The Hard Count (23 page)

“Got it,” Nico says through a soft and unhappy chuckle.

My lips quiver, and I want to apologize immediately, but I don’t. Nico holds up his phone and leans in.

“Thanks for the video lesson, Reagan. That sure was…swell of you,” he says, speaking slowly and pointed.

“You’re welcome,” I say, glancing to meet his gaze for a breath, his eyes hazed with disappointment. I widen mine with a plea—I just need time. He nods slowly.

“Yeah, I sure am,” he says, bending down to grab his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder and moving toward his coaches—my father—and reaching out to shake their hands.

My dad holds the door open, his eyes on nothing in particular, but most definitely not on me. I gather my things and log off the computer, only looking him in the eyes a second at a time while I pass through the door.

“I’d love pizza,” I say, knowing in my gut that sitting in a booth with my dad and the guy trying to steal his job is the last place on earth I want to be. I want to be with Nico, but I fucked that up, too.

“We should pick up Noah,” I say, if only to take the heat and attention off me.

“Good idea. I’ll call him,” my dad says, quick to agree.

We both need the ally.

“
F
airy tales
…”

Mr. Huffman writes the word on the board, the chalk breaking with the force with which he scribbles the final letters. He tosses the half still in his fingers onto the metal lip below the board, clapping his hands together and turning to face our class.

The irony of today’s class discussion is not lost on me. I doubt it’s lost on Nico, either. We read a selection of the original Grimm tales in preparation for today, and Mr. Huffman challenged us to consider how they evolved into the now-famous versions with happier endings. The Grimm tales, as they were intended, are bleak and without promise. They are reflections of the time—stories of hunger, desperation…
war.

Nico and I may very well be a Grimm fairy tale.

After another night without sleep, and a Sunday of exchanging snide comments with my brother while we both moped around the house, I finally sucked it up and sent Nico a text.

I’m sorry.

I typed paragraphs upon paragraphs, more words in a text form than I think I have typed to Izzy ever, and then I deleted them. I spent an hour crafting the perfect thing to say—building the perfect excuse. I spent an hour typing out lies.

My dad is strict.

I’m afraid he won’t want me dating one of his players.

I was worried he saw me kissing you, and I got embarrassed.

Some of those things were slightly true, but mostly…not.

I deleted them all, and when it came down to it, I was just sorry. Sorry that I was afraid of showing my dad how much I like a boy from West End—a boy whose neighborhood my parents don’t want me to go to; a boy whose last name is different from ours. And then I felt ashamed, because when I showed up at Nico’s house, unannounced, his mom welcomed me inside. She kissed my cheek and hugged me. She didn’t see a girl who was different from her son, and if she did, she didn’t care enough to show it.

I came to school early, hoping Nico would be sitting in his favorite spot in the library, but he wasn’t. I looked for him at lunch, but he was nowhere to be found. I’d seen him pass by through the halls, dozens of moving bodies between us and his thoughts and eyes always somewhere else. I knew he was here. I knew I’d see him. But now that I’m sitting here in this seat, staring at the boy a few rows over and a few chairs ahead, his hands gripping his desk at the top while his long legs fold underneath, I fear I’ve fallen back in time—to a place where Nico Medina hates me.

“You all did your reading, I assume?”

Mr. Huffman’s question brings our eyes to the front. He tilts his head, feeling us out, then nods.

“Good,” he says, moving to his desk at the front, folding his arms over his chest and leaning his weight back. “So what did you think? How do Grimm’s tales compare?”

“They don’t,” Nico says, taking the lead right out of the gate.

I sink back in my chair, not wanting to catch his periphery. His jaw is working, and his eyes flit up to our teacher briefly before coming back to his hands, his knuckles bent with his hard grip around the front of his desk.

“Beyond the obvious, Nico…what do you mean?” Mr. Huffman asks.

Nico breathes in deeply through his nose, pushing his mouth into a hard line.

“Grimm’s stories aren’t really fairy tales. They’re more like…folk tales. They’re allegories, reflections of how terrible things were for the common and poor at the time. You can draw more comparisons to the front page of the Daily Press than you can to the typical fairy tales. I mean, like today, the news has this story about two bodies found sixty miles away from the nearest highway, buried in shallow graves by drug lords who weren’t paid what they were owed. That…” Nico pauses to laugh out once, a punctuated sound that matches the way his head lifts and his shoulders raise. “Stories like that are Grimm stories. Fairy tales, though—those are like the way people
want
to think the world works.”

“It’s true,” Mr. Huffman adds. “If you look at the evolution of the stories, each edition becomes more mystical, religious undertones are added and good always wins in the end.”

“Good
never
wins in a Grimm tale,” Nico says. “They just…they just are what they are. Life happens, and people make choices, and then life goes on.”

I hold my breath because he tilts his head enough that his eyes find mine and his hair slides forward. The disappointment in his expression levels me, and I’m reminded that all I could say was “I’m sorry.”

“But we
want
the prince and the princess, and maybe wanting something better is enough,” I say, not realizing I’ve interjected myself until my first words leave my mouth. I lean forward and hold Nico’s gaze, but I feel the rest of the classroom’s eyes on me. I turn slightly to see Izzy’s face, and she smiles faintly, knowing enough of the hole I’ve dug for myself to understand that this is me, trying to claw my way out of it.

“You can be a toad in love with a beautiful girl all you want, but in the end, you’re still a toad. That’s how everyone is going to see you, and you know what? That’s how the beautiful girl sees you, too—when other people are looking,” Nico says.

My lips part to protest, but another student interjects, moving the topic to class systems and comparing fairy tales to Plato’s
Republic
, which is probably what Mr. Huffman really wants to hear from us today. I let him talk, but I keep my eyes on Nico’s. He looks at me for nearly a minute, and his sad expression hurts my chest. It hurts to watch him think, to know every word he just said was about me—about
us.
I see him, but I see everyone else’s prejudices, too.

When the bell rings, Nico grabs his bag and board in a swift movement, slipping through the door the second it opens. I fumble with my things, perhaps not really wanting to catch him just yet. All this time, and I still haven’t worked out the right things to say.

“Your dad…not real hip on you going out with Nico?” Izzy asks, hooking her arm through one of my bags and carrying it for me.

“We really haven’t discussed it,” I say.

“Even after you and I talked? You said your dad walked in and saw you guys
almost
kissing. That’s not so bad,” she says, and I twist my head and mash my lips. “Yeah, well…maybe it’s bad. But more like
awkward
bad.”

“My dad didn’t say a single word to me at dinner. He actually talked to my brother, which—I’ll admit—it was nice to see them talking, but then we drove home, and he went right into his room, and he acted like I was invisible Sunday.”

Izzy nods in understanding, and we push through the main doors toward the locker rooms and parking lot. My friend slides my bag back to my arm, then squeezes her fingers around my wrist.

“I’m about to quote my mother, and I don’t like that I’m doing this,” she says, and I laugh lightly through my nose.

“Okay,” I say.

“Sometimes, Reagan, you just need to rip off the damn Band-Aid,” she says. “And it always hurts more when you do it slow.”

“That’s…I’m pretty sure your mother didn’t come up with that,” I say, squinting one eye and smiling on one side of my mouth.

“Yeah, I know. She repeats a lot of things like that. But still…she says it, and it’s a good saying. Kinda applies here,” she says, jiggling my hand in her hold.

I nod in agreement.

“Yeah, it does. Rip it, huh?” I say.

“Give it a good rip! Like, pull out the hair and shit,” my friend says, and I wince at the color she adds to the visual. “Girl, your arms are hairy. That Band-Aid’s gonna leave a mark.”

I laugh as she walks away and rub my arm instinctively.

I don’t bother going to my father’s office. I know he won’t talk to me, and I’m not ready to do the ripping just yet. But soon—I’ll rip soon. I move out toward the field where the team is stretching, and I set up my things on the bench the cheer squad usually takes up during games. They practice inside during the week.

My eyes work to find Nico while my hands begin to unpack my equipment. It doesn’t take me long to catch his familiar frame. He has a certain profile that I gravitate to, and he stands an inch or two taller than everyone else. I sit down with my tripod standing between my knees, pulling down the legs to click them in place.

“Seat taken?”

I heard my brother’s familiar new
gait scraping along the track. He’s gotten faster on his crutches, and he’s begun to put pressure on his cast from time to time. I’m not really glad he’s come close to me. We haven’t spoken much since our blowout. I am glad he’s at practice, though. I look for positive signs in everything. This…it’s a positive sign…
I think.

“You thinking of joining the cheer squad, too?” I say, squinting as I look up to Noah, the sun bright behind him. I’m trying to be normal with him, even though I don’t really want to.

“I do think I could probably up their game in the dance department,” my brother says, pushing his tongue in his cheek and ultimately chuckling.

“They are pretty awful, aren’t they,” I say, sliding my bag closer to my hip so my brother has a place to sit.

“Nobody cares if cheerleaders can dance, Reagan. We watch them because their skirts are short and we like to look at their asses,” he says, leaning his crutches along the metal bench and sliding down to sit, working to keep his leg straight.

“Keep it classy, Noah,” I say.

“Always do,” he says back quickly. He leans forward and pulls a bag of sunflower seeds from his pocket, pouring a handful into his palm and tipping his head back to dump them in his mouth. He holds the bag out for me, and I scrunch my nose at it.

“You’ve got something against sunflower seeds now, too?”

“I just don’t like spitting,” I say.

Noah leans forward and spits out three or four shell pieces at once, sending them to the ground like darts.

“That’s the best part,” my brother says, leaning back with his arms stretched out on either side. Even injured, my brother is larger than life. His build came with little effort, probably thanks to our dad’s genetics. He’s broad-chested and his arms have always bulged with muscles, from the time he hit puberty. He looks like a college man now, even if his maturity level says otherwise.

My dad walks through the center of the field, and his eyes settle on me and my brother, his mouth a hard line under the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. We both sit up a little straighter, holding our positions until he looks away.

“I hate it when you can’t see his eyes,” my brother says.

I chuckle, then turn my attention to my camera, focusing and recording some basic footage I might be able to use for
B
-roll. I fight my instincts to zoom in on Nico, spending extra time on Sasha and Zach and a few of the other guys until one of the coaches whistles for the players to pair up. I’m focusing on Travis when that happens, and I follow him through my lens as he stands up and walks to the other end of the field—to Nico.

“Wha…” I begin to say, catching myself, my mouth hanging open. I glance over to Noah, but he’s still sitting in his upright position, maybe a little forward so he can spit out more shells. His eyes see it, too, though. I follow his line of sight, and I know he’s watching them as they eventually shake hands. Nico lies down first, and Travis takes his leg and walks it forward in a stretch. I no longer care about the
B
-roll—I’ve moved on to voyeurism. I watch it all through my lens, and I see their mouths move, Travis smiling, maybe even laughing.

“Nico tell you that A&M is sending people out to watch homecoming?” Noah says, pouring a new handful of seeds into his palm, tilting, then chewing.

“No,” I say.

“They are,” Noah says, spitting again before leaning back into a relaxed position. He pulls his sunglasses from his hat and slides them over his eyes. “Specifically to watch those two.”

Noah points his finger to the field, to the far end, where my camera is focused. I look into my lens, watching Travis help Nico to stand and trading positions with him.

“Is that why Travis is playing nice?” I ask, my stomach sinking because what a second ago I found hopeful has soured into pretend.

“Sorta,” Noah says with a shrug.

My shoulders sag as my breath leaves my chest and I deflate. I blink slowly, taking in the view of my father walking over to the two boys, talking to them. Travis responds while Nico looks out in the distance. My dad stares at him, stepping in closer until Nico turns to make eye contact, finally nodding. The grudge, or chip, or whatever it is—it’s still there.

“Why sorta?” I say finally.

Noah’s quiet and doesn’t answer for almost a minute. When he speaks, I think he’s changing the subject.

“Mom found my pot,” he says.

I burst out a laugh, then stop the recording on my camera.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t want that on my video,” I say.

“Whatever,” Noah shrugs.

“I’ll delete it,” I say, glaring at him until he turns to look at me. I can’t see his eyes, only my reflection in his sunglasses, but he gives me a nod of thanks.

He turns his gaze back to the field, and there’s more chewing and spitting, and I start to think that’s all he’s going to tell me. I form my question in my head, dying to know how Mom found out, when Noah begins to share.

“I made Travis take me Saturday night. We buy from this guy in West End, and I guess he lives near Nico or whatever. I don’t know; we always meet him at this small park on one of the corners. Anyhow, we walk up to the car, and the guy rolls down the window, and I give him my money, but he holds his hand out like he’s waiting for more,” Noah says.

His voice is even, and his eyes remain out on the field—the story coming out emotionless. My arms start to tingle with anxiety, so I tuck my thumbs in my fists and press them against my hips, frozen and rapt, hanging on his breath and waiting for the next word.

“I was like, ‘dude, that’s what I always pay you,’ and the guy went on about how prices are going up, and he did me a favor last time. He said I owed him that from before, and he wasn’t going to give me the bag. I started to get a little pissed off, but I could tell Travis was getting nervous, so I didn’t get physical or nothing. I just sort of…maybe yelled at the guy a bit, called him a few names. He rolled the window down more, and I saw the piece sitting on the seat next to him.”