In homeroom, he yawns three times, eventually propping his elbow on his desk and doing the good ol’ cheek-in-palm routine, shutting his eyes when he thinks no one’s looking. The smile he gives me when we part ways is small and strained, falling quickly off his mouth as he turns toward his next class.
“See ya at lunch,” he says over his shoulder.
At lunch he seems remote, talking to Pax about some game they both play on their phones, then helping Makayla with a pre-cal problem. I catch him yawning twice. He’s got a slice of pizza on his lunch tray, but he doesn’t finish it.
That afternoon in the car, he leans his head back against his chair’s head rest a few times, and rubs his eyes a few other times. We chat about Led Zeppelin, Landon telling me the story of how Jimmy Page met Robert Plant. He mentions that Plant had a five-year-old son die, and tells me that the song “All of My Love” is dedicated to him.
“Wow… I didn’t know. That’s super sad.”
“Yeah.” He leans his head back then and stays that way for a while, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking. I wish I knew him better, but I’m not sure how to get him to talk to me. Maybe he never will, and I’ll just keep watching him the way I do until we graduate.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t want to know him more. That he’d been the seven-year-old my parents thought we were getting. Then I really think about that, and my stomach clenches.
That night at home, I try my best to ignore him. The way he grins at Emmaline’s crazy, made-up, ladybug tap dance. The way his forearms gleam, so thick and tanned, when he washes his hands in the kitchen sink for dinner. The way his fingers look around his cutlery as he eats my parents’ pork tenderloin and asparagus. The way he laughs at my dad’s weirdo patient story of the day.
After dinner, he does the dishes before going downstairs. I’m left with a view of his shoulders as he loads the dishwasher.
In my room, I take a bath and lie there till the water goes cold.
Several hours later, I text him, asking if he’s awake, and again he doesn’t text me back. He tells me on the ride to school the next morning that he just got my text.
I give him side-eye.
“It’s true,” he says. “I was asleep.”
He has dark circles underneath his eyes, so I’m not sure I believe that.
Tuesday is a pretty ordinary school day. I’m moody from the get-go. Nothing bad happens, but I feel like something did. When I see Landon at lunch, talking about Marvel comic books with Pax and complimenting Tia’s hair braid, I decide I maybe hate him.
I forget about soccer practice until the bell rings, and I’m taking apart my clarinet.
“Who killed your kitten?”
I jump. Makayla is wiggling her eyebrows at me.
“Ugh,” I groan. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been a moody booty all day.”
“I know.”
Makayla hugs me, and I kind of want to cry. Maybe it’s my time of the month.
Outside by the soccer field, I stretch for longer than my norm and keep on tugging at my running shorts. They feel too short. It’s a hot day, but there’s a breeze that makes my ponytail tickle my neck.
Coach is in a mood, too, it seems, making us run harder than usual before practice. Every time I round one corner of our practice field, I see the boys across the way. No matter how much I tell myself not to, my eyes seek out Landon.
After we run, we all get water, and then we split up into teams. I’m playing forward, my favorite position. After such a lousy day, I’m surprised to find I’m really on my game. I’m moving the ball like a boss, headed toward the goal, when I notice Landon running the opposite way on the field that’s parallel to ours. I kick the ball, and right then, Pax’s elbow connects with Landon’s face.
I don’t know what happens—I guess I’m watching him and not my footing. One second, I’m running, and the next, I’m on the ground. I’m on my belly, my chin in the grass, and OH SHIT MY LEG!
My leg. I start to scream, because my brain exploded when my leg did. I can’t think, can only scream.
Tia’s face is over me, then Coach’s, and I’m crying. “I think…” I gasp, trying to get out “I broke my leg,” but I can’t even form the words.
The pain is awful, like a knife that someone’s twisting.
I’m aware I’m crying, but I can’t think straight. Someone lifts me off the field—maybe two people. I’m being carried. Someone’s chest… My forehead’s up against a T-shirt. Then my ears come back online, and I notice the murmurs rumbling through the chest I’m up against.
I catch the word “fuck” and “Evie…”
I look up, and—Landon. He’s the one who’s holding me. Carrying me. We stop, and someone has my legs while Landon has my shoulders. I’m eased onto one of the benches, sitting on it with my legs out in front of me. Coach Shelly is by my ankle.
“Evie, I want to take your shoe off. Can I—”
“No! Don’t touch it!”
“We need to know if you can—”
“No!” I start to cry, and I feel Landon’s arms around my shoulders.
Someone else is there by Coach Shelly—it’s Coach DelMar, the boys’ coach. Through my tears, I see him frown down at my ankle. It looks puffy, maybe slightly bluish. DelMar reaches toward it.
“No.” Landon’s voice is right beside my shoulder. “She said no.” He’s got his arms under my arms, making a loop around my upper chest.
“Can you feel your toes, Evie?” Coach Shelly asks.
“I don’t know.” My eyes glitter with tears. “I can’t tell…” I try to move my toes, but nothing really seems to happen. “It just…really hurts.” Kind of like I hit my funny bone—with a butcher knife.
Coach Shelly turns and blows her whistle, causing the crowd around me to disperse, while Coach DelMar inspects my ankle without touching it.
“What’s the pain like? What does it feel like specifically?”
“Like…stabbing,” I say, sounding breathless. Landon’s arms around my shoulders tighten.
“One to ten?”
I laugh through my tears. “Eighty?”
He nods briskly. “Someone needs to take her in.”
I feel Landon shift his weight behind me.
“Evie,” Couch DelMar says, “we can call your parents and wait for one of them to get here, I can call an ambulance if the pain is too bad to weather it out, or one of us can drive you. Landon? Tia? Or Coach Shelly?”
Tears stream down my cheeks, because I can’t think straight. The ankle throbs, making me flinch. “I want to go…right now.”
“I can drive her,” Landon says. He loosens his hold on me, his hands coming up to my shoulders.
“My mom’s surgery day is Tuesday,” I hear myself say. “Em’s friend’s mom takes her home with them and…my dad gets her at six-thirty.”
“So your parents are both at Carolina General?” Couch DelMar asks.
I nod as tears roll down my cheeks.
I feel Landon come around my side. “Evie.” I open my eyes and see his face by mine. “Is that okay? I can do it,” he says. “If you want.” Landon’s eyes shift from my face to somewhere—maybe Jake—and then he regards me with his lips pressed together.