Between (12 page)

Richie is no athlete. He’s the kind of guy who barely manages a C in gym class—the only mediocre grade on his otherwise impeccable academic record—and is an anomaly among our typically athletic, popular crowd. He has always been far more interested in books and music than in anything physical. Still, as soon as I see him heading toward the field house, I realize exactly who he’s looking for.

My cross-country coach, Mr. Riley, sits quietly at his desk in a small, cluttered office. I remember a good bit about him—small factual details about people seem to come pretty easily to me. Aside from being the cross-country and track coach, he teaches the high school boys’ gym classes and tenth-grade health, which puts him kind of low on the faculty totem pole. He isn’t adorable and witty like our English teacher, Mr. Simon. I’ve never seen him spontaneously drop to the gym floor and start doing one-armed push-ups, like the football coach, Mr. “Call Me Todd” Buckley. Unlike the cheerleading coach, Mrs. Casey, he never would have dreamed of supplying alcohol to minors. But he was always my favorite teacher. He’d been my coach since I was in the seventh grade, and he was good at it. He understands what it means to love running. Looking at him now, I remember noticing him two weeks earlier at my funeral. It was the only time, I think, that I’d ever seen him wear a tie. And it was certainly the only time I’d ever seen him cry. At least I
think
it was the only time. I’m not sure about anything, not now.

As close as I remember being with Mr. Riley, he never warmed to Richie, even though they were both at every one of my cross-country meets and had plenty of opportunities to get to know each other.

“I’m not surprised,” Alex says when I tell him. “Everybody knows Richie’s a drug dealer.”

“Do they really?”

“Of course.” He pauses. “It’s a small town, Liz. People aren’t good at keeping secrets.” The words feel weighted with significance, somehow. I get the sense that he’s alluding to something, but I’m not sure exactly what.

It’s funny—I can remember a lot about Mr. Riley, but not everything. I know that he was my coach. I know that he didn’t like Richie. But I don’t remember many specifics from the time I spent with him.

So I try to bring some of them back. I’m getting more and more used to falling into memories now, and it almost feels gentle and natural when I close my eyes and let myself slip into the past.

I see a slightly younger, very slightly heavier version of myself standing in his office. Judging from my appearance, I’m guessing that it’s sometime during my sophomore year—if it’s cross-country season, it’s the fall. We are alone together. The light in Mr. Riley’s windowless office comes from a dim, erratically blinking fluorescent fixture in the ceiling. Dead insects are visible against the translucent sheet of plastic that covers the bulb. The effect is creepy in the otherwise deserted building.

Mr. Riley is in his early thirties. On his desk, there’s a photo of what I assume is his wife and baby daughter. I get the feeling I’ve met them before, maybe multiple times, although I can’t remember much of anything about them at the moment.

Mr. Riley is a quiet, kind of nerdy guy with a good tan from so much running outdoors and the wiry build that’s so typical in endurance athletes. “Liz,” he says to me, gesturing to a chair in front of his desk, “have a seat.” He reaches into a minifridge humming on the floor of his office and pulls out a bottled water. “Here,” he says, putting it down in front of me, “drink. You just ran six miles. Your body needs hydration.”

“I know that.” I open the water and take a long drink. It’s obviously right after cross-country practice. I’m wearing gray cotton shorts and a pink tank top made of very thin material, so thin that my white sports bra is clearly visible beneath my shirt. Mr. Riley looks at the far wall, at the picture on his desk, anywhere but at my body. I can tell that being alone with me makes him uncomfortable.

“You aren’t going out with the rest of the team?” he asks, keeping his tone light.

“What? Where would I go with them?” My tone is flippant and uncaring, and I can guess why. Aside from me, nobody on the cross-country team was what you’d call popular. I wasn’t friends with any of them. Thinking about the fact now, it seems like a shame that I was so quick to write them off.

“They’re going out for Chinese food together,” Mr. Riley says. He meets my gaze. “You didn’t know?”

“I knew. Of course I knew.” But from my voice, I can tell that I had no idea. They didn’t invite me.

“Liz.” Mr. Riley hesitates. “I think you should consider being a little bit … warmer toward your teammates.”

From outside his door, I hear someone clearing his throat. I don’t even have to look to know that it’s Richie, waiting for me.

“What do you mean,
warmer
? I’m plenty warm. I just don’t hang out with them outside practice, that’s all.” I shrug. “It doesn’t bother me. They’re losers.”

Mr. Riley flinches at the word “losers.” As I watch my younger self, so do I.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” he continues. “Liz, you might want to reconsider your social circle. I’ve been your coach since seventh grade. I’ve watched you grow into this … this girl who is consumed by the material, by the social ranking of who she surrounds herself with. I know it’s not really you.”

I place my water gently on his desk. “How do you know that?”

“Because I know you’re only trying to protect yourself. You don’t want to get hurt again, so you surround yourself with people who would do anything to stay in your good graces. And you push everyone else away.”

I lean forward, narrowing my eyes. “What do you mean, I don’t want to get hurt again? When did I ever get hurt?”

He hesitates. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything. As I stare at him, my gaze almost challenging him to say whatever he’s thinking, I focus on his eyes, which are two different colors: one is light blue, while the other is black, all pupil and no iris.

Finally, he says, “Your mother.”

Oh, Mommy.
As I watch the two of us, I can tell that the mere mention of my mom hurts; the idea of her is so raw, so fresh, even so many years later. I don’t want to talk about it; that much is obvious.

I bite my bottom lip. “Mr. Riley,” I say, “can I ask you something?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“What happened to your eye?”

The question startles him. He looks around the room again. For a second, I’m afraid I’ve made him angry, that he’s going to kick me out of his office.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Okay, Liz. You want to know what happened?”

“Yes.” I nod.

“I’ve never told another student this.”

I give him a genuine smile. “I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart.”

“I was seven. I was a nerdy kid … still am a nerd, I guess.” He half smiles. “Anyway, the kids in my neighborhood never invited me out to play with them. Then one day one of the guys—his name was Charlie Sutton—comes to my front door and asks my mom if I can come out to play some baseball. This was back when people still let their kids go outside without a whole lot of supervision. And I was absolutely thrilled. I grabbed my bat and my mitt and went running outside so fast. You can’t imagine how excited I was.”

He pauses. He closes his eyes.

“So?” I lean forward in my chair. “What happened? Did you get hit by a baseball or something?”

“No.” Mr. Riley looks me square in the eye. “When I got outside, to the ballpark behind my house, Charlie Sutton and a few of the other kids were waiting for me. They had a pellet gun. You know—a BB gun. And they shot me.” He shrugs. “They hit me a good half a dozen times on my body, you know, just fooling around, not enough to break the skin or anything. I was crying by then. I started to back away, getting ready to run to my house, and one of the BBs hit me in the eye before I had a chance to turn around. It destroyed my iris. I’m legally blind in my left eye now.”

Even at sixteen, the story is enough to visibly move me. I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh my God,” I tell him. “That’s awful. What happened to them? Did they get in trouble?”

Mr. Riley shrugs again. “They probably got hit—this was years ago, when some people would spank their kids, too—but nothing major ever came of it.” He leans back in his chair. “We moved away shortly after that. It was hardest on my mom, really. She saw how excited I was that day, how happy I was to finally get to play with the other kids on my street. But it was all just a joke.” He stares at his desk. “You know how kids can be. It’s all right. I have a good life now. No complaints here.”

I take a long drink of water. My hair is pulled into a ponytail that trails down my back. My face is still sweaty. My eyes are wide with pity.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I tell him.

“It’s okay, Liz. I probably shouldn’t have even told you. But that’s the thing—I want you to be careful who you hang out with. Your priorities aren’t in the right place. You might regret it someday.”

From the hallway, Richie clears his throat again.

I fidget in my seat. “I’ve gotta go, Mr. Riley.”

“I’m sure you do. Your prince awaits.” He’s being sarcastic.

I watch myself leave his office and go into the hallway, where Richie is leaning against the wall, looking bored. We walk silently out of the building, hand in hand. Once we’re in the parking lot, I ask him, “Did you hear what he said in there?”

Richie only nods.

“That’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

Caroline, Mera, and Josie are waiting for us. They’re in a black Mercedes with the top down. When my friends see us, Mera honks the horn and waves us over.

“What the hell took you so long?” Josie snaps as Richie and I climb into the backseat. There isn’t enough room for the three of us to sit side by side, so my younger self curls up on Richie’s lap. I can only watch, standing just outside the car.

“Chill out,” Richie says to Josie. “We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“What’s the matter, Liz? You’d rather hang out with Crazy-Eyes Riley and the dorks on the cross-country team?” But then she grins at me, and the edge to her voice breaks. “It’s okay. I’ll still love you.”

I wink at her. She winks back. I stick my tongue out at her. She crosses her eyes.

“Seriously,” she says, giggling, “what took you so long? You prefer to spend time with your coach? He’s so weird looking.”

“He’s not weird looking. His eyes are just two different colors.” I lace my fingers through Richie’s.

“Yeah, that’s weird.” She sniffles. “What a freak.”

We’re still sitting in the parking lot. The Mercedes is idling.

“He’s not a freak,” I tell her. “He’s nice. And you shouldn’t say things like that about him. It isn’t his fault that his eyes are different.”

As I’m watching myself, witnessing the scene unfold, I notice that Richie squeezes my hand when I don’t elaborate.

“Whatever,” Josie says, snapping her gum. “It doesn’t matter if it’s his
fault
, Liz. He’s still a freak.”

“Shut up,” I say to her. “He’s a good person.”

“All of you, shut up,” Mera says, turning up the radio. “Let’s go!”

I watch as we all drive away, the music blaring, the tires on the Mercedes squealing as Mera speeds out of the parking lot.

So maybe Alex was right—maybe I wasn’t that great of a person. I certainly didn’t have any friends on the cross-country team.

But I was friends with Mr. Riley. I cared about him. And, obviously, he cared about me. So that’s something. Right now, in light of all the memories I’ve seen of myself, I’ll take anything to prove that I wasn’t—as Alex so clearly articulated—a nightmare of a human being.

And with a blink, I’m back in the present, standing in Mr. Riley’s office with Alex and Richie. Right now, Mr. Riley rests his chin against his hands and says, “Well, if it isn’t the brilliant Richie Wilson. Looks like you’ve wandered to the wrong side of the sandbox.”

My boyfriend crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. His posture might be casual, but I can tell from the tension in his clenched jaw that he’s nervous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

For a moment, I can tell that Mr. Riley wants to kick him out. Alex is right—he probably did know what Richie was up to recreationally. It’s not like Richie ever went to great pains to hide it. Sometimes I thought he wanted to get caught—like it would almost be a relief.

“Look, I know you don’t like me,” Richie says.

Mr. Riley doesn’t argue. But he isn’t mean, either. “I won’t try to pretend I understand how you’re feeling. I know this has got to be awful for you, Richie.” He sits up straight, fidgeting nervously with the stopwatch hanging around his neck.

Even though he’s only seventeen, I can imagine that Richie would be intimidating to someone like Mr. Riley. They are so different: Richie is thick bodied and confidently slow as he almost strolls wherever he goes, his head full of all the countless books he’s read, yet somehow he’s so cool, so absolutely
not
nerdy—while Mr. Riley is all fast-twitch muscle fiber, more of a simple, nice guy, single-mindedly passionate about the concept of putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again, until there’s nothing but body and road and breath. No way any seven-year-old wielding a BB gun could catch him now.

“I’ve been going running,” Richie blurts. He doesn’t look at Mr. Riley. His gaze settles on the bookshelf behind my coach’s head, packed with titles like
Changing Bodies, Changing Lives
;
Zen Running
;
Born to Run;
and the embarrassing
Let’s Talk about Sex! A Guidebook for Young Bodies on the Verge of Adulthood
.

I’m more surprised than anyone in the room to hear what Richie’s been up to in the two weeks that have passed since my death. Alex and I haven’t seen him out running at all. I’d assumed he was spending most of his free time looking for comfort in the back of Josie’s mouth.

“Running? From whom—the cops?” Mr. Riley stretches his neck, touching his ear to his shoulder.

Richie takes the question seriously. “No, not from the cops. I mean
running
running. Like, recreationally. I don’t know why I’m doing it. It’s like I woke up one day last week and felt like I needed to
move.
” He swallows. “Liz used to talk about that. Sometimes I’d ask her, ‘What do you think about when you’re out there running for hours on end?’ And she’d always say, ‘Nothing.’ ”