he’s my brother, my family, and I can’t do the one thing he’s asking me to do. That I can’t be the good guy to him or to anyone else.
“What happened?”
“Your dad?—”
“Our dad.” He raises an eyebrow and I shake my head because Glenisn’tmy dad in any way that counts. He made that very clear over the course of my life. “Look Andy…we can do this. We just need to?—”
“I can’t!” My palm slams into the pillar before I have time to stop it and my shout echoes between the aluminum landing above our heads and the cement of the sidewalk. I watch as Ian flinches away and think again of what he told me, immediately regretting falling apart even for a moment. I want to apologize but Ian’s already shaking his head backing away.
“You know, I knew you were shallow Andy but I didn’t know you were stupid.” He turns his back, the wind whipping his scarf after him.
“Ian, I?—”
He faces me again, now yards away. “Just chill. I have a plan, but clearly you're not in a position to be trusted with the inner workings of it…” he trails off, any unease he had from my outburst long gone as he scratches his head, considering something and it’s hard not to admire his ability to bounce back. “Just do what he asks for now. You’ll know when things are going down.” He turns, walking toward the car lot.
“But how—” I begin to call after but I’m cut off.
“What the fuck…” a deep voice mumbles from behind me and I see Grant’s face awestruck, his brows knit together, trying to make sense of what he’s just seen. I feel stupid for not assuming one of them would run out after me, try to rectify what just happened with Scott.
“It’s not what you think.”
