The trill of the referee’s whistle shifts my attention forward, but I don’t watch most of the game. I end up entertaining Everly instead, like I usually do. As I said before, I couldn’t care less about football nowadays. To others, I play my disinterest off as simple boredom, but that’s just the socially acceptable excuse I use as a crutch. The truth is that my disinterest stems from resentment—resentment that Grayson’s achievements are always celebrated, loud and proud, while mine are barely registered. Nothing but muted static noise.
To no one’s surprise, Grayson does well. He scores two touchdowns and gets close to matching his personal record, but he doesn’t beat it, and I watch as Dad shakes his disappointment off with a silent dip of his chin as the final buzzer announces the end of the game. But thankfully, because Grayson’s team won, he’s still grinning ear to ear.
We wait for Grayson at the entrance of the stadium, and when he walks up to us through gaps in the rapidly thinning crowd, he’s still in his uniform.
“Thanks for coming,” Grayson says as he wraps Mom in a tight hug.
Dad positively beams with pride. “We wouldn’t miss these games for the world.”
“Yeah, we gotta see you win them all!” Gideon squeals as he yanks on Grayson’s grass-stained jersey.
“You got it, little man,” Grayson says as he squats down to Gideon’s level. “I’ll try to win them all.”
Gideon punches the air for the second time today. “Yeah!”
Smiles all around. Except me. Though, of course, nobody notices.
My eyes snag on the inflamed, oozing friction burns on Grayson’s left outer calf. They’ll probably need icing and bandaging later.He really does give it his all, doesn’t he?
“You did well out there,” I comment earnestly, raising my gaze to Grayson’s. His dark eyes flash wide in surprise, but I really do mean it, even if my primary motivation is to pacify my guilty conscience.
“Thanks.” His smile is the size of Texas. “How’s the art going?”
I flinch. This is the first time Grayson’s asked me about my art since he came home for summer break last May.
“It’s going,” I reply while shifting my weight between my feet.
He squints in the late afternoon sun as he studies my face. “I saw your video the other day. The one with the painting of Everly on the swing set in the backyard.”
“You what?”
Grayson has never mentioned my artist social media accounts before, at least not that I can remember.
“I liked it. It was cute.” His lips pull into a half-smirk as he says it. Not in a mean way though. More in a ‘look-how-cute-my-
kid-sister-is’ kind of way. It makes my skin crawl, but I push through the discomfort and smile back at him. He doesn’t take my art seriously either.
If only to fill the silence, I murmur a quiet, “Thanks.”
Mom pats my shoulder as Dad says, “You’ll have to show us that one, sweetie.”
But I already did, last week, before I submitted it for an assignment for one of my classes.You said it looked great, but of course you don’t remember. All my artwork looks the same to you and Mom. You casually support it—my painting—the passion you prefer to call a hobby. You smile politely when I show you my work, but you don’t reallyseeit. You don’t really see me.
I swallow down my bitterness. “Yeah, okay.”
Mom and Dad grin, completely oblivious to the widening fissure in my heart, as they turn back to Grayson. “You were so close to your PR again today, champ,” Dad boasts, his eyes alight as he lassoes Grayson back into a conversation about something he actually cares about.
But I’m grateful. I need some time to get this sour taste out of my mouth. It tastes like jealousy.
I check to make sure Mom and Dad have Gideon and Everly in hand before I excuse myself and start walking back to the parking garage. They won’t keep Grayson for much longer. They’ll ask him about his classes, his studio apartment, and his girlfriend, Nadia. I don’t need to hear about how perfectly he’s juggling it all. I already know.
Feeling irritable, I compulsively check my social media again as I walk. A new video from Phantom immediately populates on my feed. In the video, they are spray-painting graffiti on the side of an old, rusted train car. The spray paint’s neon colors are loud and flamboyant, illustrating a multi-colored ghost with a dark crown placed crookedly upon its head. Phantom signs their name beneath the image before turning to the camera and flipping off the viewer—me. Their eyes are concealed in shadow beneath the white ski mask.
Royalty indeed.
I scoff as I exit the app, far too riled up to properly appreciate Phantom’s genius at the moment. My phone suddenly dings as a text message comes through from my best friend, Alexis, asking on a scale from one to ten how unbearable Grayson’s game was. I’m surprised to be hearing from her, but I reply with the number seven and an upside-down smiley face emoji anyway. Alexis moved from Illinois to Tennessee just over thirteen months ago. She got into her dream university, Vanderbilt, her parents’ alma mater. No matter how much I wanted to beg and plead withher to stay, in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t stand in the way of her dreams like that.
We promised each other the distance wouldn’t change anything between us, but of course it has. Alexis is kind, generous, and has the biggest heart, but she’s also forgetful. If I text her ten times, she’ll remember to reply once. So unless we talk on the phone, we barely communicate, which is why this spontaneous text from her is such a treat. But it also makes me miss her all the more. I’ve been so lonely without her. She was the first friend I ever made. And the older I get, the worse at making new friends I seem to become.
