that? I’m up, bouncing on the balls of my feet in seconds—even the refs are surprised.
And that’s when I see him.
Brewster is here. He’s on the sideline and he’s doubled over, lying on his side in pain. Bronte fusses over him; and suddenly I know why my ribs had hurt for only an instant, and why the wind didn’t get knocked out of me, and why my muscles feel none of the ache of three quarters of play. Because Brewster’s feeling it for me. He’s feeling it all—and not just today, but for every game he’s been at. It’s not my skills that are putting me at the top of my game. It’s Brewster.
The ref starts play again—I even get a penalty shot and score—but I can’t focus now. I just keep looking over to the sideline until Brew sits up again, recovering from my fall. He might have my concussion for all I know.
The coach takes me out for half of the fourth quarter, then puts me back in toward the end of the game; but I’m not the player I was ten minutes ago. Now I’m way too cautious, way too slow—because what if I get hurt again? What if I take a blow and Brew absorbs it again? I can’t allow that. So for the last five minutes of play, I just go through the motions, half-heartedly crossing the field like my body is made of eggshells and will fracture with the slightest contact.
The final whistle blows. We win, 5 to 2. I’m the hero of the team, but it feels empty. It feels like I cheated. Like the game was rigged, and I’m the only one who knows. Everyone’s giving me slaps on the back and high fives —and no one seems to notice how I shut myself down in the final minutes. They probably figure I just got tired from playing so hard.
The second I can break away from my teammates I tear off my helmet and storm toward Brewster. He’s standing with Bronte, cheering like the rest of them— but I can see the evidence of this vicious game all over him; and maybe I should feel grateful, but all I feel is angry. Angry and robbed. I’d rather play hard and lose honestly than suffer such a despicable win. He stole more than my pain today.
“Tennyson, you were great,” Bronte says. At first I think she must not get it—she must be clueless; but no, my sister is smart. And suddenly it dawns on me that she knows! Maybe from the first game, or maybe just from today. She knows, and yet she’s okay with it. How could she be okay with it?
I storm toward Brewster, and I raise my hand—I almost punch him—but I can’t swing at someone who already looks so beaten down. Instead I point an accusing finger and burn him a brutal scowl.
“Never come to one of my games again!” I snarl.
“You won, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t win—you did.” And I storm away, leaving everyone around us gawking.
Katrina tries to intercept me. “Something wrong, Tennyson?”
But I’m not in the mood. “I gotta go back to the team.” Then I run onto the field, trying to put as much distance as I can between me and Brewster Rawlins.
32) CONTRITION
“I’m sorry,” I tell Bronte for the tenth time.
“Don’t tell me; tell him.”
“I will. On Monday.”
“No! You go over to his house and tell him right now!”
“I don’t want to go over there!” I shout at her. “I don’t want to deal with his crazy, freaking uncle!”
I take a deep breath and pace the living room. Mom has not come home yet, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s still visiting the Planet of the Apes. Dad, who spends more and more time at the university lately, is AWOL as well. It’s not that I want them here at the moment, but I don’t want them out there, either.
“I will hound you day and night until you apologize to him!”
I really want to strangle my sister right now, but I restrain myself. “Your temper is not your friend,” my kindergarten teacher used to tell me. It annoys me that I still remember that, down to her squeaky little voice. It annoys me more that she was right. “I need to sort things out, okay?” I say to Bronte, trying to sound as reasonable as I can. “If I go over there now, even if I say I’m sorry, I might end up fighting with him about it more.”
“Why? What did he do that was so terrible?”
The fact that she can’t see my side of it boggles the mind. “He felt stuff for me!” Even saying it makes me uneasy, like it’s some sort of violation—and in some ways I guess it is. “I got hurt out there on the field, but all that hurt kept vanishing into him! It’s not normal!”
Now she’s smiling—even gloating. “It’s about time you freaked out about it.”
“Shut up!”
“He likes you, Tennyson. You may be the first real friend he’s ever had.”
“That still doesn’t give him the right to reach inside me. Maybe you’re okay with it, being that you’re his girlfriend and all; but I’m not.”
“It’s not like he’s doing it on purpose; he can’t help it. It just happens.”
“He should have warned me—or he should have left!”
“He didn’t want to. It was his choice to stay.”
“Well, he should have given me a choice!” I can hear my voice rising again as I think back to the game. It’s great to get all the glory when you’ve earned it; but when you haven’t, you feel like a fraud. Maybe other guys get their kicks by seizing attention they don’t deserve, but not me. “All I’m saying is that you can’t play a sport without the threat of injury! It’s like they say, ‘No pain, no gain’—without the pain, the gain means nothing!”
Bronte weighs my words and nods, finally admitting that maybe I have a point. “Fine. So explain that to him.”
“I will when I can stop yelling!”
Then Bronte, bless her annoying little heart, says the exact thing to put out my fire. She heaves a colossal sigh and says, “Listen to us! We sound like Mom and Dad.”
And since that’s the last act in the world I want to mimic, my anger is snuffed so completely, all that remains is an intense desire to pout.
“Are we done here?” I ask.
“Yes. But don’t stay mad at him,” she says. “That will hurt him worse than any lacrosse game.”
33) QUIETUS
Mom and Dad come home within fifteen minutes of each other, both the bearers of ethnic takeout. Mom has Chinese; Dad has Indian. It’s a strange thing for your parents to be sort of separated but living under the same roof. Bronte and I still get the same fast food, but now there’s always twice as much, because both of them feel obliged to feed us. It’s fine when the food comes staggered; but at times like this, when it comes simultaneously, it’s very awkward. Whose food do we eat? And does it imply we’re taking sides? Can we eat equal portions of both without feeling like puking? When an eggroll becomes a crisis, there’s definitely something wrong.
That night I lie on my bed bloated beyond belief, having eaten enough to feed an entire subcontinent. My brain is bloated, too, and I try to wrap my mind around the events of the day.
I’m not usually one to spend endless hours dissecting my own emotions. Bronte does enough of that for both of us. When it comes to such open-heart reflection, I’m a firm believer in the observer effect, which states that anything you try to observe is automatically changed by the mere fact that you’re looking at it. The way I see it, if you try to study your emotions on a microscopic level, the best you can do is understand how it feels to hold the magnifying glass.
As I lie there listening to India and China waging war in my intestines, I keep trying to analyze the feelings I had at the end of today’s lacrosse game. Perhaps it’s just the observer effect and my perceptions are all changing as I examine them, but it seems to me there was something inexplicable running under the anger I felt toward
