Keep Me Still (11 page)

D
orms
for athletes are nicer than the ones for regular freshmen. Thank fuck because if I had to cram in some tiny closet with a dude I barely knew, well, one of us probably wouldn’t make it out alive.

As I carry my crap in, I notice that I’m in one of two adjoining quad rooms that share a bathroom. Four shower stalls, sinks, and toilets are all that separate me and my roommates from four other guys on the university soccer team. Could probably throw a hell of a party in there, get some serious steamed-up action going in those showers with whatever girls are willing. Not that I’ve felt much like partying this past year.

I already know most of these guys from summer workouts so we don’t waste time with introductions. We just pick out our beds and unload our shit. Lucas Taite and a few older guys from the team tell us the best places to party on and around campus as we finish up.

“We’re getting introduced at freshmen orientation in a few hours so you fuckers need to get a move on,” Ben Blackburn sneers. He’s from Scotland so it comes out more like “fookers.” He’s the fullback and the biggest dude on the team. But he’s only an inch or two taller than me. Not that I’m comparing. He’s also a complete dumbass and how the hell he’s made it to his junior year of college is beyond me.

“And don’t forget, ladies, you have to clean the field house and spit-shine the locker rooms,” he adds, probably because he gets off on hassling the eight of us who are freshmen. For now I’m letting it go because I don’t want to get kicked off the team. It’d give my dad a hard-on if I fuck this up.
Soccer is a pussy sport,
he informed me each time I chose to play it instead of football. I grit my teeth and dump my comforter and sheets onto my bed so we can head to the field house.

“Chill, man,” Skylar Martin says under his breath as he does the same. “It’s just for a year, and then we’ll be the ones giving the orders.” He says something else but I don’t hear it. Because what he just said reminds me of a time I’ve shoved, kicked, and fucking wrestled out of my memory.

“It’s just for a year or two, Landen,” my mom would say each time we moved. Right, a year or two. Long enough to make a few friends so it would hurt like hell when we had to leave again, but not long enough to ever be missed. Same shit, different town. Not that my stupid little kid feelings mattered compared to the Colonel’s oh-so-important highly classified position. I learned the hard way what complaining about moving so much got me. Stitches. A cast. Compliments of dear old dad. By the time I entered high school, I learned to keep my mouth shut. I also learned not to bother forming any kind of attachments to anyone. And I was doing a pretty damn good job. Until we moved to Hope Springs. Until I met
her
.

“O’Brien, you good to drive?” Skylar asks as we load into my truck. He’s watching me with a weird look in his eyes. As if I weren’t one hundred percent there. Shit, I must’ve been spacing out again.

“Yeah. I am. It’s not like we’d all fit in your P.O.S. anyways.” Once we’re all in, I back out into the street and head towards the field house to clean up before orientation. Skylar, Austin, and Michael are crammed into the extended cab of my truck while the guys rooming in the quad attached to ours are piled in the back. Not sure if that’s legal in California, not sure I give a fuck either.

“Dude. It kind of smells like a girl in here. You hiding a chick in the floorboard?” Skylar asks, looking around, probably for an air freshener or something.

Fuck me. I knew I should’ve gotten rid of it. There’s a bottle of lotion in the center console that belonged to her. Because I’m slightly addicted to the sweet peaches and cream scent of Layla Flaherty. It lives on. Just like the image of her perfect face that’s seared into my mind.

I nod to the console and he laughs. “Nice. Jerkin’ lotion in the truck. I hear ya, buddy.”

“Belonged to a girl I dated,” I practically grunt at Skylar, praying he’ll shut the hell up about it.

“Was she hot? Cause I’m getting a semi just from the smell.”

I go to punch him lightly, but if his flinch is any indication, I failed. I don’t like him talking about her. Just the thought of him—or anyone—thinking about Layla like that, with a half hard dick, is enough to make me see red.

He holds his hands up and looks at me like I’m nuts. Probably because I am. “My bad, dude. I didn’t realize.” I want to ask him what he didn’t realize, but at the same time I don’t want to know.

He doesn’t hit me back, but pain thumps me hard in the chest, because hell yeah she was hot. Better than hot. Amazingly breathtakingly, fucking gorgeous. So much so that the first time I saw her I was pretty sure I was going to have to fight some guy, or maybe several guys, just to talk to her. Shocked the hell out of me that not only was she always alone, but that everyone at Hope Springs High School avoided the shit out of her. The most beautiful girl on the damn planet and she was isolated in her own little world day after day.

Freaky Flaherty.
That’s what I overheard some of other girls call her. I heard them because they said it loudly. On purpose. One thing I learned from moving around so much was that at small town schools, girls had a habit of waging wars on one another with a military precision that would’ve made the Colonel proud. I half-expected her to be one of them. But Layla had been a target, blacklisted her freshmen year by girls with less than half her beauty and none of her class. My sweet girl, an angel who never hurt anyone, was so used to being ignored and avoided that she had a really hard time letting me in. By the time I convinced her I was worthy, it was time to move again. So all I proved to her was what she knew all along. Everyone can leave.

“O
h
we are so doing this,” Corin informs me as we reach the stadium. There’s a dozen flyers covering the concrete kiosks surrounding the entrance, so I have no clue which one she’s gushing over. If it’s sorority rushing or some crap like that, she’s on her own. Dropping my nearly empty cup in a trashcan, I step closer to see which flyer she’s talking about.

She pulls one off and hands it to me. “I did this in high school and one of the floats I worked on was in the Macy’s parade. Seriously, it’s so much fun. We have to sign up.”

Skimming the purple and gold writing on the poster promising
Fun
!
Free food
!
And a chance to express ourselves creatively and meet our peers
! if we sign up to decorate floats for Homecoming. Oh joy. But Corin is practically twitching with excitement, and this was the whole point of coming here. Leaving the old me, the one who never would’ve decorated a float for Homecoming, behind. “Okay. Sounds good to me.” I hand her the flyer back, watching as she shoves it into her huge purse.

“I never went to any dances back in New York. Did you go to Homecoming? I bet you were like Homecoming queen or some shit, weren’t you?” she asks as we continue walking towards the Grecian-style arena.

“Far from it,” I tell her, once again trying not to think about that year. That night especially. The way Landen looked when he picked me up. So handsome in his tux that he took my breath away. The way his full mouth quirked up in a nervous smile when I told him I was ready to go—ready to be his. The pain in his eyes when I woke up in the hospital and kicked him out because I was humiliated. Of all the nights my stupid seizures could have ruined, they ruined Homecoming the most. “I went to Homecoming but left…early.” Via ambulance.

“You know, I never thought I’d be jealous of a cheerleader,” Corin says as we make our way to some open seats in the arena.

“And you are now because…?” I glance down the field at the overly bronzed girls standing at attention with smiles plastered on their made-up faces.

“Because
day-um
, they’ve got a nice view.” She nods, and I can see cheerleaders surrounding groups of athletes with flags labeling their different sports. Soccer and football are together.
Wonder which one he ended up playing?
I force myself to look away.

“Definitely didn’t have you pegged as a football groupie,” I say, nudging her as we sit.

“Oh, I’m not. Emo boys are way hotter. But there’s something about all that blind aggression. Muscles and sweat and testosterone. Yum.” Corin fans herself with one of the programs we were given detailing the agenda for orientation.

I can’t help but laugh. “Down, girl.”

She kicks her feet up on the seat in front of her. “So what’s your type, Georgia? Jock? Emo? Nerd? I bet you’re really into super smart guys, huh?”

“Eh.” I shrug, praying she’ll drop it. But we live together. Probably going to have to throw her a bone. “I dated an athlete once.”

“Really?” She leans back and looks at me like she’s trying to picture me with a football player on my arm. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Didn’t last long. I pushed him away and he…left.” Damn you, throat lump of tears to come. I swallow hard and focus on the program in my hand like there’s going to be a test on it.

“Hey, I get it. You’re kind of…closed off. I can totally see you pushing some hottie away. But aren’t athletes supposed to have like superhuman endurance or something?”

Oh, he had some endurance all right. Enough endurance to turn down all the girls who threw themselves at him the minute he moved to town. Enough to wait for me to be ready to let him in. Enough to enlist the help of the entire varsity soccer team at Hope Springs High School to hold up signs asking the school freak-show to Homecoming.
Pretty please, with cherries on top.

“Think they’re actually going to make us sing?” I shrug and point out the corny lyrics to the alma mater, hoping to change the subject. But in my head all I can think about is how much time I wasted pushing Landen O’Brien away. And how much it hurt when he finally left.

The marching band is warming up, and the President of the University is making her way to the podium. A few other official looking people surround her, and I’m tempted to take a picture with my phone even though Corin would probably make fun of me.

But this is it—the start of my new life. The one I am going to live, loud and full and without regret. Because that’s all I have in my past. Pain, shame, and soul-stinging regret.

I’m done with that now. As soon as this orientation ends, I’m moving on. Letting go of the anger at the man who killed my parents and the pain of missing them. While I’m at it, it’s time to move past the bone deep ache that paralyzes me every time I think of Landen O’Brien tricking me into trusting him so he could bail.

But when the marching band clatters into song, I’m shivering despite how warm it is in the stadium. Because I’m not in the stadium anymore. I’m at home, standing on Main Street, watching a Christmas parade. With a boy who’s about to break my heart into so many pieces that I’ll never be able to put it back together again. Not that it was in such great shape to begin with.

“W
e’ve
still got nearly an hour before orientation,” Skylar informs us, checking his watch as we finish up at the field house. “Let’s run by that diner we passed and grab a shake or something.”

“No,” I say before I can stop myself. I just want to get in my damn truck and avoid this conversation altogether.

“Yo, O’Brien, you cuttin’ weight or something? No shakes and now you’re a speed walker?” Austin calls out after me.

I sigh and turn to face them before climbing into my own personal peach-scented hell. “If you guys really want to go, we can. But I don’t want to hear any of you bitching at workouts tonight when you’re puking your asses off.”

“Dude, you got something against shakes?” Skylar says, finally reaching the truck. Some girls walk by and he’s momentarily distracted. Guy has the attention span of a fucking goldfish.

“Naw, just ready to get to the stadium and get this shit over with.” But I’m lying. Truth is, if I never see another chocolate shake again, it’ll be too soon. Because I don’t just see a milkshake. I see her.

Eyes closed, luscious lips curved into a satisfied grin, little pink tongue swiping that whipped cream from the corner of her mouth. And that smile. That damn dream-invading smile, the one that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. The one that changed everything. That changed me.

I stay in the truck while the rest of them go in the diner, pretending I have pertinent shit to attend to on my phone. Once they’re out of sight, I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. I never even got to kiss her. If I’d known just how short our time together was going to be, I would’ve kissed her every day. Every hour.

The truck door opens and I sit up straight. “Dammit,” Skylar mumbles as he dribbles some of his shake down his team polo, snapping me out of my memories of the girl I shouldn’t be thinking about in the first place. Must’ve zoned out while they were in the diner.

“Nice,” Austin jeers, laughing and pointing. “In t-minus thirty minutes we’re going to be introduced to the whole freshman class and goalie here has cookies-n-cream shake splattered down the front of his shirt. Smooth, man.”

“Don’t spill that shit in my truck. I mean it,” I warn him. “Or you will pay for a full detail or detail it yourself, motherfucker.” Not that I’d really follow through on the threat. Because then I would lose it, her sweet scent. As much as it tortures me, it’s all I have left to remind me. Even though the memories sting, it’s a pain as familiar and unwelcome as the pain my father caused. Terrifying. But necessary. A heroin addiction would probably be healthier.

My phone buzzes in my console and I know it’s one of three people. Tuck, Danni, or my mom. Texting to see how it’s going, to check up on me or whatever. I don’t bother looking at it, though, because I’m distracted. A redhead and a girl with hair like Layla’s are walking into the stadium as I pull into the parking lot. I nearly slam into a concrete kiosk I’m so distracted.

“You been drinking?” Skylar asks, bracing his hand on the dash.

“Not today,” I tell him as I whip into an empty parking space. The lot’s pretty full. It’s going to be a hike to the stadium but I probably need the fresh air to clear my head anyhow. Because I might be hallucinating.

All eight of us head toward the stadium, searching for the gate number we’ve been told to enter.

“It’s B8, dumbfuck,” Michael argues with Dean, who swears it’s C8 we’re supposed to be looking for.

“Oh shit, I forgot about this,” Skylar says, tearing a flyer off the nearest kiosk. “You know we have to decorate a team float for Homecoming? Coach said the shit is mandatory.”

“No way,” Michael says, snatching the flyer to look it over. “Ah, there’s free pizza at least.”

“Wow, fatass. Way to find the silver lining,” Austin says, smacking Mike in the arm. The two wrestle around for a few minutes but I keep walking. Homecoming. Of all the time I spent with Layla Flaherty, Homecoming was the most fucked up night of all. Either that or Thanksgiving, but I’m pretty sure Homecoming wins.

If I’d known what she’d been through, known that she’d witnessed her parents being gunned down in a random mugging as a kid and was plagued by seizure-inducing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I would’ve ripped Brent Becker’s arms from his body before I let him punch that door. But I didn’t know. Not all the details anyways. Before I could blink, she was convulsing on the floor and I was screaming for someone to call 911.
Freaky Flaherty,
they called her. When I saw what caused them to nickname her this, I wanted to burn the gym down Carrie-style. Small town bastards.

But when I wrapped my arms around her and her seizing stopped, I felt like King of the damn world. Because I was stupid enough to think maybe someone needed me.

I lose sight of the girl with hair like Layla’s once we enter the stadium. It’s barely controlled chaos in here. We find the seats marked Soccer and sit while some official looking people in suits set up a podium and fool around with sound equipment.

Testing the limits of my neck, I glance up into the stands, hoping to find that girl again, and kind of hoping not to. Part of the deal is that I don’t make myself obvious. Scrolling through messages on my phone, I see a text from my mom. She just recently learned to text, and boy does she make use of this knowledge.

The cheerleaders are lining up next to our seats, and several guys lean around me to stare. Jesus. It’s like they’ve never seen women in skirts before or something. But yeah, I do a quick once-over just for the hell of it. And so no one calls me a fag. Not that I don’t love the Colonel’s favorite nickname for me, but after I left Georgia and moved back to Colorado, I took a lot of shit. Because I didn’t hook up with Danni—or anyone for that matter. Because I couldn’t get a blonde from Georgia out of my head. Or my heart.

And every time someone called me that, it reminded me of that piece of shit Becker and him calling me that just before he caused Layla’s seizure. And then I see her face, looking horrified in that hospital bed. Embarrassed, ashamed, and mostly like she can’t stand the sight of me. I’m terrified of seeing that look on her face again. Maybe she and the Colonel could start a club.

“Dude, you look like you’re thinking about murdering someone. Care to share?” Skylar asks, finally peeling his eyes from a busty brunette with pompoms standing next to us.

“Nah, I’m fine.” It’s a lie I’m used to telling.

They announce the football team first. Cocky pricks.

Skylar and Austin are arguing back and forth about who’s going to bang which cheerleader and punching each other over me when they disagree. I almost miss it when they call my name.

Standing quickly, I offer a small wave at the crowd and sit back down. But my neck is hot and I feel someone watching me, even after they move on to introducing the Lacrosse team. And Crew. And even the cheerleaders. Leaning back in my metal folding chair, I glance all around, scanning the stands for whoever’s stare is burning a hole into my back.

Random faces blur together and I’m unable to distinguish any one person concentrating on me specifically. Maybe I’m just tired. Or paranoid. It’s been a long damn week.

After all the athletes have been introduced, a few more people yammer on about what an exciting time this is, how the university is part of our family now, and they’re here for us if we need anything. Unless we get caught with booze or drugs. Then we’re the fuck outta here and they wash their hands of us. Yeah, sounds about like the concept of family I’m familiar with.

They’re wrapping up the speeches and we stand to sing the lame-ass alma mater. Like any of us know the words. A gentle vibration in my pocket tells me I have a new message and I pull out my phone.

Party tonite @ Blackburn’s. Bring beer. And girls.

It’s from Lucas Taite, and I glance around to see Skylar, Austin, and a few other guys glancing at their phones. First night—impressive. The ink’s probably still wet on the Collegiate Athlete Code of Conduct I signed in Coach’s office this morning.

Good thing I brought my fake I.D. The girls might be a little harder to obtain, but I’m sure Skylar will be on top of that. Literally, I bet.

I turn to tell him he’s on chick duty when that feeling of being watched pummels me again. It’s so intense that I can tell which direction it’s coming from. Up and to my right. The marching band is filing out, but in between the tubas and drums I see her. The girl staring at me like she’s seen a ghost. And not one she’s particularly fond of.

She looks slightly different than the girl in my memory. Her skin is a darker shade of golden and her hair is a little lighter, like she’s been at the beach. But it’s her. I can feel it with everything I am. I want to call out, ask her to wait for me while I climb the bleachers like a maniac to get to her. But the horrified expression she wears keeps me still and silent for a full minute. She’s done waiting for me. She said everything she had to say with her last text message nearly nine months ago.
Goodbye Landen.