“So... okay. Well, you shut me down the first time I asked you to hang out, which is cool and totally fine. But then I started thinking about that joke... you probably don’t even remember, but it was this joke you made about Millie.”
“On your first day at the gym,” I say. I let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, I remember.” I feel at once both guilty and defensive.
“And then—”
“Oh, great, there’s more?”
His lips form this soft little half smile. “Then there was that day at school when the hallway was covered in those green flyers with all those secrets, and I assumed it was you. But maybe not?”
I twist my boot into the grass until it hurts dirt. “Nope, that was definitely me.”
He sighs. “I just... I started thinking that if I was gonna go to the trouble of cutting all these guys out of my life, maybe hanging out with you wasn’t exactly the best thing I could do. Like, it was cool how you stood up toPatrick that one day. But... man, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way.”
“You’re already halfway there,” I say. “Might as well finish me off.”
“We’ve known each other for a long time, Callie. Maybe we’ve never been close. But we went to grade school and then middle school with each other, and you were never...”
“A very nice person,” I say.
He clears his throat. “You’ve just always kind of said and done whatever you want. To anyone you want. And part of me really admires that, but it doesn’t always sit right with me either.”
I’m quiet.
“You’re mad, aren’t you?”
I pause for a long moment. “No,” I say. “Yes. But at myself. But also you. Just a little bit. Even if that’s unreasonable.”
“I decided to go back to the gym and see if you wanted to hang out again because I got to thinking what would happen if people just judged me on the little they saw of me and the company I kept. You’re funny and smart. And pretty, too. But mostly I liked how funny and smart you were.”
“Flattery is good,” I say, and this time I can’t keep from smiling. “Keep that up.”
“I knew you were experiencing a little of what I was, so I thought that maybe getting to know you would be a good idea after all.” He stops for a moment, and the onlysound is the ducks squabbling back and forth. “Say something. Please.”
“Well, all of that kind of sucks,” I say. “But I can’t blame you, really.”
“Yeah?”
“And at least you’re not hanging out with those assholes anymore.”
“We can agree there.”
“But why football?” I ask. “Why did that have to go?”
“Isn’t there anything in your life you just do because you’ve always done it?”
“Um, are you kidding?” I ask. “I was born wearing a Clover City Shamrocks uniform.”
“Yes!” he says. “You get it. Football has always been that thing for me. I finished out the last season, and I was going to go back and just do my senior year to make my dad happy and maybe even get some scholarships out of it. But then I’d be stuck playing for another four years at the very least.”
“But free school,” I tell him. “And don’t you enjoy it? Even just a little bit.”
“If I don’t get injured,” he says. “I guess it felt good to win. But I kind of wonder what it feels like to love something so much that you’re even happy to fail at it.”
I shake my head. “That sounds all nice and good. But I don’t know how that’s possible.”
He shrugs. “Guess I’ll have to let you know. And I’ve always wondered what I would do with a whole year of high school if I got to call the shots. Like, have you eventaken the time to imagine what you’ll do with your time when your grounding is up? No dance-team commitments to worry about?”
“I have thought about it,” I say. “A little.” But not fully. Maybe I’ll take dance classes on my own. Or write for the school newspaper. Or join the volleyball team. I don’t know.
