The St. Ambrose School for Girls(35)

I think of her ditching her two best friends in the rain without a care.

I think of my shampoo, my clothes, and that memo.

I think of her on that mountain with Nick Hollis.

The ball smacks into my chest, the impact stinging my sternum and making a sharp noise. Distantly, I hear the cheer of my teammates, and I see them turn to each other, already celebrating, congratulating themselves for staying alive in the game. Ms. Crenshaw likewise leaps into the air as Hot RA cringes back in an exaggeration of frustration on the sidelines.

Across the field, Greta’s expression does not change. And that’s when I realize that if I do this for her, things’ll only get worse because she’ll be pissed I was the one who scored and kept us going. But if I don’t even up this game for her, things’ll only get worse because I’ll have denied her what she demanded of me.

Succeed or fail, I cannot win.

So I don’t close my hands. I don’t curl my arms up to my meager chest and capture the ball. I let that which was intended by some invisible, irrational force for me and me alone to bounce free, another arc created at the transfer of energy, one that results in the football bouncing across the ground, until it comes to rest just out of bounds.

Fuck you, Greta.

There’s a moment of confusion in the field. No one can understand what’s happened. And then the opposing team starts jumping up and down and cheering, Hot RA running out into their midst and getting swarmed by those he chose at the beginning. Especially Francesca.

My team falls silent as their declarations of survival evaporate. They are all disappointed, but none seem surprised. Their expressions are of self-censure, as if they knew they shouldn’t have trusted any job to somebody like me. These girls trudge off the field, heading for the Igloos full of iced sodas.

Greta does not leave the field. She’s set her crosshairs on me, like she would blow me out of my cheap sneakers if she could.

I have no regrets. I’ve voluntarily placed myself in hot water, and the result of my freedom of choice improves my lot in life here at Ambrose for no other reason than it relieves the sting of randomness. Greta could have been in another dorm. I could have been born more inside the normal neural bandwidth. I could have slept through the night way back at the beginning. There could have been someone, anyone, on campus, on the planet, who she’d rather have tortured. Instead, like the ball that came to me through no skill of Ms. Crenshaw’s and no finesse of my own, I’m Greta’s lucky catch for the game of at least this semester, and likely the whole of my sophomore year.

But I’m choosing her ire now.

As I proceed back toward the picnic tables, no one pays any attention to me. The other girls who were uninvolved in our largely incompetent contest have transitioned quickly to other topics of discussion. Or maybe they’re all studiously ignoring me, shutting me out from discourse that they neglect to recall they’ve not included me in thus far anyway.

There’s one face that’s turned to me, however, one set of eyes that meets my own.

Strots is sitting on her tabletop, her fellow athletes in a loose configuration around her, a fist not fully closed. She’s looking right at me, and there’s a wise light in her eye. After so many years of her being in end zones and scoring goals, she knows what I did. She knows I could easily have held on to that ball and gotten the points and kept my team alive. She knows that I made a conscious choice, that that was not a fumble.

Strots smiles at me. It’s a closeted smile, a mere lift to one corner of her lips. But I catch it.

And I smile back, also in secret.

Strots gives me a nod of respect and then refocuses on Keisha, who’s debating another member of the field hockey team. I continue over to the table I was at, the table on which Ms. Crenshaw’s coleslaw has passed its congealed, brewing stage and is now moving on to dehydration in the sunlight.

As I resume my perch, Ms. Crenshaw does not come over to engage me and commiserate. She’s received an unexpected boon. Hot RA is talking to her sincerely, his hand on her shoulder, his eyes kind as he attempts, I assume, to frame the very expected loss in a favorable light. What he fails to see, or deliberately ignores, is that his attention is the win for my geometry teacher. Her face is turned up to his with the rapture of a sunflower to the unimpeded summer sky. She’s drinking in this nourishment, as for once, the object of so much of her effort—monitoring those car windows against the weather must be a lot of work—sends in her direction exactly what she’s been trying to receive, a Hail Mary ball caught in the only end zone that matters to her.

I’d like something cold to drink, but Greta’s by the Igloos with the cold sodas and there’s a small crowd of spectators around her. From time to time, one or two of the girls glance in my direction, and then look away quickly as they see me staring. I have a feeling that Greta will not leave those coolers until it’s time to get back on the bus. She knows I must be thirsty, but she also knows I won’t tread into enemy territory.

But it’s okay. Everything is okay. The angle of the sun has changed and my table is now in the shade, sure as if the tree beside me approves of my actions and is showing it by granting me cover. The afternoon is cool outside of the direct rays, and as my heart rate begins to return to normal, my body temperature drops.

I think back to the moment that football left my grasp and bounced onto the ground. I took something Greta wanted away from her. I thwarted her superiority. I got her back.