All Broke Down (Rusk University #2) (10 page)

“Sorry.” I mean it to be an apology for all of it, but I’m scared he thinks it’s just about nearly bumping into him, so I continue, “I’m sorry for being weird about all this. And thank you. For everything, not for . . .” I gesture in the general direction of where he gave me an orgasm. “
That.
But thanks for that also. Oh God. I’m going to go. Sorry. Thanks.”

STOP SAYING THANK YOU.

I can feel his presence behind me as I flee, and I’m wondering whether it’s worse to stay silent or to make some horrible, awkward small talk on our way down the stairs. Then I hear the door across the hall, his bedroom, click shut.

And I’m alone.

And I still have no idea what I want.

Chapter 8

Silas

I
find a joint in my room, and kill the whole thing in a few minutes.

Bad decision.

She didn’t say it, but that’s what she was thinking. She wanted to avoid bad decisions, and always, no matter what I do, no matter how far away I get from the trailer park and that shack of Granny’s, I’ve got that written all over me.

The high comes on fast and hard, and I spend the next half hour, maybe more, staring at my ceiling. I’m fucking blank, barely even there. And it’s perfect.

But when I start to level out, it all gets worse.

I’m horny as hell, and the weed only amplifies it.

Instead of clearing my head and relaxing me like normal, my thoughts turn dark, and I get stuck thinking about the past. I start thinking that there’s no point. To football or classes or friendship or anything. I know where I came from, and I know where I’m gonna end up, and the longer I lie here, baked out of my mind, the more it starts to feel like those two things aren’t as far apart or as different as I want them to be.

I start laughing, and I’m not even really sure why. Only that this all feels like some script I’m playing directly into. Like these first couple years at Rusk were just the setup, letting me believe I’d moved on, created something better for myself, only to have it all start falling apart, or rather falling back into familiar territory.

I laugh even though it’s not funny, but what the fuck ever. I stumble down the stairs, and I must have been staring at my ceiling for much longer than half an hour because the party is over.

Torres is indeed passed out naked on the floor, and someone has balanced a throw pillow on his bare ass, and that seems so damn funny to me that I forget how to breathe through my laughing.

Torres doesn’t stir. Neither does the new recruit asleep on the couch.

I make my way to the kitchen, but it feels like ages before I get there. Time never makes sense when I’m high. I blink, and it somehow feels like my eyes have been closed for centuries and seconds all at the same time. I load up on snacks, more weed, and a couple of beers. With my arms full, I turn to head back to my room only to find Torres standing at the entrance to the kitchen. He’s pulled the throw pillow around front to block his junk, and he’s looking at me through squinted eyes.

“Is it morning?” he asks me.

My chest bounces on a silent laugh, and I shake my head. He rubs a hand over his face and says, “What the fuck happened last night?”

He’s the one laughing now, and my mood turns on a dime. All of a sudden things don’t really seem that funny.

I can’t shake the feeling that last night was the beginning of the end, and everything is downhill from here.

“Nothing good,” I answer. “Nothing good at all.”

Torres groans in agreement, and stumbles off in the direction of his room, while I head up to mine. I only eat a couple of handfuls of chips before I pass out for the night. Perfect oblivion.

I keep chasing that nothingness through the rest of the weekend, switching to alcohol when I’m out of weed and too lazy to go buy more.

Brookes comes in Sunday evening. He’s the most stable in the house. He and Torres are best friends . . . both receivers. They’re the jokers on the team, but really couldn’t be more different. Torres clowns around for the attention. Brookes does it to put people at ease. He’s also a fast motherfucker, which is why I barely have time to raise my hands before he’s by my bed stripping back the sheets.

He’s holding one of those jugs of water you buy at the grocery store. Throwing it on my bed, he says, “You’ve had your final weekend of fun or whatever the hell this was. Take a shower. Drink some water. Get it the fuck together. Practice starts tomorrow.”

I groan, but I grab the water because he’s right. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Scratch that. I know exactly what happened. I’ve been trying my damnedest not to think at all.

It’s not about Dylan. She’s just a girl. A girl who is nothing like any other girl I’ve ever known, but still just a girl. It’s all of it. All the things that have happened, and all the things that haven’t, but inevitably will.

Because she was right.
Levi was right.
I’m bad . . . a bad decision, bad seed, bad blood . . . whatever you want to call it, that’s what I am. And it’s only a matter of time until it has me turning out just like Levi, cut off from the people I know and the only thing I love.

I peel away the circle of plastic around the mouth of the jug and pop it open.

“Isaiah,” I stop Brookes as he turns to leave, my pale hand wrapped around his dark forearm. He flexes his fingers into a fist, and I let him go. He might be a little more pissed than I thought. “I’m sorry, man. It was just one of those weekends. I’m good.”

He walks to the door frame and lightly raps his knuckles against it a few times. “I’m not really the one you’re hurting, Silas. Just be glad we already took our drug tests when we reported on Friday.”

Fuuuuuck. Yet another thing I hadn’t thought of. The chances of Coach popping another drug test on us now are almost zero, but still . . .

He leaves, and I do as he says, starting with the shower. I drink the full jug of water and try to get some sleep.

Try
being the key word.

I mostly lay there, resisting the urge to scream obscenities loud enough to wake the whole house.

I go for a run, but a hangover has already started creeping over me, and the nausea makes me feel like my organs are shifting with each stride. I call it quits and walk the rest of the way home, knowing I’m going to be a fucking wreck at practice in six hours.

I take another shower. I think about jacking off, but as soon as I picture Dylan draped over my lap, her hair falling out of that braid, the feel of her against my hand—a bass drum pounds in my head. I brace my hand against the tile, let the water pelt my face, and try not to throw up.

I chug some more water when morning comes, and think again how damn lucky I am that we did our drug tests when we reported on Friday. Not that there aren’t ways to beat them. I learned plenty of tricks freshman year, but none of it is foolproof.

I remember Torres being scared shitless last year when his name came up for the random test. We taught him all the things that gave him a better shot at passing (which he did), and all the dude talked about for the week afterward was that he was scared the Midol we had him take was going to give him manboobs.

I’m sitting at the table, plowing through a mountain of toast, when Torres hurdles down the stairs.

“Look who’s alive.” He grins, grabbing a protein drink from the fridge. “Zay sort you out?”

Brookes enters the kitchen from the living room. “I just brought him water.”

I finish my toast, have a little more water and a few pills. And that’s as good as it’s going to get.

I opt to take my own truck instead of riding with the disgustingly cheerful duo. I don’t even make it to the locker room before a voice reaches me from the coaches’ office.

“Moore!” It’s Coach Oz, the team’s strength and conditioning coach.

“Yes, sir?”

“Coach Cole’s office. Now.”

And . . . fuck.

Just fuck.

I could probably live the rest of my life only using that word and it would sum things up fine.

I step into the office and every coach inside turns to look at me. I nod at the first few, but then I’m stuck doing this stupid head bob that makes my headache worse. So, I give it up and head straight for the door to Coach’s private office. The door is half open, so I poke my head inside.

“Sir?”

He looks up from his computer, looks back at the screen, and types for a few seconds longer.

“Come in, Silas.”

And . . . another
fuck.
Coach only uses first names when shit is serious. I sit down, and the silence freaking swallows me. He takes a sip from a coffee mug, sets it back down, and waits another few seconds to look at me. Then he just stares. Straight face. Blank. Almost expectant. This must be what it’s like to have a parent around to piss off all the time.

“How was your weekend?”

Damn. Who told? I start running through the names and faces of who was at the party. No one saw me high that I know of, but they could have just told him about the party in general, and it was at my place.

“Fine, sir.”

“Fine.” He repeats, nodding. “Fine.” He draws the word out a little longer the second time. “Then explain to me why I heard from a friend in the sheriff’s office Saturday morning.”

I close my eyes and drop my head back. I didn’t even think about that. I’d assumed since Levi didn’t press charges that I was in the clear.

Wrong.

“It was all taken care of, Coach. They only held me for a couple of hours or so. Nothing will show up on my record.”

“I don’t care about your record. What the hell were you thinking, kid?”

“I’m sorry, sir. Levi just got under my skin, I guess.”

He stands up and plants a hard fist on his desk. “Then get thicker skin.”

I nod. “Yes, sir.”

He stands straight and paces behind his desk.

“You’re a good football player, Silas. And I see it in you when you play . . . I know what this team means to you. But your grades are mediocre. You have a temper. You have a tendency to make poor decisions.” Goddamn it, talk about a broken record.
I get it, world. I suck. It’s pretty clear now.

Coach continues, “I want to trust you . . . I do. You wield a great deal of influence over this team, and I want to make sure it’s a positive one.”

“I understand. I want that, too.”

“Then stay the hell away from Abrams. He’s banned from school property, but I don’t want him poisoning this team from the outside.”

“Done. I promise.”

He surveys me, almost like he doesn’t believe me.

“I need you to step up. I need you one hundred percent in this.”

“I am. One hundred percent.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and continues studying me.

“Then you won’t mind proving it by getting a head start on practice. Get dressed. Coach Oscar will meet you on the field for sprints while I meet with the rest of the team.”

Of course. Just what my body needs right now. Something else to make me feel like vomiting.

“How many, sir?”

“Until I feel confident that there will be no more calls from the sheriff’s office.”

In other words, until I damn near die of exhaustion.

T
HEY CALL THESE
sprints suicides for a reason. You start at one end zone, sprint to the first ten-yard line, and back to the end zone. Then the twenty-yard line and back. Thirty. Forty. And on and on.

Coach Oz even has a little special twist he likes to add, in case you weren’t already tempted to spill your guts all over the grass. He’s one of the youngest coaches on staff, and as such feels the need to be a complete hardass so we take him seriously. So being the sadistic bastard that he is, he makes us do twenty push-ups every time we return to the end zone.

I’m already exhausted by the time I get to the fifty-yard line, and it feels like I still have an eternity to go. As I approach the end zone, Oz yells, “Pick it up, Moore! Looking slow today.”

That’s because I feel like I’m going to throw up my lungs, Coach.

I drop to do my push-ups and the constant up and down makes my nausea double. My arms are burning when I finish and drag myself to my feet.

“Move your ass, twenty-two!”

I’m still running when the rest of the team comes out on the field, and Coach Cole lines them up along the sideline to wait and watch as I finish.

I try not to get angry. I really do, but the humiliation gets to me. Might as well make me hold a sign that says I can’t do anything right. Not even on the first day of practice.

I grit my teeth so hard I expect my jaw to break as I finish my last sprint from one end zone to the other. I drop for my push-ups and growl my way through them. When I’m done, I stand and face Oz. It’s a dumbass move, but I’m pissed and not thinking straight, so I raise my eyebrows and ask, “Should I keep going?”

It’s Coach Cole who answers. “That will do for now.”

As I walk over to join the rest of the team on the sideline, I try to keep my breathing steady, but it feels like one of the linemen has been using my chest as a trampoline.

“Mr. Moore has just helped demonstrate our new discipline policy, gentlemen. When you skip a class, when your grades drop below the line, when your actions reflect poorly on this team, that’s an infraction. For the first infraction, you run.” He gestures back toward Coach Oz, and a few players groan quietly. “If you commit a second infraction or the problems persist, your entire position group runs with you.” People start looking around at the players around them, the guys who now determine whether or not they’re subjected to the will of Coach Sadist. “And if one of you is stupid enough to get in trouble a third time, you, your position group, and your position coach will run.” He shoots his staff a sly smile, and I can tell this is news to them. And when they fix their eyes on the players, they definitely aren’t screwing around. “We are a team,” Coach yells. “We win and lose together. So, we’ll screw up and get better
together,
too. It’s not just your own ass on the line, it’s everyone’s.”