Born Losers

4.

November 6
22 Weeks Before
5:02 p.m.

There was a freedom in running.

Despite the temperature hovering in the seventies, the breeze against his cheeks felt clean and cool, and the sky above was a cloudless roll, a perfect expanse of a blue so flawless it almost hurt to look at it.  

Pounding down the field, his net shorts whispering and the red practice jersey almost weightless against his bare skin, his eyes locked on the ball, he could outrun all of it: the whispers he still got when he passed by a group of people in the hallway, the upcoming appointment with the plastic surgeon who was slated to try to do something with his cheek, the fear of running into Paisley now that she was firmly ensconced back in her court of high school royalty, Em's glassy eyes and flat smile and the way she was pulling away from him and he couldn't figure out how to get her back.

All but two members of the Varsity team had been together since the years of toddler Soccer Shots, and it often seemed as if they could read each other's minds as they weaved in and out of the lanes, so fluid and balletic it was like magic to watch. They'd missed the State finals by a single goal the previous season, and Coach Hansen was determined to take the trophy this year, running them so hard that by the time their practices ended they all looked like they'd been swimming, and their well-honed bodies were screaming in protest.

It was exactly what August needed, it took away the sting of Beck's betrayal, took away the confusion of Em's transformation, almost alchemical, from bright and effervescent back into grayed out and silent, but practice only lasted so long, and eventually he had to leave the field; had to shower and change and return to real life.

He gathered the stuff he'd chunked on the sideline and headed back into the school, stopping only when he passed the bleachers and saw her sitting at the top, her tiny body highlighted by the sun starting to sink below the metal rows. Her hair was up in an indifferent topknot and even from the ground he could see her eyes were rimmed with red.

"Hi," he called up to her as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Are you coming down?"

"Can you come up?" she called back. "Or do you need to go in?"

In response he took the stairs up three at a time and slid into the seat next to her. She offered him a feeble grin and waved the air in front of her face.

"You smell wonderful," she said with a half-hearted tease. "Good practice?"

"Yeah, it was okay." He pushed a handful of sweaty hair, freshly cut to Coach-mandated length, away from his face and almost kissed her, then saw her solemn expression and decided against it.  "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to you," she said. "And I didn't want my mom to hear us."

There was absolutely nothing about her tone that should have sent a death-knell through his stomach, but it was there all the same and he suddenly wished he'd simply waved to her and continued inside, that he could continue to push this off forever.

"Alright," he said instead, carefully controlled. "What about?"

She turned her face up to the sun and gnawed on her lower lip and then made herself look him in the eye.

"I kill people," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"My dad," she said, composed. "Graham. The baby."

"No," he started heatedly, and she leaned forward and put a finger over his lips, not unkindly.

"Probably you if you hang around me long enough," she said softly, and then reclaimed her hand and tucked it in her lap where it was safe from him.

"I'm not going to stay here if you're going to talk like this," he warned her. "That is such bullshit."

"No, it's not," she was insistent. "I've been thinking about this a lot, okay? My future just got altered inexorably and I love you way too much to ruin your life too."

"Ruin my life?" he repeated angrily. "Just because one part of your future is different? Your future is wide open, Em, even if it's not what you planned. I'm not going anywhere, okay? This isn't over just because it's not what you expected."

"I'm not going to hold you to that," she said, and gave him a smile that was so saccharine sweet it burned around the edges. "It's not fair to you. You say it's okay now, but some day you're going to wake up and resent me for it."

"Because you can't have kids," he said flatly.

"What kind of future is that, August?"

"One that we can still have together!" He was starting to get wound up, didn't realize at first that he was shouting and then didn't care. "I don't give a damn about that! I'm not with you because I want to have a baby with you. I love you because you rub your cheek right before you smile, and when you answer the phone you always crinkle up your nose like you're about to sneeze, and none of that has anything – has even the smallest bit – damn it!"

"August-"

"And if that's not enough for you, then fine! Fine. But don't you dare throw this away just because you're feeling sorry for yourself."

"Feeling sorry for myself?" she said incredulously. "I've spent the last week and a half in agony trying to convince myself that it's okay to stay with you just because I want you, and I'm not going to do that - not because I feel sorry for myself, but because I love you, and I want what's best for you, and that's not me. It never has been."

She pressed her lips together to stave off the tears and looked away, and he wanted to touch her, wanted to sweep her into his lap and kiss her until she didn't have the breath to keep going with this nonsense.

Then she looked back at him resolutely, and he sighed, recognizing the lost cause for what it was.

"Alright, then," he said. "Goodbye, Em."

He stood up without looking back and took the stairs with a straight back, and only when he was out of view did she allow herself to cry.