Page 136 of The Cheerleader

“I don’t know.”

Her face falls. Shit.

“I’ll call you.” I promise. The words are on the tip of my tongue, her beautiful angelic face tempting me to say them out loud, but I don’t.

She nods. “Or I’ll call you.”

That makes me smile, and I kiss her. It’s an urgent, end-of-the-world kiss, and I hate that I feel this way. I want more kisses, more nights together, on and on endlessly with no limits. When I break my lips from hers, I open the car door, ripping her from my arms to help her in.

She says goodbye, and Eldy spouts some nonsense about getting together during break. They both wave. I don’t wave back. I’m not a waver.

But hell if I know what I am right now. I’m officially in limbo—the last place I want to be. If I could choose my future, I’d choose football and playing for the NFL over going back to the farm to work for my old man. Not now, not the way things are between us.

In the future, football could give me the money to improve the farm, improve life on the farm for everyone. Maybe someday I’ll go back—when my old man’s too old to boss me, too feeble to carry a threat, or when he’s gone.

Back inside the apartment, I’m alone, and my mind is crowded with a jumble of nothing but possibilities. Maybe that’s how it’s meant to be—for all of us—at age twenty-one, with all the time and space stretched in front of us, waiting to be filled up with something.

I have choices to make, to pluck something from the possibilities and run with it.

I choose football. If football quits me, if I’m not drafted, I’ll try out in New York or Boston, not too far away to make it impossible. I can hitch to either city in one day. If I try out for the Jets, I could stay with Eldy in Greenwich.

My gut clenches, telling me I’m getting way ahead of myself, letting pipe dreams carry me away, but I fight through it because I’m not discarding the possibility of football, whether I’m disappointed or not in the end. There’s no stopping it.

I made a fucking promise, and I’m going to keep it. To more than keep it. I’m going to embrace it.

Stalking to the phone on the kitchen wall, I rip the receiver out of the cradle and dial my house number. Mom answers.

“I want to talk to Dad.” For once in a very long time, that’s a true statement.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Susie

Eldy drops me at my dorm, and I run to the door. There are a few cars parked at the curb filled with various things students keep in their dorm rooms. I rush inside with my heart thumping with the urgent need to talk to Liz, to see her and make things right with her, to do whatever I need to do.

Would I not see Bryan again to make things right? My chest clenches, and I stumble on the stairs.

I hope to God I don’t need to make that choice.

When I reach the room, the door is open and Liz is there, sitting on her bare mattress with an old battered suitcase next to her, waiting.

I stop short and for a split second when our eyes meet, I feel our connection, the bond we have.

Then she blinks and I feel the snap like a broken bone, shattering me, as my heart stumbles and my chest clenches tight like she’s dropped an anvil on it.

She heaves a breath and fires a shot. “I’m moving out.”

I sag onto the bed next to her, facing her, unable to speak, strangled with emotions and my heart fluttering fast like the wings of a hummingbird in distress.

She doesn’t move, her hands placed calmly on her knees and her eyes steady on me. “You’ll have to quit cheerleading. I’ll tell Pete you decided you can’t fit cheerleading into your schedule anymore because you need to focus on classes.”

Blood drains from my head like she’s blindsided me with a punch. “No, you… can’t mean that. I—“ The reality hits me. I can’t stay on the squad with Liz, with Judy telling all the other girls about my betrayal. Even if Liz was willing to let me stay, there would be all kinds of tension and turmoil. I can feel the turmoil in my gut right now.

Liz nods, but there’s no self-satisfaction in her expression at punishing me, no meanness in her eyes as they meet mine. Only sadness and a sense of loss.

“Oh, Liz. I don’t want to lose you.” My voice breaks and, with a herculean effort, I hold back the tears that I feel down to my soul. Sudden loneliness threatens to swamp me, but I fist my hands and straighten my back against the onslaught. I can handle this.

“I don’t know how to feel anything but hurt,” she says. “No matter how much I wish things were the same between us, they’re not.” I see the tears in her eyes, and the loss starts to overwhelm her, but when I go to her, she backs away reflexively, like I’m poison.