One Southern Night (7 page)

“Come here.” I hold my arms out half conscious. I just need to hold her. Laney climbs up over my naked body and snuggles up against me. “Mmmm.” I love having nothing between us. Laney and I just lounge, stroking and caressing each other in comfortable silence.

“We better get dressed,” Laney says after a while.

I know she’s right, my mom will be home soon, but I’m just not ready to let her go. “One more minute.”

She humors me.

“Laney?”

“Yeah, Kam?”

“If I never played football again, would that be okay with you?” I don’t know what spurred the question. Old demons maybe.

Laney stops tracing my stomach and lifts her head to look at me. Her hair is a bit messy and there is a red streaked strand falling over her right eye. “Of course it would. I don’t care that you play football, Kam. I only care that you’re happy.” I nod. I only care that she’s happy, too. “And I have complete faith you’ll play football again. The question is, do you want to?”

“More than anything.” I don’t even hesitate.

“Then you will.”

“I hope so.” I stare at the ceiling. I don’t know how one aspect of my life can be so perfect and the other be such a mess.

Laney lies back down and hugs me tight. Her touch alone is medicinal. “My father was watching this football movie the other night. I don’t know the name of it, I was only half paying attention. But I remember the coach being interviewed by a reporter. She asked what his team was missing. I guess they weren’t very good or something.”

“What was his reply?” I ask intrigued.

“Heart. He said they were missing heart.” She looks up at me. “Do you have heart, Kam?”

I stare at Laney. Do I? I thought I did. But ever since the aneurysm, heart seems to be missing.

“I used to.”

“Where is it now?”

I smile at her stupidly. “In my arms.”

I
walk down the empty hallway.

It’s my first day back at school, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. One, because it gets me out of the house- I was starting to get cabin fever. Two, because I get to spend first period with Laney, then lunch, then I get to enjoy watching her bounce around in little shorts during volleyball practice. Sometimes it doesn’t totally suck to be Kam Ellis.

I stroll past the lockers toward chem when someone grabs me by the arm. “Whoa!” I’m yanked into the storage room and attacked. A pair of sugary, sweet tasting lips smash against mine, and I’m momentarily stunned. I push her away. “Darla?! What the fuck?” Seriously did this chick not take the hint? I haven’t called or text or even breathed in her direction, and yet here she is shoving her tongue down my throat.

“I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to be the first to welcome you back,” she purrs.

“A simple hi would have been fine.” I wipe her sticky lip gloss off my mouth. Yuck. Darla pouts. I’ve been back at school for five seconds, and it’s starting already.

“What’s wrong with you, Kam? You’re no fun anymore. ”

“I’m plenty fun, sugar. I’m just not interested in having any with you. I tried to be nice, but that didn’t seem to work. So, let me be clear. I don’t like you. I don’t want to fool around or hang out. I have a girlfriend now. And I don’t think she’d take too kindly to you accosting me in the storage closet.”

“A girlfriend?” Darla questions, and then it registers. “Laney Summers?” She almost sounds disgusted.

“Yes, Laney Summers. You have a problem with that?”

“No.” Darla backs down. “She just doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Yeah, well opposites attract. Now back off.”

The warning bell rings.

“Fine. I’m sorry.”

“If you want to apologize to someone, do it to Laney.”

“You going to tell her?”

“Afraid she’ll kick your ass?”

“No,” Darla huffs.

“You should be. She’s tough. Trust me, I know. I’ve wrestled with her.” Darla scrunches her nose. Didn’t like that mental picture, huh? I grin to myself.

“So are you going to tell her?” Darla sounds a little more worried now. And she should be. I wasn’t kidding when I said Laney was tough. She can definitely throw down.

“Are you going to leave me alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then, no. Let’s keep both our asses out of trouble.”

“Fine.”

“Good.” I open the door to a hallway full of my peers. I don’t make it two steps into the crowd when I run right into the person I most wanted to see … just not at this moment.

Laney’s eyes widen as she looks between me and Darla. This is not good.

“No, Laney. It’s not what you think.” I panic.

“Oh, really? Because it looks like you and Darla coming out of the storage room after a morning hook-up.” She gets shoved by someone and loses her footing. I grab her before she falls. “No. Laney.”

“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, pulling away. “God, you really are a douchebag.” She calls me out in the middle of the hallway and stops pedestrian traffic. Fuck. Just what we need- an audience.

“Can we talk about this someplace else?” I lower my voice so only she can hear me.

“Talk? You think I want to talk to you? Shit Kam, you really had me fooled.” She sounds so hurt. But it’s not what she thinks. If I can just explain!

“I never lied to you!”

“Are you seriously trying to play that card?” she asks disgusted.

The bell rings again, and everyone starts to scatter. Half the school is late for first period. Laney takes off, and I rush after her. “Laney! Laney!”

She walks into chem and straight to Mr. Johnson’s desk. “Can I have a pass for the nurse please?” Her voice cracks. Shit. No!

“Is everything alright, Ms. Summers?” the older man with white hair asks as he writes it out.

“Fine. I’m just suddenly not feeling so well.” She takes the small pink piece of paper.

“Do you need someone to take you?”

“I will,” I interject.

“No!” Laney seethes. Mr. Johnson looks between us concerned. “I’m fine, really. I just need to go now.”

“I’ll mark you as present. Go ahead.” Laney walks out the door, and I follow.

“Laney,” I say, desperate for her to just look at me. She has it all wrong.

“Piss off, Kam,” she growls.

She’s gone after that.

“Fuck!” I punch a locker.

What was I saying about it not sucking to be Kamdyn Ellis?

FUMBLE!

I’ve tried everything.

Cards, flowers, candy. Nothing works. Laney has officially cut me off. It’s been over a month, and she’s barely spoken three words to me.

Chem is worse than Chinese water torture. Sitting half a foot away from the person you love, and them not giving you the time of day is cruel and unusual punishment.

Life has been fabulous lately. I lost my girl and the ability to play football. Why doesn’t the universe just take my hands, feet, eyes, and ears and call it a day. This mundane, slow death is agonizing.

Laney comes into first period and sits next to me in her usual seat. She drops her book bag on the table, pulls out her notebook, and looks straight ahead. Not even a glance in my direction.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” she responds coolly, just to be polite. That is what our relationship has become—a series of distant pleasantries. I watch her out of the corner of my eye as Mr. Johnson lectures about chemical reaction and mass conservation. I’m not hearing a word. The only chemical reaction I’m interested is the one that happens when Laney is in my arms. She jots down her notes diligently, her dark hair hiding most of her face. I want to reach out and tuck it behind her ear just so I can see her.

“Lemon,” I whisper. She ignores me. “Lemon, can we please talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she responds harshly.

“I think there is.” She keeps her eyes forward, unrelenting. It makes me crazy. “Laney, I miss you.”

That gets her attention. She stares at me with those bold blue eyes. I wonder if that put a chink in her armor. But she only scowls. “Then you should have thought about that before you went into the storage room with Darla.”

“I didn’t choose to go in, she grabbed me. And nothing happened, just like I told you a hundred times.”

“I wish I could believe you, Kam.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because leopards don’t change their spots. And I can’t be with someone who cheats on me. Call me possessive, I like what’s mine.”

“I am yours. And I would never cheat on you. That’s not who I am.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

Ouch.

I shake my head furiously. “You are the only person who knows me.”

Laney frowns. “Just leave it alone Kam. It’s over.”

It’s hard to accept. Defeat never comes easily to a competitor.

G
raduation is two weeks away.

The school is buzzing with excitement as the valedictorian is announced, the gym is prepared for the ceremony, and college acceptance letters pour in. I knew which college I was going to my junior year, the day the head coach of the University of Alabama came to my house with an offer I couldn’t refuse. That day changed everything. If I was star before, I was a god now. I wasn’t kidding when I told Laney football is a religion around here. Bear Bryant is Alabama’s messiah, and the fans are his followers. Roll Tide was the foundation of my football dream. There’s countless t-shirts packed in my drawers. A collection of ambitions: ‘Built by Bama’, ‘Keep Calm, The Tide is Coming’, ‘Heart and Soul Crimson Tide is How I Roll’. Soon, they’ll mean nothing; a vigil to the future that died that day on the football field.

I can’t throw, my accuracy is gone—a neurological side effect of the aneurysm. I’ll have to face the truth when I look into the eyes of the man who offered me everything and tell him my career is over before it even began.

I’m just not ready to do that though. So I’m going to try to distract myself for the next two weeks with senior year festivities, starting with the annual Powder Puff football game this afternoon.

I’m a male cheerleader — the best looking one in the bunch. I’ll be on the sidelines chanting as a group of handpicked girls go head-to-head with our rival school, North. You know them. I kicked their ass in the state championship.

The other ‘cheerleaders’ and I wait on one side of the huge banner by the south end zone. Just like when we play, the girls will burst through the crepe paper and run onto the field. Our team is called the Alabama Slammers. I thought it was catchy.

This is the first time I’ve stepped foot in this stadium since the state final. It all feels the same; overwhelming, awe-inspiring, adrenaline pumping. I miss it every day.

The band starts to play our fight song, signaling the start of the game. The players barrel through the decorated paper that declares GO ALABAMA BLUE. Each girl is dressed in a navy midriff jersey and black shorts. Their hair is done up in ponytails or pigtails with W for Wolverines painted on their faces. I take my place on the sidelines, luckily dressed in jeans and pink t-shirt, instead of a cheerleading skirt like the bozos on the other team. I take an inventory of the starting lineup. That’s when it hits me like a battering ram to the chest. Laney, standing next to Coach McKenzie, is taking direction on plays. Her hair is in two low pigtails and there’s eye black under her eyes. But it’s the number on her chest that has me panting. A huge, white seven is blaring back at me. Is she the QB? I didn’t even know she was playing. I make my way over to her and the head coach of the Wolverine’s, the man who has led seven teams to the state championships in ten years. To say he is respected would be an understatement. We don’t mess around in these parts. If we’re going to play football, whether it be Powder Puff or not, we call in the big guns. I listen as he goes over the running and passing plays. She looks a little nervous, but also intense. Her competitive side is flaring. It’s the same when she plays volleyball. You can see the hunger to win in her eyes. How do I know? I may have stalked a game or two. Sue me, I missed her.