Team Spirit

32. Lars Has No Forgiveness

32. Lars Has No Forgiveness

Wren doesn't know that I know. I learn this when she comes down from the bleachers to squeeze my arm. She doesn't even say a word about Roman occupying the other side of me, right up until his coach demands he take the court.

It's bad enough they're short one player. If they're missing two, they'll absolutely lose instead of just probably losing.

"I can't believe this is happening," Wren whispers. 

I deserve an acting award for biting my tongue and nodding slowly. To hell with the upcoming fall production of Robin Hood. Best Senior High Actress goes to Lars Williams for her portrayal as a calm individual while her manipulative, lying not-girlfriend acts like she didn't just destroy Sam Sanders' life for no reason.

There are too many people around. While I believe Sam's made an idiotic choice in deciding not to point any fingers, I should respect his approach. If he doesn't want teachers nosing around in his business, it's best not to claw Wren to pieces in front of Murphy Comp faculty members.

I mumble something vague about snacks and pull myself from Wren's grasp to drift to the concession stand, my head spinning. If I look over my shoulder, undoubtedly I will find dozens of pairs of eyes following me. I don't look. 

Under all the rage bubbles something else. Before it can bubble right out of me, I duck into the stairwell Wren struck me a deal a million years ago, back when the universe was only gradually unwinding. I want to punch the wall, but that'll do nothing but break my hand or wrist too. My heartbeat echoes off the walls. 

The echoes become footsteps. I'm not ready. 

"You okay, Williams?" Wren says nervously, her fingers finding my arm again. I clench my fist. 

"I'm giving you the opportunity to explain this to me," I rasp. My voice betrays me, even when I hold all my less diplomatic words back from the tip of my tongue, "and only because I just don't want it to be true."

Wren won't hold my gaze. Her thumb rubs gently back and forth against my arm. "I know you're mad..." Wren begins. 

There are a million retorts battling in my brain. Of course I'm mad. Two of the biggest douchebags attending Murphy Comp broke my best friend's wrist and left probably permanent psychological damage. 

All that is likely evident. I bite my tongue, both literally and figuratively. 

"I just want to be with you. Sam had Leo," Wren explains, "I just wanted to give him a little nudge. You wouldn't have to pretend to be his girlfriend. I want us to be something." 

In this moment, Wren is not the sly seductress I've known her to play. She is the Wren I only get flashes of when it's just the two of us together. 

"Oh, I think Zach gave him a bit more than a nudge."

"Sam told Zach you slept together! He had no right to spread likes like that about you," Wren said. "I just—I felt like I had to do something to defend your honour." 

"People lie sometimes under pressure! It was shitty of him, yeah, but not as shitty as outing someone to a dirtbag. I mean, I told you my brother died and really he's just spending a gap year in Denmark." It spills out of me. Words come in a tsunami, becoming a wave that I wouldn't let tears become. 

Wren's face contorts into an expression of hurt, but how can that hurt possibly outweigh the sharp pang in my heart from knowing in some twisted way, I brought this down on Sam? 

"Why?" she asked. 

"Because you asked and it was so easy to say yes and it didn't feel like you cared about the answer so much as you cared about knowing." Does Wren really care about my honour or does she just care that I'm meant to be with her and Sam claimed I was his? Wren wants things. She wants information. She wants people. 

I shake off her grip. I need her hands off me. I can't have her hands on me. 

"What?" Wren's tone grows accusatory so quickly and all it does is put my blood back on the Bunsen burner. 

"Were you even going to tell me what you did or were you just planning on letting Roman take the fall for that one? Two birds, one stone? Take out all your competition all at once?" I grit my teeth. "Your first words to me were bullshit about a white girl with a beaded purse, but you don't even care about the actual person behind the culture. You're a lesbian, but you threw away Sam's right to come out on his own. You're just a white girl as privileged as me pretending you're so hard done by." 

Frozen in front of me, Wren says nothing. Maybe she needs a moment to absorb it all. I don't have the moment to let her. 

"You're lucky I don't make your life hell." That's all I have left to say. I don't need to do anything. What can I do that's worse than living with that desperate selfishness? 

I leave her there in the stairwell, but somehow it feels like I'm the one being left. I do my best to not storm through the halls. Or stalk. Or strut. I have never in my life focused so hard on walking. 

"Hey." A hand catches my arm and instinctively, I shake it off before I even register who it is. It's only when I turn that I meet Casey's eyes, soft and concerned. Before I know what's happening, I'm hugging her first, not the other way around for once. I squeeze my eyes shut so I don't start crying into her shoulder.

"It's okay."

She says so. Because she's Casey, I believe her.