I S A A C
I had been running away from a freshman, a football in my hands, when Coach Sargent called me. This was my second time helping him with the football team. The first one had included a lot of ball-catching, water-bottle-filling, cone-distribution, and whistle-blowing. I had been bored out of my mind.
Today I had arrived early on accident, and found Gary, a fifteen-year-old kid who had apparently killed it in the tryouts, and was very confident he would not only make it in the team, but also make it as the main running back. I didn't know what a main running back was, but I had dared him for a one-on-one, and left him bent over himself, trying not to throw up, so I didn't think he was going to be a running anymore for a while.
Coach Sargent called me again, so I ran up to him before he could blow his whistle.
"What did you do to Gary?" he asked when I was close enough, frowning at the sight of the kid collapsing on the grass, a hand over his chest.
"I think he has asthma," I lied, scratching the back of my head.
"He doesn't," Coach said. "You're just really fast, which is why I wanted to talk to you actually. I'm sure you heard we lost a player with the whole vending machine disaster."
He waited for me to answer so I just nodded. I had heard about the vending machine disaster, yes, but nothing about a life lost.
"Right," Coach went on. "Jason was our best running back. He had some anger issues, nothing big, but he did â"
"He died?" I stopped him. I had to. I couldn't believe someone had died at school and I hadn't heard about it.
"What? No, he just broke his leg."
"Oh! Good!" I smiled, but Coach frowned, so I added, "That he's not dead, I mean."
"Right," he said. "Have you ever played football?"
I hadn't been sure where this was going at first, but I could guess, "In gym class, sure."
"Are you any good?"
I should have just said no, but I found myself shrugging. Coach looked at Gary, still stretched out on the grass, still breathing hard, and then back at me. I was sweating, but my breathing was fine.
"You're fast," Coach said. "We could use someone as fast as you."
"You're asking me to join the team?"
"You're very perceptive." He smiled.
"So I've been told." I had never been told this ever in my life.
"Look, the homecoming game is happening after all. Somehow Mr. Colton's ding-a-ling ultimatum worked and whoever took the car gave it back. It was in the parking lot this morning. No scratches, at least not any new ones. Now, I have no one on the team that can match Jason, and I'm not saying you can, just that we can definitely use someone as fast as you. What do you say?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "Football's not really my thing."
"Come on," Coach said. Behind him, the team walked out of the locker room wearing the school's colors. Coach went on, "You might just love it."
"Right, but do you actually think I could play the game this Friday cause I don't â"
"We still have a few days. I say we see how you do at practice and then decide," he said, throwing his arm around me. "I've spoken to Jacob. He'll show you how things work. You're gonna love it, you'll see."
I hadn't really agreed to anything, not yet, but the next thing I knew, he was pushing me towards Jacob and the others. I felt like I was having a fever dream.
"Hi." They all looked at me. I looked at Jacob, "Coach said you would show me how things work?"
"I don't think so," he said, looking me up and down. I was wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. Did he have a problem with that?
"He said he talked to you."
"He did," Jacob said.
"So?"
"So what?"
What the fuck was happening?
"So are you gonna-"
"No," he stopped me. It was as simple as that. The next thing I knew, he was turning around to go on with whatever story he had been telling the others before I had even said a word. I rolled my eyes. He was doing too much.
"Don't worry about him," someone said behind me.
I turned around. He was tall and tanned and telling me he would show me around himself. He was also usually with Jacob every time I saw him at school. I couldn't remember his name. I had only learned Jacob's because it was on everyone else's mouth every other day.
"Right," I said. "Thanks."
He smiled and held his hand out for me, "I'm Edward Amin."
I took it, "Isaac Laurence."
"I know," he said. "You were here yesterday, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm guessing Coach talked to you."
"He did."
"Great," he said, his eyes on the rest of the team, already running laps around the field. "We should probably join them."
We did. We ran for what seemed like forever. Then we stopped for water. I hadn't brought my bottle, so Edward let me drink from his. We did passing and catching drills next. Then a lot of other drills I knew nothing about. I just followed Edward. Followed everything he did. Everything he said. I was sweating and breathing hard by the time Coach called for a water break again, but Edward was smiling and saying I was doing great.
"I have no idea what I'm doing," I admitted, bending over myself to catch my breath.
"No, you're great. Don't worry about it," he said. He was breathing just fine, standing there with his hands on his waist, the smile still on his face, his hair dripping with sweat. "I've seen you skating too."
I managed to stand up and smile back, "I'm pretty shit, right?"
He laughed like he didn't agree, "Right."
We went back to complicated drills. I thought it was all pretty boring except for the parts where I got to run with the ball in my hands as fast as I could, swerving tackles left and right, until I made it to their end zone, like a very intense, very exciting game of tag.
When I did get tackled, it came out of nowhere, or at least it seemed like it did. So strong, it sent us both skidding across the grass. I was pretty sure I had just dislocated my shoulder, but next to me, Jacob was laughing. Laughing and getting back on his feet like nothing happened. He looked down at me but didn't stretch out his hand. Instead, he spat on the grass, so close, I thought for a second it would hit my face. Then he turned around and kept running.
Eventually, I got up too. Edward was running up to me.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said, and it was true. Sure, the team captain seemed to want to spit on my face, but other than that I was actually having a good time. My heartbeat was fast, and so was my breathing, and soon so were my feet underneath me.
When Coach Sargent whistled for us to stop and start stretching instead, I felt my face fall into a frown. It seemed time had been running with us and so what had been hours had really just felt like minutes.
I waited for Edward to pass me his water bottle. He still thought I did great, even after he had watched me fall on my head more times than I could count. Actually, I thought maybe I didn't know how to count at all anymore.
"That was really fun," I admitted, sitting down on the bench, and letting my head fall between my legs.
Something touched my shoulder. I looked up. Edward was waving his water bottle at me. He had left it half full. I said thanks and finished it.
"If you want," he started, "we can stay and practice a while longer. Coach won't mind."
"Really?" I asked. The sun was setting behind the bleachers, turning the sky into a tired blue, but not before going through all the shades of pink. Then I remembered, "Actually, I can't. I have to get the bus."
"I can drive you home," he offered, almost immediately, and then, "If you want of course. I get it if you're tired."
"No, I'm fine," I lied. I was tired, I just didn't mind it. "If you really don't mind giving me a ride â"
"Of course I don't," he said before I could even finish. I thanked him for what felt like the millionth time today. He told the others he would see them tomorrow and all of them said goodbye except for Jacob, who rolled his eyes and mimicked a blowjob instead. I thought it was funny. Edward didn't.
"You either love him or hate him," he said after they all left. He meant Jacob.
I asked, "I'm guessing you love him?"
"We grew up together," he said, like both were somehow the same. I didn't think they were.
When we went back to practicing, time moved even faster. In the end, it was my body that decided it was time to stop.
"I can't feel my legs."
He laughed, the ball in his hands, his chest rising and falling very quickly next to me. Sweat kept rolling down his forehead. It had drenched his jersey, so much that the fabric was one with his body and so seemed more like a second skin than a jersey.
"Right," he managed. "That's enough for today then."
"You'll have to help me up. I'm dead."
Edward stretched out his hand for me. When I took it, he pushed me up to my feet. He was smiling, his hands on his hips. That seemed like a position he kept coming back to.
"I know I've said this enough times already, but you're really good at this," he said.
"You're making me blush."
"Can't tell," he said. "Your whole face is red. It has been for a while now."
I followed him into the locker room. The others had all left a while ago, but the smell of their aftershave was still strong in the air. I wondered if they all shared the same one. Probably they did. They were, after all, a monster of many heads.
Edward's locker was nothing like Ethan's or even mine. Everything inside was neat and tidy. His gym bag was the same when he opened it to take his things out. He had shampoo, shower gel, and some face cream I had never seen before. I had an almost empty all-in-one shampoo and nothing else at all. When he was done, he put everything back in its original place. I could tell he knew how to fold a shirt, maybe even how to iron one.
I watched him put on a white t-shirt, which he tucked in his trousers, and then a plaid shirt over it, which he buttoned up almost all the way to the top, while I threw on my jeans and my sweatshirt. He said it was a cool sweatshirt.
Later, in the car, he let me choose what music we listened to in the car, but stopped me when I clicked to check what playlists he had on his phone.
"The battery's dead," he said very fast, clicking on the radio instead.
I fell back on my seat. The inside of his car was very neat and tidy too. He had one of those pine tree air fresheners, all of his paperwork in order, nothing on the back seat except our gym bags and school backpacks, and an old football. I looked outside, figured I had done enough surface-level pseudo-psychoanalysis for the day. The result? He was every parent's dream.
Outside the passenger's window, the sky had gone dark and had the city. The streetlights were on, and the lights inside people's houses.
"You know," I remembered. "Coach Sargent called Mr. Colton's email about the homecoming game a ding-a-ling ultimatum."
Edward laughed behind the wheel, "He says some really weird stuff sometimes."
"Yeah," I said. "I thought that Jason guy was dead because of him."
"Why? What did he say?"
I shrugged, "He just kept using the past tense. Jason was this. Jason was that."
Edward laughed again, "Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure he's still all this and that, just with a broken leg. He's a really good player. I think he was gonna try and go for captain this year."
"Not anymore," I said.
"No, not anymore," he agreed. "I doubt he would get it anyway. Jacob's been the captain since freshman year. He can be very possessive over the title, whether he admits it or not."
"Sounds like tyranny to me."
Edward smiled, more to himself than me, "I never thought about it like that. He's a good captain."
"Sure," I said. "I'm pretty sure he wanted to spit in my mouth today, and not in a good way."
His smile grew bigger, and he shook his head. We were only a few blocks away from my house when he asked, "Is there even a good way?"
I shrugged. If he didn't know about it, I wasn't about to be the one to tell him. In any case, soon we were parking in my driveway, and I was getting out of his car with my backpack on my shoulders, and my gym bag in my hand.
"Thank you."
"Don't worry about it," he said, already pulling the car back into the road. "Just don't be late tomorrow."
"I'll try," I said, and off he went.
I looked up his socials after dinner on the couch. Mom was watching one of her crime shows and dad was finishing up work on his chair by the window. I found him almost immediately. His profile picture was him playing chess. Other than that and a few pictures of him at football games, either alone or with the rest of the team, and others of him on a hike, maybe a camping trip, he didn't have all that many pictures on his feed.
"I thought you said you wanted to watch this show," mom said suddenly, pressing pause.
"I am watching," I lied.
"Then who's the killer?"
"The little sister?" I guessed.
Mom threw a pillow at me, "How did you guess? I know you weren't watching. You were stalking some girl on social media. Did you see a spoiler online? Isaac, you promised you would stop doing that. You always ruin â"
"I didn't! I swear!" I laughed, protecting my face when she threw another pillow at me. "I just said the first person that came to mind. Amma's always been fucking weird."
"Well, she's a psychopath apparently," mom said, pressing play again. "I did not see it coming at all."
"I must be a genius," I said, and dad laughed from his corner, his glasses on the tip of his nose.
"A genius who owns the school hundreds in property damage," he said under his breath.
"Which I will pay," I told him, loud and clear, "once I have the money. I have to move some things around first."
"Like drugs?" mom asked, smiling at her own joke.
"Yes, actually," I said. "You should start hiding your prescription pills."
She laughed. The next day after practice, mom wished she hadn't. I had gotten a ride from Edward again, although this time we had left not too long after everyone else, and when mom saw him park his car in our driveway, her face fell. I got out of the car first, and ran up to where she was standing by the door, arms crossed over her chest.
"Isaac, is that a drug dealer?" she asked, very seriously.
"No, that's Edward," I said, looking back at him, still on the driver's seat. "He's from school. Can he stay for dinner? He's gonna help me with some â"
Mom stopped me, "Are you throwing a party?"
"What?"
"You never bring anyone home except for Ethan, who I know was here this morning again, by the way. You think I don't hear you, but I do, every time. Yeah, sure, laugh all you want. Anyway, now you're bringing this Edmund â"
"Edward," I corrected her.
"You're bringing Edward for dinner on the night your dad and I are going out to eat?"
"You are?"
"Did you forget? Actually, don't even answer that. I know you did," she said, turning around to see if dad was coming, and then back at me, "Some friends from college are in town so we're taking them to that Chinese place you love."
"Thanks for the invite â"
"No, no, no, no, Isaac. We're not doing that. I did invite you. You said you didn't want to go because, and I quote, all they talk about is politics, and I don't even know who the president is."
I laughed, "I did not say that."
"You said something like that." She shrugged. "Anyway, we have leftovers in the fridge, or you can order pizza. Just don't do any drugs."
"Right, well, thanks, mom," I said, turning my back at her to go tell Edward he could come out. When dad finally showed up by the door we were both coming in.
They were late already, apparently, so they just smiled at Edward, said it was nice meeting him, and then ran for the taxi pulling in behind Edward's car.
"They're getting shitfaced tonight," I realized.
"Good for them." Edward said, following me through the hallway.
I stopped to turn around and look at me, "So there's food in the fridge, but I say we order some pizza instead. What do you think?"
"Sure, why not?"
We ate it on the couch, watching an old football game. I had never managed to watch a game from beginning to end before, but Edward forced me to. He kept pointing at this and that player, telling me to pay attention to how they moved so I could do the same on the game this Friday. Coach had decided I was up for it. I still doubted it. Jacob had also made sure to tell me he doubted I could be of any use to the team. Edward disagreed.
"This is such a homoerotic sport," I said eventually. I had been thinking about it for a while. Edward didn't think so. "You think wrong. Look at them go. They wanna touch each other so bad."
"Yeah, but not like that," he said, but he was smiling.
When the game ended, I suggested we watched a movie. Then his phone rang.
"Hi," he said to whoever was on the other side. They probably weren't too happy to be calling him, because suddenly Edward was sitting very straight on the couch, his smile gone from his face. After a while, he said, "Yes, Sr. I'm on my way."
Then he hung up. I asked who it was, but Edward was already on the move, grabbing the pizza boxes, and the coke cans on the coffee table.
"I can clean that up, it's fine," I said, but he was on the way to the kitchen. I followed him.
"That was my father," he told me after throwing the boxes and the cans in their respective recycling bins. I usually had to stand over them for a while to remember what went where.
"Right," I said, scratching the back of my head. "Do you work for him or something?"
He had called him Sir. Edward granted me an awkward laugh, said I was funny, and then went back to the living room to get his things. I followed him and then watched him sit at the bottom of the stairs in the entryway, struggling to put on his shoes.
"Fuck."
"Fuck is right," I said when he messed up the shoelaces. "You sure you're okay to drive?"
"We didn't drink." He meant alcohol. It was true. We had sodas.
"I know, but you seem like you're â"
"I'm okay." He smiled. Lied. Was he lying? "My father just wants me home."
"Why?" I looked at the time on my phone. It wasn't even that late.
"I don't know," he said. "He does this sometimes."
"Right." I nodded. "Well, I had fun."
He got up, "I didn't bore you with all the football talk?"
"Oh, you definitely did," I admitted, following him to the door.
"So you're a masochist?" he asked, opening the door, and stepping onto the front porch. I stayed inside. He turned around for my answer.
"I am."
"Good," he said. "Cause I got more coming."
"Can't wait."
"I bet."
Then he turned around and walked over to his car. The next thing I knew he was gone.