‘She’s kind of … like you … about the whole “leaving home” thing.’
Serves you right!I’d like to cackle. ‘And she could get you a tie?’
‘She’s in fashion design,’ he mumbles. ‘She could make me one to match you. If she didn’t hate my guts.’
I don’t know if he thinksIthink he’s low effort, or something, but quickly he says, ‘I’ll fight Sav to make sure we match, though. Because Pop’s ties …’
I snort. ‘If you show up in one of those atrocities, with respect to your poppa, we might have to kick you off the team.’
‘That bad?’
‘Worse.’ I look to Mrs Bradley for confirmation. She nods, adding a little wince for emphasis. ‘Looks like you’re gonna have to head into the hornet’s nest.’
Colt shivers. Watching a five-ten man who’s got an ego the size of a small house get all terrified of his little sister is wonderful. ‘I’ll talk to her once I’m done outside.’
‘Outside? Are you digging up my plants?’ Mrs Bradley tuts, dropping the box of ties and stalking our way. ‘Colton James Bradley. Get your hands off my begonias.’
‘My hands were never on them!’ he insists, face going pink. ‘I’m just … pulling weeds.’
‘Pulling weeds,’ announces Mrs Bradley. She looks about as unconvinced as I am. ‘Right, then.’
Colt takes his leave all awkwardly, darting out through thesliding back door like his tail’s on fire. The second he’s out of earshot, his mother and I burst out laughing at the same exact time.
‘He doesn’t know how to pull weeds for his life!’ She chortles. ‘And thoseties! My god!’
‘I wouldn’t let him out of the tunnel!’ I howl, making her laugh even harder.
‘Oh, May.’ Mrs Bradley lets out one last chuckle before smiling contentedly my way, pushing a stray piece of her greying brown hair back into her ponytail. She has a youthful face, and I can tell she’s given Colt much of it – the steely eyes, the dimples. ‘You are so good for him, though, you know? He struggled a lot last year. It’s good to see him back on his feet. Literally and figuratively.’
I swallow hard. Well. Like every conversation I have with anyone close to Colt, this seems to have taken a turn. Maybe I shouldn’t pry, but I think about how patiently he’d just sat and listened when I talked about what happened in Pontiac. The image of my photo taped to the inside of Colt’s locker comes back to my mind, clear as day. The direction our conversation had started to tentatively creep in, out of the lines I’d drawn for myself before we started this thing and into territory that more than broke fake relationship play number four: no deep life conversations. Who knows how long that photo had been on there? Since he got drafted? That meant that maybe I was wrong, and maybe he had remembered me in his stupid, no-contact way.
And maybe I’d also never reached out. I hadn’t texted or called or anything either, but I remembered him just as well. Clearly my head and my heart remembered him. Because even all these years after he left, I was still talking to him with the kind ofcandour I could never muster with anyone else. I had never told anyone else about how I felt after junior year, not even Jordan, not completely. Did that mean he’d been more than a friend? What the hell was he now?
In the moment, though, I snap back to reality and repeat Mrs Bradley’s words in my mind until they make sense.He struggled a lot last year.‘Struggled?’
Mrs Bradley sighs, taking a seat on the couch in the living room. She waves me over and I oblige, sitting down beside her. ‘We were in Boston about a year when I had my visiting professorship. Up and moved everything that summer. My husband even found a position as a guest physician at the School of Medicine so he could be there with me. Colt, though, he wanted more from that place. So he applied, got in, and before we knew it, University of Boston. We could scarcely believe it. He struck it big on the UB lax team – Division One. That had done more than enough for his chances to go pro. And then, three years later, the draft came. The offer was literally instantaneous. He was the third pick. New Haven. Suddenly, our son was all over the sports channels, all over social media, an overnight phenomenon, and that was when I knew that boy had given up the Oklahoma in him to become a New Englander. Everyone else loved him so much all at once, but I was in your boat.’ She smiles sadly. ‘I just hoped he still remembered us. Home.’
‘Mrs Bradley …’ She took the words right out of my mouth, honestly. I remember feeling deceived. Lied to. I had my own problems, but Colt parading around as if this town, these people, hadn’t cultivated his talent, made my skin crawl.
‘Then the injury happened.’ She presses her hands to herknees. ‘It was a long few months. After the complications and all. As quickly as he’d wanted to be in Boston back in high school, he wanted nothing more than to come home now. I wasn’t sure what had got into him, but I knew it was more than the bad knee. Except …’ With a forlorn laugh, she shakes her head, almost guiltily. ‘I wasglad.I felt awful for it, but I was glad he finally wanted to be back. Is that so wrong?’
Maybe not, I want to say. I thought I was pissed he’d come back, and yet there were moments I was, as twisted as it was, grateful he was here. Grateful he’d helped us pick up the pieces of our house after the storm. Grateful he’d taped up my wrist for me. Was I grateful that he’d looked up at the crowd and kissed me, right in front of the whole town? That, I’m still working on figuring out. I think.
‘When he left the way he did,’ I finally say, ‘I wanted him to come back for a couple weeks afterward. I oscillated between this weird sense of longing and this red-hot anger. And then I accepted it. That was the way it would be. So when he did come back, I didn’t expect to feel … the same way as you, I guess.’
Sure. This relationship is founded on a lie. I’m not really Colt’s girlfriend. I’ve played nice as well as I could. But as Mrs Bradley and I sit side by side and just talk about how much we miss Colt Bradley, therealColt Bradley, I don’t need to tell any lies.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Savannah
Colt
‘Hold still, dingus.’
I could snap at my sister, but I choose peace, considering her hands are a little too close to my neck to chance pissing her off. She works deftly at the new tie, and flattens it at the very end so the designs show.
‘Don’t get it dirty. You eat those Chester Corn Dogs like you’re not gonna live to see tomorrow.’
