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“What’s going on here?” Coach Vaughn, one of the vice principals, made his way through, crossing his arms and looking between all of us.
“Just a misunderstanding.” Andy threw me a look that clearly begged me to help him out.
I stayed silent. For this, he deserved more ass whooping out on the field.
“A misunderstanding?” Piper cried. “Andy pushed us both down the ramp. He kicked me!” Coach’s eyebrows raised, and he stared at his star player.
“Piper hit him too,” Olivia said cooly, and I turned to stare at her. What thefuck? That wasn’t a hit. That was flailing, arms trying to grasp onto something before she fell, and she fell anyway.
“Is that true?” Coach was asking Andy, not Piper, and he nodded, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. I watched as Coach pinched the bridge of his nose before gesturing to Vic, Piper and Andy. “You three, in my office, now.” Piper was spitting curse words in a language I didn’t recognize as she trailed behind Vic. Both of them kept their distance from Andy as they followed Coach Vaughn back up the ramp and down the hall. I turned to Olivia.
“That wasn’t cool,” I said, so low only she could hear. She raised her eyebrows at me. “She was trying to keep herself from falling.”
“Why do you care?”
It was a valid question. Why did I care? I mean, I’m human - it was unfair for Piper to get punished for defending herself. But if was honest with myself, it was more than that.
Over the years, we haven’t interacted much, but I think everyone in our grade noticed when she came to school one day without her signature, lime green braces and had about a foot of hair added to her head. Alex, her best friend, had always been the more popular one - the flirty blonde artist was every emo kid’s wet dream. But there was something about the new confidence she gained that made people, myself included, take notice.
Even Olivia, who isn’t particularly observant of anyone she deems too lowly to be worthy of her attention, had said something off-handed about an outfit Piper wore one day at lunch. “Acceptable,” she called it, which from her, was high praise.
It was more than that she doesn’t deserve the shit Andy was doing to her. It was that I cared that she didn’t deserve it. And that scared me. Caring meant having any moniker of feeling toward someone, and that isn’t something I took lightly. It’d taken years for Olivia to weasel her way into earning the title of “girlfriend.” Honestly, sometimes it was easier to fall into that role with her, someone who seemed to care more about the status it brought her than a true relationship, than it would be to try and find it with somebody else.
Besides, I was heading to Austin at the end of the year for college, Olivia by my side. Caring about anyone, besides the small group of people I’d already let see any fragile piece of me, wasn’t something I was about to do.
“I don’t.” Lie. Absolute lie.
Olivia narrowed her eyes at me, considering my words, and then shook her head. She plastered that head-bitch-in-charge smile onto her face and took my hand forcefully in hers. I winced at the public display of affection, but didn’t fight it. Anything to calm the storm she threatened to brew.
An hour later, I watched as Andy stomped across the parking lot, nearly clipping the side of his truck with his equipment bag.
“Coach told me to take the afternoon off to cool down,” he sneered, throwing the bag into his truck bed. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“That’s all he said?”
“He fucking told me if I get out of line again, I’ll be benched in the spring.” Andy’s voice was gruff, like he’d been yelling. I tilted my head at him. Consequences for his actions, finally. “That stupid bitch nearly got me kicked off the team - oh don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You’re being a smug bastard, and it’s weird when you’re not ‘Marble Man Fitz.’” I felt the corner of my mouth turn up slightly at the nickname. Years of being told that emotions make you weak will do that.
“Did she get in trouble too?” I asked, regaining my composure. Andy grunted, opening his car and reaching in to grab his can of dip. He pulled a pinch and slid it into his mouth before answering.
“Coach tried, her mom came into the office screaming when I left. Something about threatening to sue the district and taking Piper to Disneyland,” he explained. I quirked my eyebrow. “No idea, dude, bitch is as crazy as her daughter.” Internally, I winced. “I’m just praying at this point she doesn’t tell my mom, she’ll ground me until graduation.”
“Why would she tell your mom?”
“Because, we - uh - we live down the street from each other. Her mom recognized me today.” Realization hit me. That’s how this happened so quietly. We all lived so close to each other, if the two of them had been spotted driving around together, someone would have put two and two together.
“So you, what, snuck over to each other’s houses?”
“Sometimes,” Andy answered truthfully, leaning against his truck and crossing his arms. I sat against the window of my dark BMW, unsure of how much of this I wanted to hear. “Sometimes I’d pick her up, she’d hide so no one could see her, and we’d go somewhere and fuck around in the car.” A dark smile spread across his face. “One time, we did it in the field behind the rec center.” I bit my lips together to keep the shocked sound at the back of my throat from escaping. The mental picture of Andy and Piper fucking in the field where we used to catch frogs as kids made me want to puke.
“Maybe you should lay off her, man,” I suggested casually. He looked at me, confused, and I was quick to cover my tracks. “The last thing you need is to get benched for your senior season. Shelley would murder you in your sleep, and your sister would help her hide the body.” He laughed - a short, loud noise - before relenting.
“I’ll try, dude, but something about her gets under my skin. It’s annoying, ya know?”
I did. I really, really did.
