Maybe having some chick’s underpants in my backpack isn’t so bad.

  I glance at the zipper and give one last thought to what’s hidden behind it, then pull the bag into my lap, kill my engine, and get out to wait for Abby to finish crimping her eyelashes. She’s still singing the last few lines of the song when she gets out and joins me on the hood of her car to stare at other people and make judgements about them we would never say to their faces. That’s a lie. She would say it. Me, never. Except maybe . . .

  “Ava Pryor looks like she had a boob job,” my friend says, both of our necks craned to the left, watching the platinum blonde mean girl hop out of Lucas’s truck. I wonder if she slept at his house or if he picked her up this morning.

  “I have her panties in my backpack,” I say, all monotone as I zone out watching my apparent arch nemesis shimmy down her barely existent corduroy skirt. I wait for them to kiss, ignoring my friend’s elbow that has now nudged me twice. But from the moment they exit the truck it’s as if they aren’t even acquainted. Lucas peels off and joins the twins and this guy Cannon who came here junior year when I was gone. Abby is obsessed with him, but he never ever does anything social, or dates, or smiles. He clearly talks, because I’m watching that happen, but talking to Abby is another thing. I have the distinct feeling he is the reason I’m driving out to the creek Friday night.

  “Panties. Spill it.” She pushes me hard enough that I lose my balance and stumble a few steps to my right. I smirk, though, and bring my bag to the front of my chest, unzipping the top for her to peer inside. I don’t expect her to reach in and grab them. Stupid of me.

  “Get out!”

  I blush a little because her volume draws attention, and she’s unfurled a thong to display in front of us.

  “Abs, those ain’t washed,” I warn, and she tosses them back in my bag, immediately digging in her purse for her orange-scented hand sanitizer.

  “How did you end up with those?”

  I’m not completely sure, but I have a pretty good idea. I tell my friend only the facts so I don’t have to delve into the intricacies of me walking in on her and Lucas, which would undoubtedly lead to me doing our assignment on my own, and him taking advantage of me, and me pining . . .

  “I found them on my car this morning.” I meet her wide stare with a solid one of my own, my mouth a hard line touched with a hint of a smile that says, “I can’t make this shit up.”

  Abby nods slowly and the first bell sounds from the school speakers.

  “Guess that’s better than dog shit,” she says.

  We kick off from her car and head toward the main doors, Lucas and the twins a few paces in front of us. This time, though, I don’t bother walking slow. I let it all play out so my steps are only a few behind his, and when he glances back enough that I see his jaw and the flick of his lashes, I let a slow, deep grin take over my face.

  When we arrive at the science building, I’m close enough behind Lucas that, if he were a gentleman, he’d hold the double doors open for me. I’m not surprised when they slam shut behind him; it only strengthens my resolve for how I’m going to handle this—handle him.

  I slow my stride enough that he gets into our classroom and his seat before me. I want him sitting for this, and I want other people around to witness. His big frame is stuffed into the desk when I enter the classroom, his black bag on the floor next to one foot, his right leg stretched out into the aisle next to my seat. His notebook is out and he’s slowly spinning a pen in his right hand, his eyes red from what I imagine was a late night. His focus on the whiteboard seems forced, reluctant. His concentration breaks only for a breath, and that’s when his gaze flits to me. His pen never stops turning, but his eyes follow my movement, his expression almost hostile. He’s wearing the same clothes I saw him in last night, and I force myself to soothe the burn and scorn eating at my insides with this newfound hatred that I’ve decided to nurture.

  Pausing right in front of my seat, I dump my heavy bag on my chair, then unzip the top and look my former friend right in the face. His eyes move from my hands to my gaze in one blink. The blue is muddied by alcohol, lack of sleep, Ava—whatever. It’s not as effective on me as it once was. What was once so beautiful has become ugly. I wait for him to believe this is it, I’m just going to glare. Finally, he shakes his head and shrugs.

  “What?”

  My smile spreads a little wider. I reach in my bag and grab his girlfriend’s panties, then toss them on his desk.

  “Pretty sure these are yours,” I say, waiting to capture a mental picture of his agape mouth, lost for words. His jaw works side to side while he stares at the undies, and a sharp laugh leaves his chest.

  Satisfied, I take my seat and pull out my project and notes. I’m still undecided on dropping the fact that I did the project alone, not that it will matter to our teacher. There’s an unwritten rule that football players get a free pass around here.

  “Hey, June.” Lucas’s voice is steady and calm. I didn’t think the bullet I fired would sting for long, but I know it stung. I saw it on his face, and that’s enough.

  I turn my head to the left enough that I can view him in my periphery. He leans forward and tugs lightly on my braid, an almost flirtatious tease that maybe would have sent my heart into butterfly Olympics before last night. Now, though, I see it for what it is. It’s bait.

  “Thanks,” he says, his hand swallowing up Ava’s panties in a slow sweeping movement along his desktop. He leans to his left and pushes the thin, lacey garment into his right pocket, his eyes never leaving mine. I can feel my body growing hot, but I don’t let him see how affected I am.

  “You’re welcome,” I manage to say. I’m stronger than I think I am. “Don’t mention it,” I add, then turn around, never letting my focus stray from the front of the room for the rest of the hour. And when our teacher collects our projects, I wait for most of the class—for Lucas—to clear out, and write a note on the top of my assignment.

  Lucas Fuller had nothing to do with this project. If you want to know why, ask Ava Pryor.

  I hand it in and leave without commenting out loud. It will be what it will be. And it is going to feel like forever.

  Chapter Eight

  I’d forgotten what Friday nights are like around here. For the last two years, I spent them watching back-to-back sit-coms while binge eating excessively-buttered popcorn and peanut M&Ms. Sophomore year, I was busy helping my mom care for my grandmother, and last year, I wasn’t an Allensville Public Fighting Eagle so no need to expose myself to all of the rah-rah pep shit.

  I’m in the thick of pompoms and shirtless teenage boys painted orange and blue now, though. Public is a decent team. Lucas is a more than decent quarterback. There’s buzz about this season, but the entire school shows up for the first home game regardless. It’s the perfect storm of panic-inducing high school chaos.

  It’s also easy to get caught up in.

  I pick the girls up in my mom’s van and we blare power-chick music all the way here. I almost forget how small I am by the time we walk through the gates to the field. Ava Pryor is sure to remind me.

  “I’m pretty sure she gets in as a child,” she shouts when I walk up to the ticket window with my five bucks and my ugly ID. As tough as I’ve trained my skin over the last week, her words still cut, almost as much as the laughter it spawns from people nearby. Even still, I walk on. But she catches up, shoving the blue jersey she’s wearing in my face—Lucas’s away jersey.

  I’ve been staring at her back—the bold number 1 centered under his last name—and I can’t shake how much mental space I am giving to such an awful person.

  “She hates you, you know?” Lola rests her chin on my shoulder so she can talk into my ear above the sound of the drumline sitting a section to our right.

  “I’m well aware,” I say with a wry smile.

  My new friend puts her arm around me and squeezes, an awkward hug, but mostly because I don’t know how to do those kinds of things. I exhale and let my body accept her affection. Lola holds her popcorn bag out to the side, tipping it for me to grab a handful. Might as well have my favorite Friday-night food since I’m enduring being here. I scoop some kernels from the bag and lick at the salty bits one at a time, trying like hell to ignore the girl I hate as much as she hates me.

  There’s a camera crew on the field—a real one, not our student-run Internet show. They’ve positioned camera guys on either side of the banner being stretched out by a tower of cheerleaders. When the team trickles out, everyone in the student section—which has basically grown to be two-thirds of the stands—gets on their feet to scream. Abby is standing in front of me and she turns, catches me not doing my part, and points in that threatening way she has.

  “Fine,” I mouth, cupping my hands around my lips and shouting, “Go Eagles!” as loud as I can. The sheer volume of my own voice, the togetherness of this moment, all of it—it infects me. My smile quits being pretend, and I get caught up in my role. I have a part to play, albeit probably not as important as everyone thinks, but for the next three hours, I will be a superfan. For the next three hours, nothing matters more than winning this game and destroying some school from South Bend.

  The young men on the field shout in unison, growling with testosterone and pounding into each other, smacking helmets to helmets and gripping at facemasks to amp up their game faces. They explode through the banner, confetti covering the corner of the field as it’s fired from a few cannons held by some of our cheerleaders. Lucas is the first to break through, holding an American flag as he sprints straight down the center of the field, his co-captains running behind him with two Eagles flags.

  My All-American boy.

  He was so much younger the last time I saw him run like this. He was a leader that seemed too small to lead, but now—now he’s the guy with the V that cuts down his abs and whose arms completely fill out the sleeves of his jersey; whose neck doesn’t seem so pencil-thin anymore. His sweaty hair is swept to either side, and the black lines swiped under his eyes somehow make him seem like this superhero.

  A hero who abandoned me when he got popular and when my life fell to shit, I remind myself.

  The team captains are met by one of the coaches at the fifty-yard line. He takes their flags to fold them while the boys huddle up to pray. It’s such a blatant disregard for the separation of church and state, yet it seems nothing could be more important than this bonding happening in front of us all. More than the quiet power of the moment, though, is that Lucas is the one leading the prayer. Arms over shoulders, circles standing within circles, these boys who I’ve seen do the most unchristian-like things give respect to his words. I wish I could hear him or be close enough to read his lips. Some of the boys look up to the sky, a few of them holding their helmets high while their heads lower. Lucas’s eyes are closed, and there’s an innocence in his features, that much I can see from here. They all start clapping and an echoing “Amen” accompanies their formation of a tighter circle until the clapping becomes thunder and soon . . . fuel.

  Lucas is the last to walk away from this private spot on the field. His head down, I recognize the familiar invisible weight on his shoulders. Even as kids, he always felt so damn responsible for everything and everyone. Especially for me. He rode his bike through rain to sneak me my favorite candy bar when my parents were fighting downstairs. And he insisted we fall asleep still on our phone call to each other if I felt scared or off. He sensed things when I didn’t share. He took burdens from me, whether I wanted him to or not, and shouldered them until he was sure my smile was real again.

  I miss him. I miss him so fucking much.

  I press my palms into my eyes while my friends aren’t looking, and manage to stop myself from feeling all of this somewhere so public. In less than a minute, the game takes over and distracts me from anything other than the anticipation and hope that brews in my belly every time Lucas throws the ball. He’s gotten better. I understand why his opportunity window is so big. There’s an easiness to the way he moves, and it’s more than instinct. He has plenty of that, though, after throwing the ball down our street to his dad every night—a million which ways and for hours on end. They haven’t thrown since freshman year, but that’s probably because Lucas has outgrown what his dad can give him. Either that, or his dad is too busy at his best friends’ house.

  It suddenly becomes impossible to turn off my thoughts. I wonder if Lucas knows. Maybe that’s what changed him. I scan the crowd off to our left, to the sections where parents sit to gloat and brag which number their kid wears on the field. Lucas’s dad is the only one standing the entire time, not giving a rat’s ass about the dozens behind him who can’t see. A week ago, I would have seen a proud father in this scene, but now, I see a man who wants the credit, a man who maybe wants to live through and off of his son’s achievements. His expression after every amazing feat Lucas accomplishes is less one of pride and more one of validation. A check mark that moves him up a scale even though really . . . he hasn’t done jack shit.

  His wife sits next to him, her purse tucked close to her hip, her hands folded in her lap, knuckles near white as they squeeze in fear every time someone threatens to knock her son out. Still proud, she is also the exact opposite of the growing ego standing next to her.

  I wonder if she knows where her husband goes during the day?

  The more I study his parents, the more every inch Lucas fights for on the field is colored with resentment in my eyes. Balls are thrown with extra zip. I think the newspaper called him stronger than your normal high school senior, but maybe what they see is hatred playing out like a game. But his dad and him, they don’t hate each other. They were just playing basketball together, laughing. Until I kicked their ball into the weed oblivion of my yard.

  The truth about what I see and what this family really is muddies more every time I think I understand. I quit focusing so much on Lucas and pay attention to the other players, the ones I know even though I never thought I’d want to. Like the twins. Or that Cannon guy, who Abby has been straining her neck all night to stare at. I don’t think she even knows the score of the game.

  We’re on our feet for most of the first half, and I can barely feel the bottoms of my feet by the time the buzzer calls halftime and our boys run to the locker rooms with a 14-0 lead. Lucas’s mom joins his father, both standing to arch their backs and shake feeling back into their legs. I look away when Mrs. Fuller turns her attention in my direction. But I miscalculate and my gaze lands on Ava, who has turned around to stare straight up at me, despite every single minion around her facing the other way. Her eyes haze, so I jack up the right side of my mouth and lift my hand in a wave I’m sure makes her blood boil, then I get my friends’ attention.

  “Hey, did Abby tell you guys about Ava’s underwear?” I’m not being quiet, but I’m not loud enough that anyone other than my friends hear. The way they all jerk their focus to me and then to Ava, though, makes her squirm.

  “Why?” Naomi asks, turning to look at me again. Ava’s glare grows heated, and my smile inches up into my eyes.

  “Someone left them on my car. I’m guessing she did.” I shrug and shift my gaze to my friend. Naomi busts out a hard laugh.

  “Well, no shit. Girl hates you,” she says, echoing the same thing Lola said when the game started.

  “Why?” I shake my head, amused and a bit baffled at the concept. In terms of having your shit together, Ava’s got me beat hands down—she has her hooks in Lucas, as far as I know her family isn’t diced up by a nasty divorce, and, despite how much I like to poke fun of her glossy style, she’s actually kind of pretty. Really pretty. Sexy for sure.

  Naomi’s cheek falls to her shoulder and Lola laughs at some inside joke I clearly don’t get. The longer I don’t laugh with them or nod or agree, the more amused they get until finally, Lola explains.

  “You had him. Lucas! You guys were . . . ” She twists her fingers together to show how tight Lucas and I once were. I nod like it all makes sense, but the part I hold on to is the moment her fingers pull apart and never come back to meet as they once did. I never really had him like she does. I can’t imagine him looking at me the way he did her on the trampoline.

  Hungry.

  Despite wanting to break the rule I made for myself after the first half, I don’t give Ava another ounce of my physical attention for the rest of the game. Mentally, though, she swims all over my insides. I replay walking in on them, measuring up her cruel glances over the years, the slight shoves against my shoulder when we pass in the hall, and how those things line up with Lucas and me, and our friendship. No matter how hard I try to see it, high-fives and late-night burger runs don’t match up with the kind of relationship they have now.

  I would trade twenty football games for one of these parties. Hell, I’d trade a dozen house parties for whatever the fuck this is that my friends and I are walking into.

  I know my attitude is a little tainted from having to process more Ava business. Still, I don’t think getting mud caked on the sides of my white Vans just to get pot smoke blown in my face is anywhere close to my recipe for the perfect night. On my way to the beer truck, I walk by some asshat carrying all the beer, which I won’t drink. Maybe I’m the one with something wrong, though, because everyone else here seems happy—perfectly, miserably happy.

  Almost everyone here is well on their way to becoming drunk. I’ve run into one other sober person, and I counted sixteen cars, which means a lot of these people better be camping here tonight. I’m sure they’re not. I’d love to call every one of them out on it, but you don’t win high school popularity points by stopping dumbasses from committing involuntary manslaughter.