Cornered (12 page)

When Luke noticed that you weren't giving him an itchy, you shook your head dramatically and pretended to be coming out of a deep daydream. “Huh, what?” you asked, hoping he'd just roll his eyes or even laugh at how space cadet-y you were, but instead he glared at you. You shouted “Ha-ha-ha” extra loud the next time, and slapped Warren Feldman's head hard, but with only your fingertips, cushioning the blow. The frosh looked at you, seemingly appalled at how pitifully weak an itchy it was, and scratched his head not out of pain but confusion.

During water break in the middle of practice the sophomores made the freshmen get on their hands and knees to create a stool that they could sit on as they drank from their water bottles. You made sure to secretly lean forward and make yourself light, just how Jason did when you were a freshman and the roles were reversed. The only freshman complaining about doing this was Warren Feldman, who had the misfortune of being paired with Luke. Luke tried to sit on Warren's back, but the kid kept rising up, complaining he had scoliosis and the added pressure on his lumbar was really bad for him.

“Enough! Get back on the field! You Sallies have Somers next Monday, and I've yet to see something good out of you,” Coach shouted.

“Let's go, guys!” Luke shouted cheerfully, giving Warren a hard shove as he launched off him and sprinted onto the field. Coach rolled his eyes at Warren who laid in the grass rubbing his back. You noticed his frosh peers didn't help him up or even give him a second glance. They instinctively knew to ditch him for their own sake, just as your fellow frosh recruits had ditched you freshman year. In realizing this, you felt a smidgeon of sadness for Warren, because it made you feel sad for yourself.

At the end of practice, Luke approached and you flinched internally. Though you were the same year and were once inseparable back in fifth grade, you were certain what followed would be bad. He was probably going to give you heat about laying off the freshmen during the bus ride. But instead:

“We're hazing the frosh tonight at my house,” he said casually. “You're in, right?”

He stared at you, communicating with his eyes that this was an olive branch of sorts, a chance for you to make up for not messing with the freshmen during practice.

“Su-sure,” you stammered.

“Be there around 8 p.m.,” he added, before heading for the bus.

• • •

Your parents were shocked to hear that you actually had something to do on a Friday night. They were simultaneously pleased and concerned at the same time.

“Will there be chaperones at the party?” your mom asked.

“You should probably bring something. Take the pie from the freezer, it only has one slice missing,” Dad offered.

“Maybe you should have your friends over here? We could go upstairs and you could play pool in the basement.”

You groaned.

“Honey,” Dad said, winking at you. “He's got plans. Be back by . . . gosh, I don't even know what your curfew should be. How does 11 p.m. sound?”

You could practically see this fact dawning on your mother as she slowly nodded and smiled. Though you felt annoyed with them, you also couldn't help but blush; it felt good to be worrying them about your suddenly excessive social life. They had spent too many Friday nights staring at you fearfully from
the doorway of your darkened bedroom as you played first-person shooters.

After dinner you spent a good hour trying to figure out what to wear. Having never attended before, you had no idea what people wore to these things. Would it look like you were trying too hard if you wore anything but what you wore to school that day? Would people notice that you'd changed outfits? You dropped a Fudgsicle on your shirt during lunch, though, and it would seem weird to show up wearing a stained shirt when clearly you'd had the opportunity to change into something clean. This was a nighttime event, outside of school, so you didn't wear school clothes, right? You slapped yourself on top of the head, then furiously rubbed it with a combination of anger and pain. It was your first truly hard itchy doled out as a sophomore.

The slap must have unlocked something in your frustrated brain because you realized the answer: you'd been overthinking things. While this was a weekend party, it was also a hazing party and therefore a soccer-related event. Of course, it went unspoken that you should wear your varsity soccer uniform to differentiate yourself from the frosh players, who surely would be wearing their crappy blue freshman team jerseys. So you donned the varsity jersey, pulled on your pair of dark jeans and left, shouting good-bye to your parents.

You could hear the thump of bass from the speakers in Luke's basement as you walked up the driveway. The lights were off in most of the house, but through the garden hedges
you could see the basement was filled with students. Even though it was a moot point, you knocked lightly on the front door and waited for a minute for someone to open it. Nothing happened. You rang the doorbell, flinching as you did, imagining the music suddenly stopping and a dozen faces pressing up sideways against the basement windows to investigate the disturbance. Still nothing. Finally you took a deep breath, turned the knob, and headed inside.

The last time you'd been inside was back in fifth grade. It looked exactly the same, at least in the dark. You knew the basement door was off the kitchen and made your way over to it. Standing there with your hand on the knob, you heard the laughter and shouting from below and pictured the music stopping as you descended the stairs, a hundred people staring at you. Part of you just wanted to head home without anyone seeing you, but you shook the image out of your head and turned the knob.

The basement was filled with your classmates. A few heads turned and noticed you before looking away. In school you found this kind of disregard depressing, but you were grateful for it in this instance. You didn't want to attract attention since you felt like an imposter still, even if you had been personally invited by Luke. In the far corner of the basement you spotted Luke and threaded your way through the mass of sweaty bodies. Everyone was holding a red plastic cup, and the room smelled like a mixture of sweat and sour honey.

“Hey, man,” Luke said when he saw you, clapping you on
the back. You had to focus really hard not break down in happy tears at the inclusion. The rest of the sophomore guys started to nod, but then stopped and stared at you. Luke's face changed too. “Why are you wearing your jersey?”

You mentally froze as you realized none of the soccer guys, not even the frosh, were wearing their jerseys. But Luke slung a heavy arm around your shoulder and said, “Nevermind,” as he shook his head. You realized how drunk he was as he slurred his words, recounting the evening's events so far. Frosh guys forced to down shots; frosh guys made to ride in a tricycle around the perimeter of the basement as everyone chanted, “Go, speed racer, go!” Frosh singing Christmas carols while the music was paused; frosh guys forced to play patty-cake, shouting the words in front of everyone.

“You know, man,” he mumbled in your ear. “The usual stuff.”

“Yeah, mannnnn,” you replied, stretching out the word so he'd think you were drunk too. It sounded fake, but luckily he didn't seem to notice. Luke was smiling creepily at the freshmen girls behind you.

The basement was filled with some seniors, juniors, fellow sophomores, but mostly freshman girls. You'd seen them in the halls and made sure to look down as they passed, even though they were younger than you. Fact is, you still looked like a frosh yourself.

For twenty minutes, you hung out with the sophomore soccer guys, but really you just kind of stood against the wall,
trying to look casual and pretending to sip from a red plastic cup full of warm beer. You felt it was important to be seen as part of the sophomore crew, and hoped that attending this party would make it unspoken that you'd attend future, nonhazing-related parties at Luke's house. But as the minutes passed, you felt increasingly uncomfortable standing there; trying to appear bored and relaxed was turning out to be harder than you'd imagined, so you slipped away, up the stairs and into the darkened first floor. You went over to the living room and sat down in the dark, resting the plastic cup on the piano bench beside you. You exhaled, your voice shivering as you did so.

“Hi?” a soft voice said, and you literally jumped in your seat. “Sorry!” she added, as you flicked the light switch of the lamp by your head.

There was a freshman girl sitting cross-legged in the puffy chair in the corner. Her long brown hair pooled in her lap, and she absentmindedly played with a strand as she sat there. She was about as cute a girl you'd ever seen, and for a moment you wondered why you'd never seen her before. Then you realized the answer: you didn't make eye contact with anyone in school, usually.

“I didn't know anyone was up here,” you said.

“Just me,” she replied. “I was about to go back down in a minute.”

The girl stood up, and so you stood up. She smiled, and you wondered if it was because she noticed your varsity soccer
jersey. You were surprised when she took your right hand as she walked past, pulling you along with her. The two of you held hands all the way down the basement steps and into the near corner of the basement by the speakers, where it was too loud to really talk, but she smiled at you. You tried to smile back but managed more of a disinterested grin as you pretended something really fascinating was happening on the wall just behind her.

For almost an hour, the two of you just stood there, not talking. By this point, you weren't holding hands, but it was clear that you were hanging out, both of you watching as the frosh soccer players stumbled around drunk. You still couldn't shake that feeling of being an imposter, but with the girl next to you, it felt better. At one point, she leaned in and shouted in your ear, “You're nice,” which you had no idea how to interpret, given the fact that you hadn't exchanged more then ten words to each other since first meeting upstairs. You nodded stupidly and leaned in to shout, “Thanks,” over the music. She laughed, unaware that you meant it.

You wanted to add, “So are you,” but weren't sure if, even though she said it first, she'd think it was a weird thing to tell her. Before you could figure out what to say next, a hand clapped you on the shoulder. It was Jason, the lone senior, and his eyes were red, but he smiled earnestly at you and said hi. You were reminded you'd always liked him, wanted to turn out like him someday. Since you didn't know the girl's name, even though you'd spent an hour together and it had clearly been
established that she considered you nice, you didn't want to ruin things by finally asking her name. Instead you shouted, “This is Jason,” to her, and the two shook hands and said hello. She said her name to him, but you didn't catch it, so you leaned in and shouted, “What did you just tell him?” and she replied, “I just told him my name.”

“It's good to see you out, bro,” Jason added, clapping you on the back a second time before heading back into the thicket of limbs.

The girl smiled at you and, encouraged, you leaned in and shouted, “He's nice.” She nodded really enthusiastically, and you felt pleased, this being your first time hanging out with a girl and technically having an hour-long conversation with her. You had even established verbally she thought you were nice, and occasionally you saw her glancing at your varsity jersey. You could tell she was impressed that you were a soccer guy, and even better, at one point Luke came over and looked elated that you were standing with the girl.

“So this is where you been,” he said, eyeballing her.

“This is Luke,” you shouted to the girl, adding, “You guys are both nice,” and amazingly, rather than finally pegging you as an utter weirdo who couldn't talk to girls, she thought you were teasing her—as if you were actually a charismatic guy.

“Stop it,” she said, playfully punching you in the shoulder.

You marveled at how your theories had been correct all along. Just being a soccer guy meant you didn't even have to try and girls would think you were cool. Luke handed you a
fresh cup filled with beer, and you pretended to be dying of thirst and took a mini sip. Still gross.

“I'll leave you to it,” Luke whispered in your ear, patting you on the back.

All this patting on your back felt good, coupled with hanging out with the girl, and for the rest of the night you noticed Luke pointing at you from a distance. The other sophomore soccer guys, who hadn't considered you a friend for years, shot you the thumbs-up. You shot it back, even in front of the girl, who smiled.

“Everyone's nice,” you couldn't help but tell her, but luckily she didn't catch it because of the noise. When she asked you to repeat yourself, you at least had the wherewithal to recognize how cavemanish you were at conversing with a girl. “Nevermind,” you said.

You took a sip of beer, and it still tasted horrible, but you didn't care, still amazed at how things had turned out. So suddenly, you were who you'd wanted to be all this time. You could also tell, the way Luke and the rest of the cool soccer guys were looking at you, that they finally thought you were cool too. You were talking to a pretty girl, and you'd be going to parties in the future. Already you imagined hanging out with the girl in the hallways at school and visiting her locker between classes. You couldn't wait.