“My cousin is just really wound up, and the stress comes out poorly,” he says.
I put the van in park a few houses away from his and lean back with a sigh, letting my hands fall to the bottom of the wheel.
“Quit making excuses for him,” I say, rolling my head along the seat back until our eyes meet.
He blinks rapidly, as if computing my words, but instead of the argument I expect, he says, “You’re right.”
I offer a crooked, sympathetic smile.
“I know this isn’t fair for you. I’m so sorry.” Zack’s car isn’t in the driveway up ahead, which means he’s gone somewhere to blow off steam.
“He’s probably with Tory or Lucas,” Cannon says, pushing the lever to lean his seat back a little. He props a leg up and holds his knee, his eyes darting around the landscape beyond the van, as though searching for a way to make all of this right.
“Why does your dad play by the rules, like you said?”
I do my best to mask the sick expression I want to make. The way I feel inside can’t be helped. This subject was bound to come up, and I need to learn it’s simply part of the journey of a female athlete in a man’s world. It doesn’t make me hate it any less.
“Back in New York . . .” I pause to draw in a deep breath, to swallow down some courage. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear this, but not everyone wanted me to be on the team.”
He chuckles, but when he realizes it’s actually a sad statement on human behavior, he lets go of the humor, his laugh lines fading with the fall of his mouth back into a straight line.
“The weird thing is, most of the guys on the team? They were fine with it. My ex—”
“Ex?” he pipes up. Of course that’s the part he pays attention to.
“Yes, ex. Meaning, not my current boyfriend.” Are you my current boyfriend? This sudden question tangles in my head while I sort out the details of my sophomore and junior years at Xavier to share with him.
“His name is Jordan, so let’s just call him Jordan,” I say.
“I don’t like him.”
I laugh out and grab Cannon’s arm, and can’t help but smile at this sudden possessiveness. Also, it’s strange to reach out and touch him like this. It’s both natural and terrifying, a sensation only amplified by the way he reaches over with his other hand and weaves our fingers together.
“Oh,” I stammer out, staring at the way our hands look together. The story I was telling slips away, but Cannon brings it back to the forefront.
“I’m listening,” he says. And he truly is. This would probably be easier if he weren’t, at least not so intently.
I swallow.
“Jordan’s dad, his name’s Bill. He’s this big donor— Xavier’s a private school.”
Cannon nods, understanding.
“Anyhow, he basically ran the school’s sports department. He wasn’t the athletic director, or an employee. He was nothing more than a guy with one vote on a board of trustees. But he was—is—big on tradition. And girls should be on the sidelines, and in the stands, or . . .”
I pause to snort out a laugh because the thought is so ridiculous.
“In the kitchen, learning how to be a good and proper wife. A girl playing ball was, well, in his words, ‘a travesty.’” I add the air quotes to drive it home.
I can think of a lot of things that are travesties. Homelessness, hunger, a truly great person being murdered in cold blood. Me playing ball? Not even close. My presence is an inconvenience to sexist assholes who were probably never half as good as me.
“So, what did they do, like, make a rule or something against you?”
I shake my head and look out my side window, the memories still crystal clear in my head.
“Our field was about a block away from the campus, which is kinda normal for Staten Island. Our locker room was in a basement under the gym, and the coaches’ offices were buried in the back, behind the showers. No matter what time of day it was, when the power went out, it got pitch black in there. We had a big game against our rival, and one of the other players’ dads caught me during my walk to the field and told me my dad left his scorebook on his desk.”
The self-blame weighs down my insides the way it always does. No matter how many times I rationalize what happened, the small inner voice I try to keep quiet pipes up and tells me I let it all happen.
“The locker room was clear. I made sure because I was only supposed to be on the women’s side. I was just going to run in, grab the book, and go. I didn’t even suspect something when the lights went out because, like I said, that stuff happened all the time.”
I can tell Cannon expects something worse by the way his eyes are locked open yet slanted with disappointment. Thank God it wasn’t worse. That thought repeats in my head a lot. Really, though, what I’m doing is giving them all an excuse for what they did do to me.
“I couldn’t find the book.”
“There was no book,” he concludes.
I breathe out through my nose and look down at the place where our hands still touch, at the way his thumb is now stroking my skin in careful, slow circles. I shake my head.
“There was no book,” I echo him.
His fingers twitch as his muscle tense.
“Nobody was in there,” I add quickly, taking the worse scenarios out of his imagination. “They locked the door. It was made of thick, heavy metal and it was old. Nothing about my old campus was to code, and that was the only
