I hug my jacket closer to me and keep my head down as I walk out towards the practice field, making my way over to the bleachers. Cotton candy clouds dapple the bright afternoon sky, sunlight breaking through them to rain down on the slightly overgrown grass below. The late March breeze tickles my cheeks and nose. As soon as I settle into one of the cool metal seats, I fish out a notebook to fully set up my guise of a girl wanting to study in the fresh air.
The reality, however, is that I haven’t seen Sawyer for a week, but I know he’s at lacrosse practice this afternoon and I … I just had to see him.
To know he’s okay.
I might’ve lied to myself when he didn’t show up for our tutoring session last week that I didn’t care. That I wasn’t surprised—this is Sawyer Nash, the champion quarterback of Willow Ridge High, who has so many other people thathe could give his time to, why on earth would he want to waste it with me? The whole point of our tutoring sessions were for him to stay on the football team and football season was over by Christmas, so he doesn’t need me anymore.
Yet he kept coming every Wednesday, even with his grades up. Because I realise now—Sawyer and I are friends.Goodfriends.
We’re so different, it shouldn’t work. He’s the opposite of what I want, what I thought I needed to get through this year. Being the life of the party, always vying for everyone’s attention, when I’ve been striving to push anyone’s gaze away … Itshouldn’twork.
Except it does.
That’s why I’m moving beyond my comfort zone of the warm, albeit stuffy library, and out onto the practice field. A place I can’t remember the last time I ever visited besides mandatory gym classes.
Sawyer didn’t turn up to homeroom this morning, but I saw him briefly in the corridor at lunchtime—after a week of him being off school. An injury from bull riding is why, according to the snippets of his friends’ conversations I’ve caught. The gash on his right cheek would attest to that too. Up until the beginning of senior year, I wouldn’t have given much thought to such an injury either. I would’ve put it down to three things—sport, bull riding, or he wound someone up the wrong way and they retaliated for once.
But now I’ve seen the shadows that lurk beneath the veil he charms the school with.
I peer up from my notebook, effortlessly finding Sawyer amongst the team as they run about—like my soul could recognise his even in the disguise of his uniform. But just asmy eyes latch onto him, one of his teammates smashes into him, forcing them both to the floor with a clash of sticks and helmets.
Sawyer’s groan echoes across the field as he pushes his teammate off and jumps back to his feet. Coach Cooper jogs over from the sidelines but stops a few metres away when Sawyer rips his helmet off and yells, ‘Fuck!’
It’s then that he turns around and even from up here I can see the blood dripping down his cheek. That knock must’ve opened his wound again. Tentatively, Sawyer dabs at the cut while a couple of other players crowd him. Instead of letting them tend to him, he pushes through them, throws his helmet to the ground, and marches away.
I don’t even realise I’ve jumped up and begun racing down the steps of the bleachers until I’m near the bottom and can hear Coach shout after Sawyer.
Sawyer throws back over his shoulder, ‘I’m fine! Just leave me alone!’ Then he sprints off.
Coach shakes his head and encourages the team to get moving again, letting Sawyer run away. No one seems to notice me as I hurry after him, my quiet presence insignificant in comparison to their game.
My boots rub my heels as I scurry down the hallway, assuming Sawyer’s gone to the locker room to clean up. When I reach the door, there’s banging inside—maybe fists against metal—and then the distant sound of running water. My palm hovers over the door, all the reasons and rules why I shouldn’t go in there springing to the forefront of my mind, rendering me frozen. Trying to wade through them, to ignore all the alarms and fears blaring in my head and not let them pull me away has my breath shuddering out.
What if he doesn’t want me there? What if someone finds me inside and it gets back to my parents?
But then my eyes catch on the stretch of wall where this all started—where Sawyer leaned, probably for some respite from all the pain he was carrying, and I bumbled on about tutoring him, completely unaware of how much he’d come to mean to me. How he’d ignite the kind of joy and hope and laughter I thought were lost in my world forever inside of me. How he’d show me what true friendship could be like, when I’ve had to hold back for so many years.
It’s that memory that has me taking a deep breath to find some kernel of strength inside of me, and then I push the door open.
Narrow windows dotted along one side of the wall only allow in small slices of afternoon sunshine, the light reflecting off the stark, cold edges of the lockers. Tendrils of steam claw their way along the walls from where the rush of showers can be heard, the corner drenched in darkness.
‘Sawyer?’ I flick the light switch beside the door, waiting as the lights sputter on and buzz faintly.
I have to swallow and collect myself before I can move any further. I’m in the boys’ locker room for heaven’s sake. My father would—no, I don’t even want to consider what he’d do if he knew I was here, about to walk into the showers, where Sawyer could be showering off whatever went down on the field.
Oh Lord. What do I do if he’s naked?
I’ve never seen a naked boy before.
Not even on television.
But I don’t get a second to think further on it because my feet have carried me to the showers, pulled by whateverdivine tether wraps itself around Sawyer and me, and as I turn the corner, I don’t find a naked Sawyer at all.
Sitting on the hard, tiled floor, knees pulled into his chest, head hanging down, is Sawyer. He hasn’t taken a single bit of his lacrosse kit off, and it clings to every inch of him like a second skin, completely saturated. Every muscle is tensed as the shower pummels at his back relentlessly and steam curls around his trembling limbs.
My heart cracks at the sight.
At the broken boy on the shower floor.