HABIT, page 19
I scoot across the console and throw an arm around his neck as he does the same. I love my brother, and I’m grateful for him.
“I’ll see him when I know I can be an adult about it. I promise,” I say before kissing his cheek. He nods to me, clearly glad to hear me say that, and I grab my workload and slide out of the Tahoe.
Braden drives away, leaving me alone at the front of the school, steps from the Fuentes’ truck. I indulge in staring at it for a few seconds, remembering everything James and I did in that cab. I blush a little at the thought, but heartache creeps in quickly. I miss him.
My heart in my throat, I peel myself away from the parking lot and drag my heavy bag up to our dorm room. Music is playing on the other side of the door, and I pause for a second to steel myself. With a deep breath, I regroup my hold on my bag and push through the door to find my roommates sitting on their beds studying.
Lily’s hair is wet, which means she probably finished training recently. She pulls an earbud out as I enter and smiles.
“There you are! I just sent you a text, so feel free to ignore. We were worried about you,” she says, her smile forced. Lily is a bad liar; not that she’s lying about her being worried, but I think that we should have been a singular pronoun.
“I got caught up on a project. I’m really enjoying the PR stuff,” I say, twisting to glance to Brooklyn. Her face planted in an open textbook on her lap, she doesn’t even look up as I talk. Her earbuds are in, but I know she can hear me. That girl never likes to block out full sound. It makes her nervous not being able to hear.
I wasn’t very nice to her at lunch yesterday. I was bitter, and a lot of that had to do with James. After sending me an essay of an apology, he showed up to the cafeteria during our lunch hour but instead of sitting with us—with me—he took a seat alone across the room. He crammed his food down his throat and left without a word, and it pushed my pain to the surface. It’s possible I retrained all of my indignation onto Brooklyn and Cameron. I said some awful things, and I didn’t mean them.
I tap Brooklyn’s shoe to force her attention. She glances up and pulls one earbud out, giving me half of her attention. All right. I accept that.
“Yes?” Her tone is flat, mouth soured.
“Nothing. Just wanted to say I’m home.” I shrug, my spine pricking up with that familiar fire.
She scans the room before bringing her eyes back to mine.
“Yeah, I see,” she says, putting her earbud back in and dropping her gaze to the text-heavy pages in her lap.
I work my jaw side-to-side before breathing out a short laugh and muttering, “Okay.” I drop my work on my bed and kick off my slide shoes before sitting down to pull off my tights. I feel to the side to brace myself as I pull one leg free, and my hand lands on a hard plastic something. I grip it and inspect it once I’m sitting straight again, and the sight of my ID badge brings an odd wave of relief over my body.
“Oh, my God! Where did this come from?” I shout, holding the ID up.
Lily looks at me and shrugs.
“Did you leave it in bed or something? I’ve done that,” she says. She’s been at the pool all evening, and I haven’t told anyone I misplaced my badge so I nod as if she could be right. I know that’s not the case, however. It’s been missing for days, and the odds that it’s been chilling out on top of my comforter throughout nights of tossing and turning are basically nil.
I glance toward Brooklyn and decide my curiosity is worth braving her ire . . . again. I wave my hand emphatically until she looks up from her book and pulls her earbud free . . . again.
“Yes?” she grumbles.
My stomach sinks. I’ve really fucked things up here.
I hold up my badge and lift an eyebrow.
“James dropped it off,” she says, moving to put her earphone back in. I wave my hand again quickly, stopping her.
“James was here? He dropped this off?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what I said,” she grumps, holding a palm out as if to add in a little WTF.
“And he didn’t say anything? Did he ask me to call him? Did he wait around for a while?” I stare into her eyes, feeling my emotions give and force them to drop at the corners with the weight of hope. She blinks a single time.
“No. He said, ‘Give this to Morgan,’ and then left. And now you have it, so . . . job done.” She doesn’t smile a single time, and when she pushes her earbud back in this time I don’t stop her.
I want to throw my heavy bag at her and make her engage, but that would only be because I want someone to fight with—someone who isn’t James because I don’t want to fight with him.
But I want him. I want him to want me . . . to have stuck around and waited for me to get home. But he didn’t, and Brooklyn has unfairly been my sparring partner enough today. So instead, I tuck my ID badge into my wallet and pull out the work I brought home to distract me for the night. I spend an hour and a half reading through everything I wrote during the day, mentally not retaining a single word. The only thing I think about is James, and how much his dad hates me.
Chapter 18
James
I’m the first from our team to walk into the aquatics center at the fieldhouse. The space is pretty packed for a swim meet, at least in my experience. We never had enough to field a full team at Public. Sharing lanes with a dozen different teams at the Y didn’t really lend to strong competition. I guess at schools like Welles, however, swim is big.
I’m not sure how many seats to save, so I climb to the top, figuring that’s the best view. I pull my sweatshirt off and stretch it out to hold a few spots, then sit at the end and prop one of my legs to the side to cover more ground.
My dad isn’t going to make it. He wanted to, and not only for the team, but I think for me. Things have been strained between us since our huge truth session. I think my father’s embarrassed. He prides himself on family and how close we all are, but having to talk about the times when things weren’t great between my mom and him meant he had to expose the cracks. If that all had happened when I was younger, maybe in grade school, it would have hit me differently. But now it only makes me admire my parents and their relationship more. There’s comfort in seeing people handle curveballs. And my curveball just walked in.
I take a deep breath and sit up tall, hoping Morgan spots me. She stops in the doorway for a few seconds, so I stand up to make it easier for her to spot me. She wasn’t home when I left her badge last night, and Brooklyn seemed really busy with her studies, so I didn’t wait around like I wanted to. I asked Brooklyn to tell Morgan to call me, but she must have gotten in really late.
I lift a hand above my head and mentally will her eyes to look at me. She seems to be scanning the stands, so I wave a little more emphatically. Her arms fall heavy at her sides the minute she spots me, and she looks down at her feet as she trudges forward.
The bad feeling in my chest grows the closer she comes. She abruptly stops in the front row of the student section, about twenty rows in front of me, and plops her bag down along with a sweatshirt before she sits on the very end of the row, kind of like I did. Only she’s twenty rows away.
I look to my right, to my empty bench that is not even remotely under threat of filling up as people file into the lower rows first, and decide it’s probably safe to abandon my row and move down to join Morgan. I snag my sweatshirt and take the bleacher seats two at a time until I’m standing behind Morgan. I hover there for almost a full minute without her turning around, and the longer I stand the more I feel like a total jerk with absolutely no clue what to say.
I may as well cut my misery in half. Sitting down behind her, I’m enough to her right that I have a clear view of her profile. She’s wearing an intense expression, her lashes kissing her cheeks every time her eyes dart to a new focus. She seems nervous, and I’m not sure if that’s for her friend or due to the fact we are sitting close enough to touch yet not saying a word. This is silly.
“Did you get your badge?” I ask, leaning forward enough to catch her eyes. She shifts a little, startled, and meets my gaze.
Flashing me a quick smile, she utters, “I did. Thank you.” Her attention immediately returns to the pool and the door on the other side, waiting for anyone else to join us and save her from this. I find myself wishing for that too.
Leaning back, I rest my shoulder blades on the bench behind me and pull my phone out to see when Theo is coming.
ME: Dude, where are you?
He doesn’t write back right away, so I waste a little time flipping through social media. I pause on Morgan’s profile and notice that things have changed. Most of her images are gone, maybe only a handful still posted. And those are the images from important dates like her Sweet Sixteen party, and the photo of her with Anika, Lily and Brooklyn. My eyes dart up to catch the side of her face. She’s chewing on her bottom lip.
My chest gets heavy, my stomach sinking with an overwhelming sense of dread. I feel like I’ve lost her.
I lean forward, holding my breath because I’m so damn nervous to speak. But that’s the only way to figure this out, to fix things. Eventually, I’m leaning so far over my own knees that I enter her periphery and she tilts her head to the side and lifts a brow as if asking, “What?”
“I was hoping maybe we could talk. Not now, of course, but after. If you want.” I meet her stare, and she blinks a few times, the way she does when she’s baffled by someone, and not in a good way.
“You want to talk.” Her statement is simple. Short. Maybe a little mean.
I swallow down the acid climbing up and pray my heart steadies. She makes me so fucking nervous.
“I do. Yes. I want to talk. With you,” I say.
Her mouth forms an instant smile. Again, not in a good way.
“Is that why you dropped off my badge and ran last night?” she asks.
I look on for a moment, not sure how to answer her. My tongue gets more tied when Brooklyn steps up to her row, then proceeds to move up one step to sit next to me. Morgan makes eye contact with her friend for maybe a second before Brooklyn turns to her side and begins a conversation with a faculty member across the aisle.
“Unbelievable,” Morgan utters, turning around in her seat and effectively ending our conversation.
I’m missing major context clues, but from the little I’ve gathered, Morgan and Brooklyn aren’t getting along. I have zero experience with siblings and wouldn’t presume I’d be able to step into a situation that’s more like sisters, but if Morgan’s beef with Brooklyn is getting in the way of resolving the one with me, I have to do something. I wait for Brooklyn to finish her conversation, but the moment she turns back into our row, I pounce with my own questions.
“Did you tell her I dropped the badge off? She knows it was me, right?”
Brooklyn stares at me as if I spoke Latin.
“Did you tell her—”
“Yeah, I told her. She got her badge. All good,” Brooklyn cuts in. She turns her attention to her own purse, pulling out her phone and flipping through social media. I keep an eye on her screen, totally invading her privacy, and when she gets to Morgan’s account she stops. Like me, she must notice the drastic change in her feed. The followers are still near a million, but the content is sparse, like a purge. And for a girl who has spent years honing a digital universe that she could basically retire on, it’s weird to see such a huge remodel underway.
“Hey! Let’s get this crowd going!”
Cameron raises his hands as if he’s trying to rev up the crowd. He gets a few whistles as he climbs a step and takes a seat on the other side of me. We pound fists, and I relax a little with his presence. It doesn’t last long. Within minutes, Brooklyn and he are carrying on an entire conversation across my lap. Eventually, I convince Brooklyn to switch with me, which puts me directly behind Morgan, and being here, unable to see any hint of her expression, is absolutely worse.
The team streams in, and eventually Brooklyn and Cameron move to Morgan’s row to help hold open a spot for Theo. Devin and a few of the other guys from the team fill out my row, and Toby sits on the opposite end with his shrinking group of friends. He glares at me every few minutes, and between the laser eyes from him and the cold shoulder from Morgan, I strongly consider leaping in the pool.
The aquatics center is buzzing, and it’s awesome to see the turnout to support Lily. I know that’s why most people are here. It’s a little voyeuristic; this is her first big swim since the accident. But the overall vibe is basically a Mighty Ducks level of positive.
I shoot Theo another text, worrying he’s going to miss things, and I know how important today is to him. Other than Lily, he has the most invested in this moment. I don’t think she has a parent in the room, and that thought brings me back to my own and the realization of how special they truly are.
I cradle my phone in my palms and type as they announce the members of the team.
ME: You better hurry. This place is packed, and Morgan is threatening to sell your seat.
That’s not true. I mean, it could be. I wouldn’t know because she won’t talk to me. But the point is he needs to get his ass here.
THEO: Just got here. Be there in a second.
I focus my attention on the door, and when I spot him rushing past a few parents from one of the competing schools, I lean forward to point him out to Morgan.
“Theo just walked in,” I say, my mouth at her ear. Her shoulder lifts, maybe from the tickle of my breath, and I fight the urge to sweep the loose hairs away from her neck.
“Thank God,” she breathes, and I smile, both because I’m glad Theo made it and Morgan spoke to me like I’m human.
Theo climbs into his seat a few minutes before the meet gets under way. He and Morgan have an intense discussion about something, and I’m tempted to invite myself into their small circle, but I get the sense this talk has nothing to do with me. When Morgan hands Theo her phone, I lean in enough to glimpse the words on her screen. It looks like it’s a story in The Affiliate with his byline, which is crazy cool. I stop short of patting him on the back in congratulations, realizing just in time that I’m not really a part of this conversation, and instead sit back and continue searching for openings for the talk I really want to have.
By the time Lily is at the pool’s edge, the entire fieldhouse is roaring. My palms are sweating as she takes her mark, and when the beep sounds and she doesn’t move from her starting blocks, my heart breaks. It’s as if I’m on those blocks with her, scared and frozen, my dreams swimming away from me stroke by stroke. The water in her lane is calm while everyone else’s is complete chaos.
Oh no.
I lean forward.
“Dude, this isn’t good,” I say to Theo.
He shakes his head, but within seconds, he bolts into action, diving into the pool and willing her to do the same.
“Oh, my God!” Morgan shouts, and she’s on her feet in front of me, willing Lily to swim to Theo. In the moment, I grab her shoulders and bounce on my toes in sync with her while she claps and we both beg the universe to give her this breakthrough.
The entire fieldhouse chants her name, and when she finally jumps in the water and begins to swim, there’s a swell of hope that makes everyone practically high. Morgan turns into me and clasps my hands, her face lit up with pride for her friend while my chest cracks open with thanks for this moment. It’s about Lily, but I steal Morgan’s singular attention for myself. I covet it and pretend, for a blip. And then she leaves me to rush to her friend and celebrate something I have very little to do with.
The cold crept back in—literally and figuratively—the moment Morgan and I were outside the fieldhouse together waiting for our friends to join us.
I walked out here during the final relay, pretending to take a call from my dad. Really, though? I was suffocating. The longer I sat on that metal bench, now an entire swimming pool away from Morgan who opted to stay by the team and with Lily, the more I felt like a helpless fool. I kept comparing myself to her parents, finding parallels in the way we treat her. It didn’t help that Toby and his friends seemed to be constantly laughing within earshot. My paranoia kicked in and made their cackling about me . . . every time. I’m sure some of it was. I removed myself before I made life more complicated with my fist.
I leaned against a pillar, across from the main doors, and aimlessly scrolled through my phone until people began to stream out after the meet finished. Morgan came out after the crowd left, and we’ve been out here alone, wordless, for almost ten minutes.
There’s a hint of electricity happening between us, like a misfiring conductor. The spark flickers briefly every time our eyes meet. Each time she catches me, I promise myself I’m going to stop looking at her, but deep down, I have no intention at all of stopping. I like the spark. It makes me feel as if I still have a chance.
Morgan is leaning against the wall by the door, and she keeps recrossing her angles, swapping dominant feet. I stretch my legs out and do the same, following her lead every time. She finally catches on after the sixth or seventh time and sighs, instead placing the sole of one shoe against the wall. Her lip ticks up the tiniest fraction on one side, though, and I know I’ve wormed my way in.
She’s wearing her red canvas shoes with black tights, her school uniform, and an oversized Welles sweatshirt that covers half of her palm. I’m sure she stole it from some guy, and I hate him, whomever he is. I’ve been working on getting the courage to ask her about it and am about to when one of Toby’s mouthy friends runs to the door and slides to a stop, slapping his hands against his pockets.
“Fuck! I left my wallet upstairs,” he groans, glancing over his shoulder to me, I think expecting me to let him in. I shrug because no way I’m getting up for that asshole.
