Damage - A. M. Jenkins [31]
Tonight, his screwup kept a Bulldog drive alive. In Curtis’s book, that means he hand delivered them a touchdown.
“Listen,” you tell the back of his head. “Forget it. Coach’ll remind you quick enough.”
A car honks outside. This one has purple-and-white crepe paper streaming from the antenna; Go Panthers is written on the windows in shoe polish. Everybody else on the left side of the bus is cheering out the windows.
“Go get drunk with Dobie,” you try, feeling bad for not offering to dump Heather for the evening—even though you know Curtis always goes straight home after a bad game. Specifically, after he has a bad game.
When he still doesn’t say anything, you give up. Let him act like that, if he wants. He doesn’t need any help from you, anyway.
You know what’ll happen. He’ll mope around all evening. It’ll take him the rest of the night to get things back in perspective. In the end, he’ll remind himself to be more alert next time. And in the morning, he’ll be calm and cool and ready to face those game films. The game films won’t be able to tell Curtis anything he doesn’t already know.
You lean out the window again, feeling the wind lift the still-sweaty hair from your scalp. With the kind of mood Curtis is in right now, it’s actually a mercy that he’s going straight home. Being around Curtis would be even worse than sitting home alone.
You didn’t screw up tonight. Well, you did drop a couple of catches, but still it was you personally who put two-thirds of the points on the board. You’ve got no reason to feel bad, not next to Curtis.
And shoot, even if you did have a reason for feeling bad—which you don’t—you’d never act like it. You’d take that reason for feeling bad, and stick it in the back of your mind. You’d shove it down inside and keep your mouth shut and lie low until everybody else forgot what happened.
You keep your head and one arm out the window, letting the wind plug your ears. You shut your eyes and feel the air rushing by, feel the bus wheels whine under you. The great thing about handling mistakes your way is that after awhile your screwups and hurts don’t matter anymore.
Down deep inside you there’s a big old pile of things that everybody but you has forgotten.
At the field house, whoops and yells and laughter are billowing around you.
“Way to be,” somebody says; a hand pounds your shoulder, so you figure whoever it is must be talking to you.
“Thanks,” you say, not bothering to look around. Curtis came in, grabbed his clothes, and left; he’ll change at home.
“Great game, Reid,” somebody says.
You don’t bother to say thanks this time. You just nod and bend to tie your shoe.
“Hey, Austin. You going out?”
It’s Dobie, coming around the corner of the lockers with a wet mop braced on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” you answer.
Dobie slops the mop onto the floor where Stargill was squirting Gatorade all over the place. He swirls the mop around, painting huge wet circles. “Want to come with me and Jason and Brett? We’re going to get some beer.”
“Sorry, can’t make it,” you say.
“C’mon, Austin. It’ll be fun. We might rent some videos. You know,” he says, leaning forward to whisper. “Videos.”
“No, thanks.”
Dobie shakes his head. “I always thought Curtis was bad when he was going out with Kat,” he says, giving the mop an extra flourish, “but Heather has flat out busted your balls.”
“Shut up,” you snap at him.
The mop stops. A moment later it starts moving again, but not leisurely like before. Now it’s a quick back-and-forth. When you glance over, you see one spot of red flaming Dobie’s cheek like somebody slapped him.
Of course—he was kidding, the way the two of you always kidded Curtis. You were supposed to kid back.
If Curtis was here—and not sitting around like a gargoyle—he’d say, “What’s got into you?”
“Sorry, Dobe,” you tell him, ashamed.
Dobie nods once, quickly, his eyes on his work. When he’s done he picks up the mop, shoulders it, and scurries off without looking back.
You turn back to your locker. You said you’re sorry—what else can you do?