“Don’t talk about my sister like that!”
At the taste of infield, she bucks wildly and we both land on our sides. She scrambles on top of me but I get her hard across the nose again. She yelps, blood leaking onto her lips.
“You owe me a new nose!”
Her right hand goes back, fingers pulled into a fist. I see a heavy caking of dirt across her knuckles before she misses my nose and lands a blow square to my right eye.
Tears immediately begin to pool at my lash line. We’re upended again, and I’m on top of her long enough to score one more open palm to her cheekbone before I’m finally yanked away by at least two teammates. Maybe three or four.
I vaguely hear Addie’s voice. “Be cool, O-Rod! Cool!Liv.OLIVE.”
It seems to come almost from the inside of my head rather than outside, where the crowd has gone for a collective gasp.
Her words and hands carry me—I’m tall, but Addie’s taller and stronger, using all her leverage to pull me away. More hands come. More voices, too. Above the din, I hear Danielle, her coach voice turned up to eleven. “Hey, hey, hey! Stop!Stop!”
Three of Stacey’s teammates have a hold on her—twoat her shoulders, Kelly Cleary at her waist. The girl’s still swinging, though, blood dripping down her chin and onto the stylized Tigers logo scrawled across her boobs.
Coach Kitt strolls over and calmly fills Sanderson’s line of sight just as I’m wrenched in the opposite direction of Stacey and right into the arms of Danielle, who can’t quit it with the “Hey, stop!”
She hooks one of her arms around my shoulders and hauls me toward the dugout. The move effectively turns both our backs on the celebration happening at home plate, delayed initially when everyone stopped to watch us fight. On Danielle’s word, the assistant coaches run out to get our team set to shake hands with Northland. My good eye tries to look up at her, but all I see is her lips quiver.
When she speaks, it’s at a disappointed whisper—one I hear over the crowd, over my teammates hesitantly going back to celebrating our state championship berth, over the pounding of my heart that’s doing a drum solo for my ears.
“Olive Rodinsky,how could you.”
2
DANIELLE YANKS ME INTO THE STADIUM’S FAMILY RESTROOMand slams the door so hard that it bounces back open. But she doesn’t even care. Doesn’t even close it, because even though I don’t know who will address me—sister Danielle or Coach Rodinsky-Simpson—that person ispissed.
To my horror, a tear slides out of her right eye. I have never,everin my life seen my sister cry—even on her wedding day to Heather; even when Mom was diagnosed with cancer—and suddenly I’m so scared I think I might pass out.
“Olive Marie Rodinsky,” she starts, my full name a weapon as her voice rises an octave, that tear rolling down her suntanned face. “You are supposed to be a leader. Notjust a star. Not just the coach’s sister. A leader. And the crock of crap you pulled out there? That’s not leading. That’s minor-league rat shit. That’s stuff drunk suburban dads pull when the rec league trash talk spanks a nerve. That’s not something a girl with a résumé like yours does. You think the college scouts out there didn’t notice that? They’re here to see you!” The volume of her voice drops, and it’s somehow even worse. “And that is not something a Rodinsky pulls. Not now. Not ever.”
Another tear escapes, bringing a whole new level of terrifying to the hard line of her glower. Her index finger whips out and jabs me hard enough in the sternum that my breath hitches.
“You disappointed your teammates, made a fool of yourself, and hurt another human being.”
The words are right there on my lips. About what this supposed human said and why I slugged her. But they stay stuck in my windpipe, blocked by the fear that repeating Stacey’s words would make things worse.
“I’m your coach. Everything my team does is a reflection on me. Everything you do is a reflection on me. You shame yourself, you shame me.”
Throat closing and skin burning, I struggle to maintain eye contact. Not just because I’m even more embarrassed now than when I was hauled out of the game, but because I can feel my own tears coming.
“And you shame Windsor Prep.” We whirl around toa deep voice at the door we failed to shut, and Principal Meyer is standing there in all black like the grim reaper himself.
“Up until today, you’ve been a wonderful addition to Windsor Prep, young lady—a straight-A student and a natural leader. But tonight, you embarrassed not only yourself and your sister, but me and your school.”
Again, the words are right there, ramming the barrier of my clenched teeth, begging to get out. What that bitch said. Why I hit her. That I was standing up for my sister and against hate.
But it all sounds so stupid right now. Letting something like that get to me. When I know better. When ignoring her ignorance would have been the best thing to do.
I sound like a loser with no control.
Which is exactly what I must have looked like out there with my fist cocked back the instant before it connected with Stacey’s nose.
“Coach Rodinsky-Simpson, would you leave me alone with Miss Rodinsky?”
Miss Rodinsky.Just hours ago, at the assembly to see us off to this game, Principal Meyer shook my hand and called me Liv. As if what was going on here weren’t already blaringly obvious, those two little words confirm it.
