What We Saw (13 page)

Then he leaves.

In my mind's eye, I see him closing Dooney's front door and walking to his truck. He climbs in, he turns on some music, and he drives home. I see the Ben I have always known, being the person he has always been: honest and kind.

I see the guy who loves me.

Of course he's angry and confused. Of course he doesn't know who to believe. Isn't that exactly how I feel?

Finally, Ben reaches over and slides his hand around my ankle. He runs his fingers up and down on my calf, hesitant, searching out some common ground between us. “You have such great soccer legs.”

“The better to kick your ass with.”

He turns toward me with a sheepish grin and I roll my eyes. “Where the hell did you learn to unzip a dress with one hand? Was there a clinic on that at basketball camp?”

“I've been the man of the house for a few years now,” he says quietly. “I'm good at zipping them up, too. Here, lemme show you.”

He stands and takes both my hands, pulling me to my feet. He turns me around and pulls the zipper up my back, adjusting the fabric on my shoulders. Then he places a tender kiss on my neck.

I turn around. He leans in and kisses my lips once. “Can I have a do-over?”

I nod.

“I love you, Kate Weston.”

“I love you, too, Ben Cody.” The words tumble out in a whisper.

He drives me home and walks me to the front door. Beneath the porch light, he gives me one last kiss. He wraps both arms around me, pats me on the back, and whispers in my ear the words he said that first time he hugged me when we were five years old.

“It's okay. It's going to be fine.”

I WAKE UP
to the sound of laughter.

It's early still, but I know it's only me and Will in the house. When his crew is on a project, Dad always puts in at least half a day on Saturday, and most of the time, he doesn't get home until five. Weekends, Mom meets her friend Mindy from work to speed-walk in the park. She talks about all the calories they burn when she gets home and makes sure to mention that afterward she had her omelet made from Egg Beaters, that yellow stuff that comes in a carton and looks like liquid eggs, but isn't quite.

I smile as I think about Mom and Mindy, pumping their arms and swinging their hips from side to side in the funny
way that speed walking requires. All that movement, but they don't cover much ground. I know she'll switch to Sundays with Mindy once soccer starts. Hopefully, Dad will finish up this project soon and be able to make some games as well.

Will is glued to the screen of his laptop when I poke my head in the door of his room. He's sitting at his desk, his back to me and his earbuds in, giggling like a crazy person while he clicks through Facebook pictures. I can see he's on a video chat with Tyler, who must be cracking him up. I smile and tiptoe sideways around his bed so I can stay out of the camera frame. It is my general rule that I refuse to appear on any camera in any way until I have looked at myself in a mirror. I also want to spook the crap out of my brother. Will likes to sneak up and scare the bejesus out of me. This is payback.

I am stretching out my hands to squeeze his shoulders and shout
Boo!
when he says something that makes me freeze.

“No
way
, dude. She's a six,
tops.
”

I frown and slowly lower myself onto my knees so I'm below the sight line of the camera, but can still see the screen if I crane my head sideways. Will clicks back and forth between two pictures of a girl named Emily from his class.

“She's got a mustache, Ty. I swear. That picture has more filters on it than Dooney's hot tub.”

I see Tyler's head pop back with a hoot of laughter in the square at the corner of Will's screen. Will giggles like he used to when we were little and spent Saturday mornings watching SpongeBob in our PJs instead of . . . doing whatever this is.

Tyler says something I can't hear, and Will acquiesces. “Fine!” he shouts. “I'll give her a seven, but she is
not
in the top three.” Will clicks to comment on the picture. He types a
7
then
#JVbuccs
, then
#r&p
.

As he moves to post this, I jump up and grab his wrist. “No!”

Will leaps to his feet, screaming. I would say that he yelled, but it was higher pitched than that. Definitely a scream. His headphones rip from his ears, but not fast enough, and the wire pulls his laptop across the desk. It hits his leg, and the padded seat of his rolling chair before bouncing onto the carpet.

“What the hell are you doing?” He's panting like he just ran a fast mile.

“I might ask the same of you,” I say calmly. “You're not really about to post a rank on that girl's Facebook picture are you?”

Will's gaze darts to his laptop on the floor. He dives for it, but I smack my bare foot on top of it, and slide it toward me. His gangly ninth-grade limbs are longer than mine, but he's not in full control of them yet—no match for my fast feet and twelve years of soccer drills.

“Watch it!” he yells. “You're gonna break my computer.”

“I'm gonna break your face if you don't knock it off.”

“Why do you care?” he huffs. “It's just a game.”

I cross my arms as my eyes go wide. “Just a game? Putting that number on her Facebook wall so everybody can see it? Are you kidding me?”

“It's a joke.” Will is pleading now, his eyes downcast.

“No, it's not. It's somebody's feelings.”

I flip open his laptop, and the screen blinks to life. The chat window is blank now. Tyler has disappeared back into the ether. He'll stay there if he knows what's good for him.

I put the laptop back on his desk. “Look at her,” I command.

Will rolls his eyes and sinks into his chair, his lips a locked vault.

“How would you feel if I ranked you? Or Tyler?” I ask. “What if I put numbers under your pictures and told the whole world that you two aren't very attractive? Would you like that?”

His silent shrug makes me want to smack him in the back of the head. “Jesus, Will. She's a human being, not a hashtag. There's a person involved.” As the word
hashtag
leaves my lips, the blinking cursor in the comment box catches my eye. I point at
#r&p.
“What is this? What does it mean?”

Will leans in and looks where I am pointing. “I dunno.”

“Then why are you typing it under this girl's picture? If you don't even know what it means?”

He shrugs again. It's an epidemic with the guys in my world, this shrugging. None of them know. Or want to know. Or maybe they do know and just want me off their backs. “I just saw it on a bunch of tweets about . . .” He doesn't finish.

“Dooney's party?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“But you don't know what it means?”

He shakes his head. “No. A bunch of the varsity guys have been using it.”

“Which ones?”

He huffs a huge breath and rubs his hands on his face. “Why do you care so much?”

“Why don't you care at all?”

He chews his cheek and drops his head. “Dooney, Deacon, Greg, Randy—”

“So basically, everyone who was arrested this week.”

He nods, miserably. “But more, like LeRon and Reggie. Kyle, too.”

I lean over him and delete the words he almost posted. “You do know you're not the only person who can see what you comment online, right? You may recall that whole thing about the police collecting people's phones?”

He groans. “Jeez. Fine. Okay,
Mom
.”

“If you want, we can certainly talk to Mom about it.” This gets his attention. “Those pictures that girl posted? What's her name? Emily? They're not for you. They're not your property. You aren't entitled to use them however you please. How many other pictures did you rank?”

He grunts and plugs his earbuds back into the computer. “Why are you so hysterical about this?”

Something in me snaps. I grab the neck of his T-shirt and yank it toward me, almost pulling him out of his chair. My voice is a low, steady whisper. “I am not hysterical about anything. I am concerned that my brother is turning into an asshole
.
” I push him back into the chair. “Delete every rank you posted on a picture this morning.”

“Or what?” he counters. “You'll tell Mom?”

“Nope.” I walk across his room and step over a pair of boxer shorts into the hallway. “You'll deal directly with Dad on this one.”

As I close the door to my own room I hear what sounds like a shoe hitting the wall. I grab my phone and text Rachel.

I need to move my legs before I start using my fists.

BY THE TIME
Lindsey joins me on the soccer field at school, I'm already in the middle of my first full line drill. Rachel and Christy are stretching and waiting by the goal nearest to the parking lot. I push buttons to clear and start the stopwatch on my wrist, then put my hands on top of my head to keep from folding in half.

Deep breaths.

Walking in circles.

Christy, bitching.

“Line drills? On a Saturday? How the hell did you let her talk you into this?” she asks Rachel.

“You'll be glad we did it come Monday.” Rachel jumps up and
grabs her own ankle, pulling it from behind to stretch her quads.

“Might as well get the puking out of the way while Coach Lewis isn't watching,” teases Lindsey. Christy doesn't even retort, just leans over in a hurdler's stretch and moans softly into her own kneecap.

“Forty-five seconds, ladies, then we go again.” My breathing slows, but my pulse is still racing. I can't get the image of Will typing hashtags out of my head.

Line drills consist of running the length of the field from one end to the other in increasing distances: from the goal line to the penalty box and back, then out to the middle of the field and back, and so on, bending down to touch each line with a hand as the trips across the field grow successively longer. By the time Christy touches the goal line at the far end of the field the first time, she is doubled over with cramps and drops to her knees. Rachel, Lindsey, and I tap the near goal line as this happens, and Rachel yells
no
as loudly as she can. If Coach Lewis sees anyone stop, she adds another drill.

I am already exhausted from two full rounds, but I turn and follow Rachel and Lindsey down to where Christy is kneeling and heaving. Lindsey and I both take an arm and pull her to her feet, dragging her toward the goal while Rachel shouts threats and encouragements, alternating stick and carrot:

You're almost finished!

Can't do that Monday, or Coach will make you run it again!

Don't give up! Go, go, GO!

Christy collapses on her back, and I clear my stopwatch
again. “Four more to go. We've got forty-five seconds on the clock.”

“I . . . can't . . . ,” Christy says, panting.

“You can,” I say, offering her a hand. “Get up. Walk. Breathe. You're the best goalie in our conference, but not if you can't turn on the speed.”

Reluctantly, she gives me her hand, and I pull her up. “We're running in twenty,” I say.

“I hate you,” gasps Christy.

“You'll love her on Monday,” Rachel says grimly. “We all will.”

Then I count down from ten and we go again.

Miraculously, we all finish another four complete drills without seeing what Christy ate for breakfast, then collapse next to the goal breathing hard.

Christy pulls a handful of grass and tosses it in my hair. “What brought this on, Weston?”

I take a deep breath and blow it out through puffed cheeks at the sky above us. “My brother was driving me crazy.”

Rachel laughs. “Send your brother to my house. He can deal with my sisters and I'll move in with you.”

“Deal. He can be such a moron.”

“He'll fit right in,” she says.

“What'd he do?” Christy wants to know. “Don't you two usually get along?”

The breeze is chilly, but it feels good blowing across the sweat on my forehead. I can smell the dirt in the bare spots
around the field. This poor grass. We'll rip it to shreds starting Monday, no matter how much they fertilize it.

I roll over on my side, propped up on an elbow, and run my fingers through the tufts of green. “He was posting stupid crap on Facebook.”

“Like what?” asks Lindsey.

“He and his friend on the JV team were ranking the girls in their class.”

Christy sits up fast, the gleam of nearby gossip in her eyes. “Who'd they say was the hottest?”

“Not the girl they were giving a seven to when I stopped him,” I say.

Christy laughs, and I shoot her a look. “What?” she says. “Boys will be boys.”

“That's bullshit.” All three of us turn to look at Lindsey.

“Lighten up,” says Rachel.

Lindsey isn't having it. “‘Boys will be boys' is what people say to excuse guys when they do something awful.”

“What are you so upset about?” Christy asks. “They didn't rank you.”

Lindsey faces Christy full on, sitting up on her knees. “Can you honestly tell me you'd find it funny if someone posted a rank on your profile picture?”

Christy just looks away and picks another handful of grass. “Depends on my rank.”

“Bring it,” says Rachel. “I'd be a ten.” She tries to make this a cute joke, flipping her ponytail.

Only Christy laughs. “C'mon. Don't you remember when Dooney was doing that last fall? He and Deacon would sit at lunch and scribble a score for every girl that picked up a tray in the cafeteria line?”

A small jolt of memory. It was the very first week of school. I was paying so much attention to Ben I'd barely noticed Dooney and Deacon scribbling big numbers with Sharpies in spiral notebooks, holding them up in the air. I hadn't even realized they were rating girls.
What did they rate me?
No wonder Ms. Speck marched over on her high heels and told them to knock it off. I'd forgotten all about it.

“That's just the way guys are,” says Christy.

“Is it?” asks Rachel quietly. “Or is that just the way these guys are?”

“Yeah,” says Lindsey. “I can't imagine my dad doing stuff like that with his buddies.”

“Ben would never act like that.” But as the words leave my lips, the tiny voice whispering questions clicks up one more notch on the volume dial.

Christy groans. “Yes, your knight in shining armor is practically perfect in every way.” She lies on her back, both hands on her right calf, pulling her knee toward her chest. “Also, we're not talking about our dads. We're talking about a bunch of high school goofballs.”

“Dooney and his gang aren't ‘goofballs,'” Lindsey says. “They're creeps.”

I frown. “Ben isn't a creep.” It comes out defensive.

“Sorry.” Lindsey means it. “I just think you should tell Will to be careful. He clearly thinks Ben and Dooney are the bee's knees.”

Christy and Rachel giggle when she says this. I can't help but laugh myself. “The what?” I ask.

Lindsey laughs with us. “The bee's knees?”

“Oh my god,” chortles Christy. “Who are you right now? My grandpa?”

Rachel stands up. “Well, thanks for the memories, you guys. See you on Monday.” She has to drop Christy off and pick up her sisters from a birthday party. Lindsey and I watch them pull out of the parking lot, driving past the news vans that still linger by the front entrance.

“Will acted like I was a huge wet blanket because I didn't want him ranking the girls in his class. It was like I was this big . . .” I search for the right word.

“Bitch?” Lindsey asks.

It stings even coming from her mouth. “Yeah,” I say. “I just want him to be a good guy, you know?”

Lindsey nods, but doesn't say anything. Sometimes, I think most of friendship is knowing when to keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Lindsey is an expert where this is concerned. She flips onto her back and stretches her hamstring, waiting for me to continue.

“What bothered me most was how Will didn't get it. He didn't understand why I was upset that he was telling these girls they don't measure up. He acts like he has some natural right
to tell them they should look a certain way. Why? Because he's a dude?”

“It's not just your brother.” Lindsey stands up and stretches her arms above her head. “Seen a Hardee's commercial lately? The whole planet is wired that way.”

We walk to our cars, and when I tell Lindsey I'll see her on Monday, she hugs me. She's not much of a hugger.

I smile. “What was that for?”

“For being somebody who cares about this stuff,” she says. “Not many people around here do.” She gives me a little wave, then gets in her navy-blue hatchback and drives away.

There are only two news vans here right now, which leaves me wondering where the other three are. Off getting coffee? On the curb at the courthouse, waiting for word on whether Greg and Randy will be tried as adults? The trailer park, staking out Stacey's place again?

After I start the truck, I sit there for a second before I throw it in reverse. I'm not even sure where I'm headed, really, until I make the turn toward Walmart.