Jake
(Then)
I don’t sleep, and I’m early to school the next day. My stomach has shrunk to the size of a raisin. I couldn’t even manage a slice of toast for breakfast. My mom almost kept me home, she was so concerned at this unusual loss of appetite. I wonder if maybe I am sick. My stomach doesn’t feel too good and my palms are sweating as if I have the plague.
However, I also recognize these symptoms. I get the same way before a big game. Which means it’s likely nerves. Or excitement. Possibly both.
I wait by the gym, where I always meet Em before first period. I’ve got my basketball with me, and I lean against the wall with it tucked under my arm, but I feel self-conscious all of a sudden. Awkward. I rearrange my stance, straighten my T-shirt, and run through what I want to say to Em when she gets here. I was awake most of the night rehearsing it, when I wasn’t running action replays of the kiss, that is.
I get a lurch in my chest as my brain does yet another replay. It’s followed swiftly by another lurch—this one more like the feeling I had when I failed to score a penalty in our last game and we lost. What if she didn’t like it? What if she was just being polite? What if she told me she’d forgotten her skates just to get away from me? What if she doesn’t want to be friends anymore? I’ll be straight-up honest, tell her how I feel but give her an out. If she just wants to be friends, then we’ll just be friends. I can do that.
I think.
I glance at my watch, anxious. She’s late. Em’s never late.
Denton and Shay round the corner of the gym as I’m frowning at my watch.
“Hey,” Denton says, nodding at the ball in my hands, “you want to shoot some hoops?”
I shake my head at him, wondering how I can get them to leave without being rude. I can’t talk to Em with an audience.
“Okay,” Denton says, looking at me oddly.
“Why are you standing like that?” Shay asks, giving me side-eye.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re posing for a Calvin Klein ad.”
“I’m not,” I say, shifting positions as casually as I can.
Shay smirks at me. “Are you waiting for Em?”
She knows. Damn. She knows. Blood rushes to my face. I shrug, aiming for nonchalant. Did Em talk to her last night and tell her what happened?
Shay starts rooting through her bag. She doesn’t say anything else. Maybe Em didn’t tell her after all. I’m fairly sure that if she had, Shay would be ribbing me about it.
“I gotta go,” she says. “I have a book to return to the library.” She pushes her glasses up her nose and rushes off.
“Bye!” Denton shouts after her. “See you at lunch.” There’s a note of hope in his voice that makes me narrow my eyes at him for a moment, but then I’m back to staring at the road, scanning the mass of kids, trying to find Em among them. I know she isn’t inside already because I was the first kid here this morning. I made sure to be.
The bell rings. I jump.
Denton heads to the door. “You coming?”
I frown. There’s still no sign of Em. Where is she? Did she decide to play hooky because she’s too embarrassed or worried about facing me? My insides squirm at the thought.
“We’re going to be late,” Denton calls over his shoulder.
Reluctantly, I pick up my bag. The parking lot is empty. Everyone’s inside, apart from a few late stragglers, none of whom are Em.
I follow Denton inside, shoulders slumped.
Where is she?
* * *
The gossip at first is just a murmur, a faint stir that I don’t even notice because I’m too caught up in my own worries about Em and me and why she isn’t at school. But by the afternoon it’s a full-on hurricane.
“Did you hear?” Reid Walsh blurts in the middle of the cafeteria. “Em’s saying Coach Lee assaulted her after the game last night.”
I look up from my lunch tray and catch Shay’s eye. Next second I’m on my feet. “What did you say?” I demand.
Reid snorts. “Em’s saying Coach Lee attacked her in the locker rooms.”
I blink at him before lunging. “You lying piece of shit!”
Denton grabs me by the arm and drags me back. Reid laughs. “I’m not the liar!”
I swing around and come face-to-face with Tanya Hollingsworth in her cheerleading outfit. “She’s making it up.”
“What are you talking about?” Shay demands of her before I can.
“Oh, come on, as if Coach Lee would do something like that.” Tanya says it with an air of absolute authority, tossing her ponytail over one shoulder like a whip. “I heard it’s revenge because Coach benched her for tackling Reid.”
She tries to walk by, but I move to block her path. Her lunch tray bumps my chest and a milk carton falls off, spilling milk all over the floor and our shoes. I ignore it, as well as her squeal of indignation. “What did you say?” I ask.
Tanya raises her overplucked eyebrows at me and shoots me a look of pure scorn. “What’s your problem, McCallister?” she asks. “If she’s not lying, then your uncle’s a pervert. Which version do you prefer?”
I glare at her, words jumbling in my head, trying to come up with a response, and all the while I can feel the entire cafeteria staring at me . . . waiting for my comeback.
“Jake?”
It’s Denton. He’s pulling on my arm. “Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s get out of here.”
I let him tug me away, out of the cafeteria, out across the playing field. Shay is on my other side. The three of us keep going until we’re at the far end of the field.
“Shit,” Denton says, running his hands through his hair.
“I have to call her,” Shay says. “We have to find out what happened.”
I nod, but there’s a part of me that hesitates. Because what if it’s true? Em would never lie about something like this. But my uncle? He wouldn’t do anything like that. Not Uncle Ben.
There’s an angry buzzing in my head as though a swarm of hornets is hovering around me. I can’t hear what Shay and Denton are saying through the deafening hum. It must all be lies. A mistake. A stupid rumor someone’s started. And when I find out who . . .
“Whoa!” Denton and Shay both grab for my arms.
“Where are you going?” Shay asks.
I realize that I’ve started marching back across the playing field. “To find Reid and figure out who started the rumor. Because it’s bullshit.”
“Hold up,” Denton, ever the calm pragmatist, says. “Let’s just calm down.”
“What if it’s true?” Shay whispers.
“It’s not true!” I shout, turning on Shay in a fury.
Her eyes go wide. “Okay,” she says, glancing at Denton, who gives her a small shake of the head that he doesn’t think I notice.
“He’s my uncle. He wouldn’t do that.”
“So you think Em would make this up?” Shay spits back.
I glare at her, blood smashing into my temples with the force of a hammer. No. She wouldn’t. But I don’t think my uncle could ever do something so horrible either.
Denton gets between us. “Guys, guys, come on . . . Until we know the facts, let’s not argue, okay?”
The bell pulls us back to school.
I sit through afternoon classes, unable to concentrate, trying to block out the whispers whipping around me, gathering speed and volume.
As soon as the final bell rings, I grab my bag and sprint for the door. In the hallway I pass a group of juniors and hear something that sends me into a skid.
I turn around and march up to them. “What did you say?”
The junior looks me up and down scornfully. I’m a foot shorter than him. “I said Emerson Lowe’s a slut.”
Before he even finishes the sentence, my fist is slamming into his jaw. He doubles over with a grunt, groaning. His friends freeze in shock and disbelief, and then in the next second they’re leaping into action, coming at me.
I spin on my heel and tear off down the hallway, dodging around people hovering by the exit, bashing my way through the doors, and leaping down the steps.
I can hear them hot on my heels, yelling about what they’re going to do when they catch me, but I’m faster than all of them. I’ve got reason to be.