Team Spirit

28. Lars Answers the Door

28. Lars Answers the Door

I spend too much time in the bathroom. I brush my teeth so hard and so long that the bristles must wear the enamel right off. When I spit, I half-expect to look up to find more spaces between all my teeth.

There aren't any new ones. My forced smile is mintier, not thinner.

I scrub my face and tone and exfoliate and moisturize until my skin is more beauty product than person. It's all about wasting time. It's about not talking to Casey. It's about not crawling into bed next to Wren. It's about not thinking about Brady's smug face right before I punched him.

I run out of bedtime routine. Casey doesn't rap on the door to persuade me out of the bathroom; this time, I emerge by myself, head high despite still wearing just a bikini and a sloppy ponytail.

Casey and Amy sit curled up on their bed, watching a TV cut of a Hallowe'en movie on entirely too early in the season. They are cozy in sleepwear. A tank top scoops my gaze right into Casey's cleavage. Amy's shorts reveal the athletic shape of her thighs.

Do I want to make out with them? Should I want to make out with them? I have noticed pretty girls before. I have noticed the skillful application of bronzer and contouring made to draw attention to a girl's high cheekbones. I have admired the cut of a good pair of hip hugging jeans. Is there supposed to be more? Is there supposed to be fleeting thoughts of my fingers grazing those cheekbones and hips?

I don't want to make out with Casey or Amy. In this moment, I don't even want to make out with Wren. But then, it's not as if every genetically well-structured guy attending Murphy's Comp gets me off my rocks either.

"You punched Brady in the face?" Casey asks, barely glancing away from the TV. Green movement draws my attention to Wren, lounging in the desk chair. She shrugs.

"He's going to deny it tomorrow," I say. Nonchalance comes back.

"Zach will say otherwise," Amy throws in."

She's not wrong. Even Zach won't defend Brady. I can't tell if it's because that's just the way friendship works between boys or if it's because Zach is a straight up asshole.

A little of column A, a little of column B...

Wren draws herself up from her chair dramatically, elegant hands gripping either arm.

"I want to see something," she declares, looking at me in a way that sends goosebumps and a chill running across and through my body. I raise an eyebrow.

"Do tell." My body might betray me, but my voice does not.

Wren rifles through her bag for a shirt I've seen her wear before. She had it one at Pete's party before school started, except she wore it tied around her waist. Flannel. Black and red and green.

I make a face that Casey laughs at.

"Oh, Wren. Sam and Lars don't wear plaid," Casey recites it like it's a line from a play. Her grin is playful, offering Wren an education on me. This sums up who I am to my high school: One half of Sam-and-Lars, pretentious about clothes. 

Wren scoffs. "Are you serious? On what grounds?"

"Fashion snobbery," Amy teases.

I shrug because that answer is simpler than the truth that stabs a little at my chest at the moment. It wasn't my idea, not originally. It was Sam who didn't want to dress the same as every other cowboy at every rodeo ever. We found him slim black shirts and paisley and vintage looking Checotah prints—bands of running wild horses or Aztec patterns screened over the chest and sleeves—and I swore it off too, For both the sake of solidarity and individuality. But yeah, fashion snobbery. Not because it seemed important to support Sam in his one decision to set himself apart from the people he too often tried to be just like.