Smashed (16 page)

“Who else was there from field hockey?” I asked. “Besides Sue and Marcy.” I couldn’t believe the sophomore who’d replaced me in that first scrimmage had the nerve to show up and drink.

“Megan, of course, and Cheryl. Basically your key defensive players and one half-assed sub. Wasn’t the same without you, though. People were asking for you.”

Alec opened another beer and drank, neither of us speaking
for a moment. I leaned against the refrigerator, arms folded across my chest.

“Well, thanks for stopping by,” I said, taking a new tack. Maybe if I was nice he’d leave. “I’m going to go to bed.”

“Want some company?”

“What?”

“Take it easy. Can’t you take a joke anymore? You know, you used to be fun.” He stood up then, and I hoped he was leaving, but he came and stood next to me.

“The guys on the team have been calling me Frank—you know, for Frankenstein. A highly creative group,” he said, turning his cheek toward me, rubbing his scar. “But Scottie just calls me Scarface. I prefer that, don’t you? Not original, but it’s the Al Pacino thing. You know that old flick
Scarface
, right?” He fixed his blue eyes on mine.

“Yeah. But I don’t think it’s very nice,” I said, looking away.

“It’s true, though. You can’t hide from the truth.”

“Well, you don’t have to rub it in, either.”

“I don’t mind. Scars add character to a guy’s face. Don’t you think?” He circled around me and we were chest to chest, my back pushed up against the refrigerator. His hands held my upper arms a little too firmly. There was nowhere to look but up at his face.

“Look, Alec. I’m sorry.” My voice was barely audible. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” he whispered.

“I’m sorry . . . this happened to you. Sorry I totaled your car. Sorry you . . . got hurt.”

“It’s no big deal, Katie, I told you. All I want is to be friends again. I mean, why do you think I took the hit for you?” He looked me in the eye. “We both know what you’ve got on the line.”

“We are friends, Alec.”

“Friends are nice to each other. They spend time together. They welcome each other into their homes.”

“You’re welcome here. It’s just a little too late is all.”

“Too late for what?” He moved in to kiss me, and I realized how disgusting beer breath is when you don’t have it yourself. I tried not to flinch and to kiss him back.
If I’m nice, maybe he’ll leave
, I thought again. That was all I could think.

“See?” he said softly. “Isn’t that better than fighting?”

“That’s not friends, Alec.”

“Don’t start with that bullshit.” He stepped back but didn’t take his eyes off me. “You said that you wanted to be ‘just friends’ this summer, but you still went to Haley Pond with me. And you didn’t exactly kiss me like I was your brother just now, did you?”

I didn’t have a choice
, I thought vaguely. But I did, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have tried to be nice.

He moved in and kissed me again, this time sliding his hands up under my loose T-shirt and onto my bare chest.

I pushed his hands away. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Bull
shit
, you don’t.” But he backed off then, and stepped away. “You know what your problem is? You say one thing and you do another. You oughta watch that.” He paused, pointing an index finger at me. “It can get you into trouble.”

He picked up the beer he was drinking. “I’m outta here,” he said. “Thanks for the party.”

And he left, the screen door slamming shut behind him. I closed the kitchen door, locked it, and listened to him peel out of the driveway.

Four beers and a lime sat on the kitchen table. I opened one, poured it into a tall glass, and sliced the fruit. “Don’t mind if I do,” I said to myself and sat down. My hands trembled.

I definitely needed a drink.

We won our second game and then our third and fourth. By the third week in September we were the team to beat in our league, and no one could do it—not yet. Coach Hollyhock from U. Maine contacted Coach Riley and made a date to come see me play. She was coming herself, not sending an assistant. Coach Riley said this was huge. It meant she was interested—very interested.

Cassie and I were mad at Megan and those guys for going to Stan’s and to other parties, too, but they never got caught and I didn’t care anymore. They could do what they wanted. My world revolved around field hockey, and I poured everything I had into the games we played twice a week. I showed up early at practice and was out on the field before anyone else, working on my flicks and driving at an empty goal cage. I worked my butt off during practice, leading our mile run each day, playing as if every scrimmage, every drill, was a tournament game.

My goal was singular. I would let nothing—no
body
—come between me and my future.

*     *     *

The hallway was deserted.

I dug through the books and papers at the bottom of my locker, searching for the text I needed to take back to study hall. Footsteps, rubber soles squeaking on the polished wood floor, rounded the corner. Alec appeared.

I slammed the locker door and headed toward my classroom. Alec and I saw each other every day—we had classes together—but we hadn’t spoken since he’d showed up at my house that night weeks before. Our relationship had become what I’d wanted all along: silent coexistence.

“Hey,” Alec called after me. “Katie?”

I spun around and faced him. What could he possibly want now?

“Listen,” he said, walking up to me until we stood just two feet apart. “I owe you an apology—for barging into your house after Stanfield’s. That was lame. I was drunk.”

I hesitated, then looked at him. Could he actually mean it?

“Thanks,” I said, turning to go.

“I just wanted to give you something.”

My curiosity won. “What is it?”

He paused, eyes searching my face. “Here.” He handed me an envelope. “The concert’s already sold out and I know how much you love the Fly. I had an extra.”

I opened the envelope and stared down at the single ticket.
The best band in the world
ran through my head involuntarily. The concert was just a few weeks away. Cassie and I tried to
get tickets, but they had sold out in what seemed like seconds.

“A bunch of us are going if you want to come . . .” He faltered. “ . . . Or not.”

Everything in me wanted to go to that concert. But that would be a mistake. Going with Alec would be a huge mistake.

“No,” I said finally. “Thanks anyway.” I held it back out to him.

Alec pursed his lips. “Keep it,” he said. “It’s yours.”

I looked down at my extended hand. He didn’t reach out to take it.

A moment later, he was gone.

I stood in the empty hallway, staring at the ticket. All I wanted was to be rid of Alec. One minute he was ordering me to go to Stan’s with him and swaggering around my kitchen drunk; the next he was—what? Ignoring me completely? Apologizing? Making it up to me with a free concert ticket? Who
was
he? He made no sense. Whatever game he was playing, I couldn’t afford to get sucked back in. It was too easy for that to happen; I’d learned that over the summer.

I had to trust him with our secret—I had no choice—but beyond that, forget it. I had to remember that. I
had
to.

*     *     *

I didn’t tell anyone about the concert ticket, especially Matt. What would I say? That I’d won it on the radio? Who wins
one
concert ticket? No, I also didn’t want to lie to him again. The one lie hanging out there already was killing me. I didn’t need any others.

But I couldn’t keep it from Cassie forever, and as the concert date got closer, I still didn’t know what to do. I needed her advice. On a warm Saturday afternoon, as chain saws wailed across the lake, I wheeled my bike out of the barn and headed toward her house.

I sped along the shore of the lake, breathing in the brilliant foliage; whole trees had changed color and lost their leaves, bright reds and yellows twirling down into pools of water where they lay just beneath the surface, shimmering like gems. I hopped off my bike and stood in the shadow of a towering maple tree covered with fiery orange leaves, waiting for Cassie to come out.

“You have a
what
?” she shrieked, her voice echoing across the water. “How did you get it?” She loved the Fly as much as I did—maybe more, if that was even possible.

“Don’t freak out when I tell you. . . .”

She was practically levitating. “Oh my God. Oh my
God
! You’re going to see them
live
?”

“No, no, listen. I don’t know if I’m going . . .”

“What? Are you insane?” She was barely paying attention.

“Cassie.” I grabbed her arm. “
Alec
gave it to me.”

She stopped. Suddenly she was back, fully present. Sensible Cassie.

“Alec.” Her voice was flat.

I told her the story.

“So he thought he could get you to go to the concert with him.” She couldn’t hide her disdain; she didn’t even try. “What
a loser. For someone who’s supposed to be so popular, why act so desperate? I mean, Kay, I’m your biggest fan—but why is he so obsessed with you? Why doesn’t the guy just move on to someone who actually
likes
him?”

“I don’t know what to do. Should I go?”

“With
Alec
?”

I hesitated. “No . . . by myself. You know, just use the ticket.”

Cassie paced across her yard. “I thought he was with Sue Tapley now. She’s got terrible taste—she’s perfect for him.” She glanced at me, “No offense—but he wasn’t your best pick.”

“Sue
Tapley
?” Something like jealousy flickered through me and was gone. “He’s with Sue Tapley? Since
when
?”

“You can’t go. Shit.” She picked up the ticket and stared at it. “But how can you
waste
it? The Fly,” she whispered reverently.

“The Fly,” I said back.

It was early, very early, but that’s how we’d planned it.

Cassie and I had agreed I couldn’t go with Alec. But wasting the ticket would have been sacrilegious. She refused to take it—
Alec owes you this
, she’d said—and there was just no other way I could part with it. Who knew if I’d ever have this chance again? So there I was, driving to Portland alone, early enough, I hoped, to get a front-row standing position on the floor of the Civic Center.

I’d heard that Scott’s father, who was a big lawyer in Portland, had pulled some strings to get the tickets. For some reason that made me feel better. It wasn’t like Alec had done anything special for them; the tickets had just dropped into his lap. Probably
free
.

Alec never asked me if I was going, and I never told him. He was going with Scott, Megan, Cheryl—the usual—and they’d never arrive five hours before the concert. They weren’t that organized, plus, no matter how much they liked the band, they were in it for the party—and that was best achieved in a dark parking garage right before the show.

*     *     *

The plan worked. I arrived with the real die-hards, the ones there for the sheer love of the music. They knew if you were lining up outside the doors with them at three in the afternoon, then you were a die-hard, too, so it was less weird and lonely. We drank bottled water and shared food we’d stuffed in our pockets. Hours later, when the security guards finally opened the doors, we ran together down the stairs of the deserted Civic Center, streaming onto the wide empty floor like kids set free on a playground.

We whooped and hollered as we raced, grinning, right up to the rope in front of the stage. Breathless, I took in the scene in front of me—speakers, instruments, wires, microphones. I wasn’t just going to hear the band live—I was going to
see
the band. Up close. I was ten feet away. I couldn’t believe the Fly was going to be right
there
—or that I’d ever hesitated to come.

*     *     *

I was lost in the music: swaying, moving, singing. Every song was familiar. Every lyric I knew by heart. The band was sweating under the lights, their wet hair sticking to their faces—faces I’d only seen on television and in magazines and online. They were real. They were wonderful.

Heavy, sweet smoke filled the air. Bodies pushed against me, pulsing to the beat. Behind me on the floor and all around the stadium cell phones glowed, tiny torches of light, a salute to the ballad they had just begun playing—a favorite that everyone knew, even the kids who’d only heard the singles in rotation on the radio. I raised my arms over my head, my body moving like
one with the people around me. We were united, all of us. The world outside was gone. The pinpricks of light that filled the arena were like stars in our own parallel universe.

A pair of hands gently touched down on my shoulders and stayed there. I turned my head and there was Alec, smiling a genuine smile.

His lips touched my ear. “I’m glad you came.”

He’d found me in the crowd, among hundreds of people—
how
? I was so sure he’d be far away, up in the stands, drinking from tiny bottles he’d smuggled past security. But I was too happy to care, too absorbed in the music, in the moment, to let anything ruin it. I was here
because
of Alec—he’d given me this. He slid his hands down over my bare arms and took my hands, moving with me to the music, his chin on my shoulder, his face beaming. At that moment, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

We threw ourselves into the encores, all of us, determined to get the band back onstage. They were ours, and they were holding us all together. We didn’t want to let them go. I was dizzy with the heat, exhausted from yelling. My head felt light, barely attached to my shoulders, my body weightless, floating inches off the floor. The smoke had filled my lungs for hours and left my eyes stinging. A contact high? Probably. But that wasn’t my fault. It felt good. Almost like tripping.