Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) (16 page)

Chapter
21

I hadn’t seen Chris in the hall since he ditched me last
night. He also managed to be last-man-in-first-man-out of both of our classes.

I was oddly relieved to not have to deal with him—us?—at
school. I was also oddly annoyed to not see him.

By lunchtime, I was ready to just get on with life. I met
Amy after class and we wandered down to the
caf
where
Luke and Ben waited for us. Luke and Amy caught up on the periods they’d been
separated.

You’d think it was years the way they stared at each other.

“So, I thought now that you’ve gotten flirting with me out
of your system, it would be safe to have lunch with you guys.” Ben Harrison was
nothing if not cocky…or flirty…or not-to-be-taken-seriously-
ly
.

“Sure. You don’t smell as good as your room anyway.” I
swayed past him, letting him laugh off not getting the last word.

By the time we’d gotten our meals, our table was still
empty. I settled in, watching Amy slide into her chair as Luke put the tray
with both their lunches down. Talk about too cute for words.

Even Justin, Luke’s other brother—
there’s
four Parker boys for the world to survive—rolled his eyes as he joined us.

“Amy,” Justin grabbed a fry off her tray, more to get her
attention than to eat it since he had twice as many.
The
standard Jock Diet.
“Aren’t you beginning to feel smothered by my
brother yet? The offer still stands to be your next Parker Guy.”

The voice was teasing and the smile endearing, but I’d
wondered since the beginning if Justin wished he’d seen her first.

Luke snorted. He actually snorted. I’m guessing he was
feeling fairly confident about which Parker was keeping this girl. That didn’t
stop him from dropping his arm across the back of her chair.

“Hello?”

I glanced up to find Emma—Ben’s best friend since
birth—hovering behind him with her tray. “Four years and you just switch tables
and don’t text me?
Seriously?”

Ben looked at her like she was a little
nuts
which, if she was Ben’s best friend, was very likely.

“I’ve sat with the girls’ team all that time. I need a
little mixed gender socializing.”

It sounded like a fight waiting to happen, but he shifted
around to make room for her as she pretended to dump her tray on him.

I glanced around. I’d never felt like I didn’t have friends.
Amy and I were definitely the dynamic duo. But this, this was different. This
was bigger.

I looked at each person and thought,
Yeah. I’ll
keep’em
.

It was great to feel safe outside my room. It gave me some
internal downtime. I zoned—trying to shake off the day, the last couple days,
when the table stilled. I knew who was standing behind me even before I turned
around, but my breath still caught when I did.

“Can I join you guys?”

Everyone looked at me.
Everyone.
Not one person at the table looked at Amy. I pushed the chair next to me out with
my foot and watched as Chris lowered himself down. He pulled it in, edging it
just barely closer to me.

The silence kind of stretched in that
we all know each other but have no idea what to say
kind of way
until Ben remembered they were all on the same soccer team.

Yeah.
Brilliant.

Luke and Ben led the conversation, Chris just jumping in
occasionally with statistics and game data he’d gotten watching tapes—I’m
blaming his father for that waste of time too.

Everyone took off after lunch, rushing to the next place the
system gave us three minutes to get to. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised
to find Luke at my locker. I mean, it was right next to Amy’s.

“What did you do to him?”

Okay, maybe he wasn’t waiting for Amy. Although, I have to
say, Luke Parker’s angry voice was still pretty polite. That didn’t mean it
wasn’t ticking me off.

“What do you mean?” As if I didn’t know.

“Chris Kent, formerly the cocky, arrogant, overbearing,
capable co-captain of my soccer team looks like he’s about to lay down and give
up. I don’t mean to be heartless, but tonight is the biggest game of the season
for him.”

“What’s so special about tonight?” I asked even though I
suspected the answer.

“Not only is tonight the night we play the Monarchs who just
so happen to have the other left forward competing for States. But, Monroe and
two other scouts are coming tonight.”

Crap.

Seriously, crap.

“I didn’t do anything.” I mostly didn’t.

I’d thought a lot about last night. It wasn’t as if I was
the girl who dumped him for someone else when he wanted to get serious. I also
wasn’t his dad. I was only the person who was there when he needed someone to
be there.

I was convenient. And that was my biggest fear.

Chris was so
not
convenient. He was as big a mess as I was. Even so, he was like that dead end
road—I knew it didn’t go anywhere, but I couldn’t help myself from racing down
it.

Luke studied me. I’d never seen anyone study people like
him. It was one of the most unsettling things I’d been through in a while.

Ok, that’s not true. It was one of the most unsettling
normal
things I’d been through in a
while.

After a moment he kind of nodded to himself and said, “How
about you?
Everything all right?”

For some reason, I wanted to spill my guts. He seemed to
have that effect on people. But between the secrets I needed to tell Amy first
and the secrets that weren’t mine to tell, I pretty much had nothing to say.

“No worries.” As if.

He kept looking at me, a long uncomfortable moment.
“All right.
See you after the game.”

Chapter
22

I did
not
want to
be at this game. Things already felt crazy enough and I just wasn’t up for
sitting on the sidelines with Amy, the whole school behind us able to stare at
the back of my over-sized head.

Plus, I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk the skitter-step my
lungs did hitching for
breath
sometimes when Chris
looked at me. I was just too exhausted to keep my defenses up tonight and so
Mr. Lost-and-Confused was
on his own
.

Walking across the parking lot, I focused on the bright
lights, pulling me forward, bringing me into the sanctity of the home field.
With everything going on, I’d had a hard night leaving the house as it was. I
wanted to pull my hair out when
what
would Chris think of this skirt?
actually
pounced
into my mind before I could kick it back out. Now, I didn’t need to focus on
anything but getting on that field. Just get there. Get to the lights.

I’d promised Amy, so here I was.

“Rachel!”

And that voice was the last thing I needed to deal with
right now. I stopped and let Jared catch up with me, my heart tickling my chest
with a different kind of anxiety.

“Hey. How’s it going?” He was so nonchalant, so not
I-just-dumped-you-and-moved-on-without-a-second-thought.

“Not bad.”
Horrible
.

“I’ve been meaning to call you. We should get together and catch
up.” He
grinned
that Parker grin. The one that was
charming on Luke. On Jared, it made me want to punch him in the face.

“Things are kind of crazy right now.”
I
was kind of crazy right now.

“Yeah.
I’ll bet.
Senior
year.”
He shook his head as if senior year was the answer to what was
worrying me.

Not the fact that he’d treated me like gold, and then tossed
me aside like trash. Not that I was caught in this weird tutor thing that was
more and yet nothing. Not that my best friend didn’t even know who I was.

Leave it to a clueless junior to think life changed
that
much just because of the date on
the calendar.

“Yeah.
Senior
year.”

He glanced toward the gate where a petite figure waited
under in the street light glow.

“I have to go, but seriously. We should get together.
How about another barbeque at our house?”

What was I supposed to say to that? Especially when the last
barbeque was in celebration of a Parker man getting rid of an unwanted
girlfriend?

“I’ll talk to Amy.”
About never, ever,
ever bringing me to the Parker house for a barbeque again.

“Great.” He was already moving away, waving over his
shoulder as he headed toward the girl on the far side of the lot.
The girl who was not me.

And yet, as he sprinted toward New Girlfriend, I wondered
why I’d spent half of my last therapy session talking about him and the
breakup. It felt less than unreal. It felt unimportant.

~*~

Amy loved this. I could tell. She loved the numbers and the
game. She loved being involved and being involved with one of the players. She
loved working for Coach. The weather was even perfect. The crowd was excited.

And I was miserable.

I jotted down the notes she told me to, not understanding
anything I wrote.

At half time, Jared and the blonde passed by. He gave me a
little wave as they wandered toward the
Snak
Shak
, her neatly tucked under his arm as usual.
Unbelievable.

“She’s only got about a week left.
Maybe a
little longer.”
Amy settled into the chair beside me.

“Who?”

She didn’t even bother to look at me, just kept flipping through
the binder in front of her as she updated the stats from the first half.

“Oh, please. As if it isn’t clear you’re watching Jared and
the bi-monthly flavor.”

O.M.G.

“Is that what I was?” Of course that’s what I was. What was
wrong with me?

Amy’s eyes filled with a pity-focused sorrow that only your
best friend could get away with.

“Never mind,” I said. “Don’t answer that.”

The teams were jogging down from the locker rooms, snatching
Amy’s attention back to the game.
Probably as much to her
relief as mine.

So, I was that girl. I was that girl who dated around until
some guy who dated around dated and dumped her.

I was a flavor.

I had damn well better
have been a premium
flavor
, like French Vanilla
La’Cream
with
Hazelnut.

The ref blew a whistle and the teams took the field. I’d
been paying enough attention to realize Chris and Luke were on the far side
now. Not that it mattered, but I figured the further away he was from me, the
less Luke could wonder if I was messing with Chris’s soccer
mojo
.

Not to mention it was easier to ignore those soccer shorts.

The second half of the game seemed a little more heated. I
couldn’t pin down anything specific—since I wasn’t even positive what was going
on out there—but something seemed…off.

Every time Chris had the ball, he didn’t manage to do
whatever magic everyone expected of him. I even heard some groans from the
crowd when a couple times he sent the ball toward the goalie and it didn’t go
in.

Amy had commented that his game was a little off. I waited
for her to ask me what I’d done to him too. Part of me felt guilty, but another
part, a part getting bigger sitting there watching him outplay every guy on
that field, was annoyed.

Annoyed that all these people expected greatness from him
but couldn’t seem to notice he was in over his head and going under.

A bunch of whistles shrilled at once and kept blowing. Why
were sports so loud? While the refs converged on the far side of the field,
Luke ran up behind Chris who was pushing himself off the ground.

Beside me, Amy leapt to her feet, fingers clenching and
unclenching. I checked out the scene again. Luke looked pissed. He didn’t
really do pissed. Oh, dear Lord, the two of them were going to go at it again.

It had only been about three weeks since Chris and Luke had
started the biggest riot the RV had ever seen—and they hadn’t even bothered to
involve another school. The last time was over Amy. I glanced her way, a
feeling I’d never felt jabbing at my gut. It wasn’t jealousy. It
couldn’t be
jealousy.

But then Luke stepped around Chris and jabbed his finger
into the chest of some guy on the other team.

“What’s going on?” I asked, not taking my eyes from the
scene as a ref sprinted across the field.

Amy reclaimed her seat and picked up her ever-present
stats-taking-pen. “Illegal slide tackle.” The pen was going a mile a minute
now.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
“Chris looks like he might
be hurt.”

He looked fine to me, but what did I know?

More players crowded on the far side of the field, each team
gathering behind their guys. Luke was still shouting at the red team’s guy. At
first, he just shrugged off Luke’s words. But after a moment—and some arm
waving on Luke’s part—the guy started shouting back, their voices almost
carrying back to us over the crowd and the whistling.

“Who is that guy?”

The tapping stopped.

“You mean, as in ‘what does he do on the field?’ or ‘hey,
he’s cute, what’s his name?’” Amy asked.

I looked again. Huh, he was cute.

“What does he do?”

Amy turned in her seat, letting her full attention drift from
the potential battle to me.

“He’s their forward.
Right wing.”

I nodded since I had
zero
idea what that meant. Honestly, was a girl supposed to just know these things?

“He’s the guy who gets the ball passed up to him and attacks
from the sides hoping to get a shot on goal or pass it in to the players in the
center to score.”

“Oh.” That made more sense. “So, he’s not allowed to tackle
anyone?”

“Rachel, how many games have you been to?”

I wasn’t really sure what that had to do with anything.

“No idea. I came if a date brought me or I was meeting
someone. And of course
all of the
home games this year
with you.”

Amy nodded. I could see her doing a quick tally in her head.
“So, between the nine home games so far this year and all your dates and
potential dates, that’s at least thirty-five games.”

Wow, that was a lot of time hanging out on this field. Maybe
there was some type of spectator’s scholarship.

“And,” she continued. “You have no idea at all what’s going
on out there, do you?”

I glanced over at the guys again. I was a little shocked to
see Chris standing between Luke and the other guy with his hand squarely on
Luke’s chest as if holding him back. Coach had stopped shouting and was talking
to one of the team’s assistants in low tones. This must be serious.

“Looks like another riot.”

Amy threw down her pen. “I mean besides that.
The game?
The players?
Any idea at all?”

I’d dated a guy for, like, two weeks who played town league
and he talked about soccer all the time. I had to know something.

“Um, there’s a bunch of guys, and they stand in lines trying
to get the ball in the other guys’ net. And some of the lines’ job is to stop
the ball from getting in their net, but only some of them get to use their
hands. And,” now I was working up some steam. “I mean really, the ball is so
small and that net is huge. Why the heck is it so hard to get it in there? I
mean, are these guys really
that
good?”

I could see Amy struggling to not throw her hands in the
air.

“On that field right now are four of the best high school
soccer players in the state. Three of them are on our team. Yes. It really is
that hard.”

“Oh.” I was saved from more Soccer 101 when a whole
lotta
yelling rose from the crowd behind us.

“Oh, crap.” Amy was on her feet again, pacing the sidelines.
All I could tell was there was a lot of shouting on the field, and I couldn’t
tell who was shouting at whom about what. But now everyone seemed to be looking
at Luke. He leaned past Chris and the ref, brushing the ref’s shoulder. With a
quick motion, Luke shoved the other team’s player while he shouted at the ref.
Next thing you know this red thing was being waved in the air and tossed on the
ground.

One of the other guys stepped forward, to let Chris throw an
arm over his shoulder and backed him out of the chaos.

“Oh, crap,” Amy said again as Coach threw his clipboard on
the ground and marched across the field.

Everyone seemed to hush and lean forward collectively. Maybe
none of them knew what that red thing meant either. On the field, Coach was
tugging at his hair and talking to the ref but Luke was still shouting.

Only now Will, one of our guys, was shouting at Luke about
being two men down. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I wasn’t even sure
why the ball had to be black and white. Why not black? Why not white? Could
they just not decide?

Ben jogged in out of nowhere. He met Luke chest to chest,
and threw an arm over his shoulder, walking him backward, pushing him.

Ben shouted at Will while Will shouted at Luke.

Luke shouted at the guy on the other team.

Coach shouted at Luke. And then he shouted at the ref before
turning back to shout at Luke some more.
And shouted.
And shouted.

This was better than staying in. This was better than a
double-header of Brad Pitt movies and magically-fat-free ice cream.

Luke must have calmed down because Ben stopped and stepped
away. But Will just kept going. I guess Ben wasn’t worried about Luke attacking
someone on his own team—again. In one swift motion, Luke grabbed the bottom of
his team shirt and pulled it over his head, tossing it in Will’s face before
starting across the field toward us.

I glanced at Amy. She was smiling this weird little smile
but shaking her head at him as he came.

“Parker!”
Everyone turned as Chris
pulled his shirt off and threw it straight at Will’s chest with a smirk.

Luke waited as Chris hobbled over to him. It was obvious to
everyone his knee wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. Chris braced his arm
against Luke’s shoulder and together they finished the walk, the crowd behind
us cheering and stomping their feet.

Two soccer gods—shirtless.

“Good Lord, I hope someone gets a picture.”

Beside me, Amy burst out laughing.
Thank God,
I thought if anything tonight would earn her wrath it
would be that. Luke and Chris traveled a pace slow enough to challenge molasses
to the table where she waited for them.
Both of them.
When they reached her, Luke threw his free arm around Amy and lifted her into a
kiss that if that red card meant what I thought it meant, should probably have
earned him another one.

The three of them stood there—Luke grinning and Amy shaking
her head at him, Chris leaning on the table staring up at the daylight-bright
lights—waiting for Coach to clean up the mess with the ref and probably do some
shouting of his own at them.

And then Chris turned his full attention on me, and my
stomach dropped. I stood—separate—on the opposite side of the table feeling as
if I should do something. As if I could make something better. As if I could
make that fresh look of panic on Chris’s face go away.

Luke looked up and gave Chris a little jab in the ribs,
stealing his awareness away. Both of them were grinning again, but I could
still feel the tension underneath it all and suddenly doubted that it had much
to do with Amy anymore.