Everything That Makes You (3 page)

At lunch, Trent smacked his tray on the table and sat across from Fi. “She'll be at the game today, right?”

Having just bitten into her tuna sandwich—and having at least
some
manners, though her mother might not believe it—Fi simply nodded.

“Think she'll check me out, too?” Trent asked. “While she's here?”

Fi swallowed, shaking her head. “She's the assistant coach from Northwestern's
women's
program. Are you planning on some life-altering surgeries?”

Trent snorted his Coke, nearly spewing it on Fi. “Think of all the time we could spend together.”

She laughed. “I already get about as much of you as I can take.”

Truthfully, Fi was relieved there was no way Trent would make it to Northwestern. First, for all the talk of grades, Trent
made Fi look like a National Merit Scholar. Second, at heart he was just a good old southern boy; she couldn't picture him in cold, fast-paced Chicago. And lastly, if she couldn't manage the boundaries of their friendship here, what chance would she have if he was the
only
person she knew?

He rolled his eyes—then took another enormous bite of hamburger. “So what happens? After she watches you?”

“She falls madly in love with my transcendent style, runs onto the field after my last-second goal, and offers me a starting position and full ride.” Trent snatched some apple slices from her lunch and she confessed, “I'm kind of nervous. What if I suck?”

He waved her off. “You don't have it in you.”

She smacked his hand as he went for another slice, eating it herself. “Seriously. It's, like, huge that she's here.”

“You've gone to their camps the past three years. The
head coach
has seen you before. The scout wouldn't be here if they weren't already going to make an offer.”

“That Vanderbilt recruiter came last year for Mary Benton. Remember? She totally choked. No Maryland offer.”

He paused to consider this before shaking his head. “Nope. It's utterly impossible. Even on your worst day, you're the best in this city.”

“Yeah, well, this is
Memphis.
We're not exactly a lacrosse hotbed.”

“Will you stop?” He scowled at her. “You'll psych yourself out.”

“You're right. Deep breath.” She sucked in a huge gulp of air. And another. And maybe four more, all really close together.

He reached across the table for her brown paper lunch bag, like she might need emergency hyperventilation assistance. “You all right?”

Once her nerves got under control, she nodded. “Little freaked out.”

“That's even worse than how you get after kissing.”

She glared across the table at Trent. “You don't have a gentlemanly bone in your body.”

“Sure, I do,” he said with a wink.

“Is this supposed to be helping?”

“I'm distracting you from your worries.”

“By making me cringe?”

Trent balled up his hamburger wrapper, tossing it onto his tray. “Whatever.”

He slumped into his chair, and the two studied each other over the table. Both had their eyes narrowed and arms crossed over their chests when Ryan walked past. He paused, looking from one to the other. “What are y'all bickering about now?”

“We're not bickering,” Trent and Fi answered simultaneously, still staring each other down.

Ryan walked away, muttering, “Wonder what getting along looks like.”

The day crawled and flew by all at once. Teachers snapped at her to pay attention, but Fi could only focus on the playbook
in her head and the game tape of the other team that she watched at practice yesterday.

There were two girls who couldn't play with their left hands, no matter how pinned they got. One with true speed—she could move the ball fast, but her shot accuracy was unpredictable. There was a goalie who favored her right side. The defenders made messy stick checks—Fi could rack up some good foul calls from them.

By the time she got on the field, Fi felt calmer. Coach Dunn smacked her on the back, cast a knowing look toward the bleachers, and asked how she felt.

“Good,” she said.

After warm-up drills, when she'd spied on the team a little, he asked again, and she answered, “Great.”

“You're on draw,” he said.

She grinned.

At the beginning of the season, Coach Dunn had told her, “I'm moving you to midfield, Fi.”

“What?” she'd practically yelled at him. “I'm attack!”

“My center moved this summer. I need you there.”

“But I'm the leading scorer!”

“So score,” he'd said, “while playing center.”

Annoyed
her
game was getting screwed up because some senior's dad got transferred, she had played the position begrudgingly at first. Once she reached her stride as middie, though, she never wanted to go back. She got the best of both worlds—defense and attack—and more space on the field to
run, to muscle out plays, to go head-to-head. She got the draw, too—the two-girl standoff in the center circle that left one with the ball and the other chasing after it. Seventy-four percent of the time she was the one with the ball. She'd checked the stats.

The ref blew the whistle. Fi and the other team's center leaned into each other, stick head pressed against stick head, the small hard yellow ball sandwiched in the middle. Another whistle and both girls pressed out and up, flinging the ball skyward.

Fi netted it.

Blowing past the other team's midfielders, she tore up the field, switching to her left hand as a defender tried to check. Three defenders in front of her blocked all her options, so she passed to the attack behind the crease. The play went on a while—all the attacks and midfielders sliding in front of the goal, looking for a shot, while the attack behind the crease kept dodging her defenders. Fi saw an opening and pivoted around her distracted defender. Three steps to the goal, a pretty assisting pass by the attack behind the crease, and there it was—an easy fling into goal.

That would be One.

Another draw. Fi flipped it toward her left middie, and once again her team was on offense. But half were running one play while the other half ran another.

“Set up!” Fi was yelling, trying to pull them into some kind of pattern.

“Somebody set a pick,” called the attack behind the crease, and a teammate cut to the goal.

“Midfields!” Coach Dunn was screaming from the sidelines. “Get up top!”

Even though Dunn was yelling at her to shift away, Fi knew the girl setting up was out of position. Sure enough, at the pass, the girl reached out her stick an inch short of making any difference.

The ball rolled as Fi and an opposing defender charged for it.

Their bodies collided less than a second after their sticks. There was a series of unpleasant snapping sounds, and for an instant, Fi felt a giddy pleasure—
I've finally broken someone's stick!
Both girls hit the ground. It wasn't until the ref blew the whistle that she processed the pain.

Grabbing her right ankle, Fi screamed obscenities she didn't realize she knew. Still,
she
had the ball.

The ref and Coach Dunn ran over. Despite the pain—it was like she'd been stabbed, from the inside out—she wondered why her hands felt sticky. When Dunn pried them from her ankle, they were covered in blood. She dragged her eyes away from her hands, looked toward her foot, and saw bone.

It hurt so, so bad.

Dunn carried her bodily off the field. Ryan and Trent ran over from where they stood on the sidelines, and in minutes, her dad was across the field, too, barking into his cell phone, then taking her from the coach's arms. Yelling at Ryan to open the damn back door already, he slid Fi across the backseat
and wrapped an old gym towel under her foot to soak up the blood.

“Hold on, sweetie,” he said, tearing out of the parking lot. “We'll be in the ER in ten minutes.”

Fi felt like she was frothing at the mouth. In between groans, she cursed like a sailor. Her father didn't scold her even once, which made everything even more terrifying, because that meant he already knew what she was just now figuring out. They could
see
her bone. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

She'd been quiet thirty seconds, letting her head loll against the door and watching the trees whip by as her father sped to the hospital in rush hour traffic, when Ryan turned around from the front passenger seat. He looked gray. “Are you okay?”

“What the hell play were they running?” she barked back.

“Um—”

“They were out of position! Did you see that?” Fi knocked her head backward against the door, hoping a new pain would distract her from the red-hot, searing pain of ripped skin and snapped bone.

If only she'd listened to Dunn and shifted back.

If only she'd stopped a few steps before she hit the defender.

If only the defender hadn't made that weird pivot right.

Her dad hit a bump pulling into the parking lot, making Fi groan louder. “Sorry, baby,” he said. “We're here.”

He pulled in front of the ER doors and sprinted into the
building, while Fi lay moaning in the backseat. A few minutes later, he emerged from the sliding glass doors with the biggest man Fi had ever seen. He had to hunch over the wheelchair handlebars to reach them. He picked Fi up like she weighed nothing.

“Had a little accident, I hear,” he said, a row of perfect white teeth sparkling against his dark skin.

“Well . . .” Fi trailed off, pointing to the blood-smeared backseat. The ginormous nurse peered into the car and frowned. “Hmm. We'll have to take care of that.”

Despite the
blood everywhere,
it felt like forever before she was admitted. Finally, someone hoisted her onto a gurney, popped the metal side rails up, and wheeled her back. Her dad walked beside her, but he'd sent Ryan home with the car. Fi wasn't sure she needed all the things her father demanded that Ryan fetch. Maybe he was just getting rid of her brother before he passed out.

Trying to distract herself, Fi counted fluorescent lights as they proceeded down the hallway. She got wheeled into a room, and the nurses and doctors consulted with her dad, who seemed to lose a little more color with each conversation. Then a nurse came over to her, smiled, and said, “This'll just hurt a little.”

After flicking the soft spot inside Fi's elbow a few times, the nurse pushed a tiny needle, strapped to a clear tube, into the vein.

After that, Fi lost track of everything.

For years, Fiona had daydreamed about this—through circumstances beyond their control, she and Trent would be thrown together, forced to work side by side. Trent would be smart, clever, witty, and kind. Gradually, he would realize Fiona was the girl of his dreams. They would fall in love, for happily ever after.

Now, at this very moment, he sat directly across the library table from her, so no time like the present.

“Mr. Phillips said we could pick from all the books we've read so far this year. So I was thinking this one,” Fiona said, sliding the packet between them and pointing to number four.
Please don't let him see my hands shake.

Trent leaned closer, and Fiona pulled in a deep breath. Outside of spearmint gum, he had no noticeable smell. It was a little unfortunate—she was kind of hoping for a little cantaloupe.

“‘In
The Sun Also Rises
, show how Hemingway used conflict to establish the identities of Brett and Jake,'” he read—then looked to her with a shrug. “I got no clue what that means.”

“Well, you read it, right?”

“I'm a dumb jock, remember?”

Crap.
“Sorry about that. Bad day.”

“It's cool,” he said, with just the prettiest smile ever.

“Well, we still have time.”

She went through a quick outline—thesis statement, supporting quotations, historical relevance. Just in case, Fiona gave herself the meatier parts of the paper, like the section on the Lost Generation of World War I.

“Wow. You really thought this out,” Trent said, flipping through her notes. “Wait, what's an expatriate?”

“Someone who doesn't live in his home country.”

“Oh. I thought you meant, like, Randy Moss.”

“Who?”

“He was a wide receiver, for New England. He's an ex-Patriot,” he said, stressing different syllables.

“No.” She decided not to overanalyze. “The main characters were mostly Americans living in Paris.”

“I was wondering how the football thing fit in,” he said. “Everyone living in Paris, huh? Doesn't sound so bad.”

“It's a really sad story, actually.”

“You're not a very good salesman.”

“They're drunk a lot. It's kind of amusing.”

“Awesome,” he said in a lighthearted way.

She leafed through her book, finding the highlighted section that explained it better. “Here,” she said, handing it over.

Trent took the book and read out loud. “‘You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you.'” He looked up at her. “You've lost touch with the soil? What the heck does that mean?”

“The characters have all lived through World War I, and they're pretty battered by it. Morally lost, that's what Mr. Phillips said. They're struggling to find meaning.”

“Good thing you're my partner,” Trent said, dropping her book on the table. “I'd totally fail this on my own.”

He
wants
to be my partner!
“I need to keep up my GPA, too. Northwestern's my first choice.”

“They have the best women's lacrosse team in the country.” His blue eyes widened, showing off those flecks of green.

“Maybe I'll try out,” she said, a little giddy from his gaze.

Trent laughed. “I don't think they take walk-ons.”

Fiona snapped in a well-shucks kind of way. “They probably wouldn't like all my don't-throw-a-ball-near-my-face restrictions, anyway.”

What insanity made me say
that?

“Do you mind if I ask?” Trent said. “How it happened?”

Fiona shrugged. She was used to answering this question like it didn't bother her. “A disastrous run-in with a popcorn cart. I was five. We were at the zoo, in the snack bar. The
machine got knocked over—I ran into it, I think. The oil flew out of it and landed on me.” She shook her head. “It's pretty ridiculous.”

“That sucks.”

“It is what it is.”

Even though that might not be true anymore.

Fiona still hadn't agreed to the surgery, though the lobbying was fierce. Her mom's main argument: “This will make your life better.” Which was just code for
this will make
you
better.

Her main fear: the horror of cutting out a sizable piece of herself, and—this was the kicker—
sewing in bits of someone else.
For the rest of her life, she'd be less than when she started. She felt like less than enough already, thankyouverymuch.

But God, the results did look good. Which was just as bad, really. Deep down, a little part of her agreed with her mom. She
should
throw this part of herself away.

Trent was watching her. “So why Northwestern?”

Fiona's heart fluttered. “They've got a great creative writing school. And music program.”

“And that's what you want to do?”

Absolutely.
“I think so.”

“Like I said, good thing you're my partner, then.”

The two spent the rest of lunch hour going through the book. Fiona pointed out passages Trent could use for his half. When the bell rang, they walked down the hallway.
Side by side. Together.

“So, partner, when's our next date?” Trent asked, nudging her in the side.

Fiona bit down her giddy grin. She wrapped one free hand around her waist, where he'd nudged her. It was almost like touching him.

“Lunch tomorrow okay?” he asked. “After school's hard, with practice.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Don't lose touch with the soil, Doyle,” he said with a wink. They parted ways, Trent going up one hall, and Fiona up another.

Lucy wasn't impressed by Fiona's lunch with Trent.
Or
the date comment.
Or
the plans for tomorrow.
Or
Trent's funny Hemingway quote. Instead, as they drove to the coffee shop, Lucy exercised her right to free speech about Fiona's spinelessness. Fiona wondered what kind of fiery death awaited her if she kicked Lucy out of the car. It might be preferable to the current tirade.

Lucy had moved to Memphis from Brooklyn in fifth grade, and Fiona had always loved what her own dad called Lucy's “Yankee attitude.” She had features drawn from practically every available genetic pool. Her hair was nearly four inches tall. She wore thrift-store clothes and spoke in hard-accented edges. She acted just like she looked—like she didn't give a crap what you thought.

And Lucy said exactly what she meant. Not like some
southerners, who thought they could say whatever cruel thing they wanted, just so long as they tacked “Isn't that sweet?” or “Bless his heart!” at the end.

Still, sometimes Fiona needed a break from Lucy's
Lucyness
. Apparently, that wouldn't be today.

At the coffee shop, Lucy plopped herself down on the couch right next to her and shoved a lime-green flyer under her nose. Coffee splashed across the tacky flyer—and the open pages of her Moleskine.

“Luce!” Fiona reached for the napkin dispenser and blotted away the jagged-edged stain. “Watch it.”

“You dropped this,” Lucy said, plucking the flyer from the floor and putting it in Fiona's lap.

Fiona gave the flyer a brief glance before turning her attention back to the notebook. “Open mic night. So what?”

“So you should do it.”

“Yeah, right,” Fiona snorted.

“That'd be awesome, Fiona,” said David, a friend from school. “You could sing one of those.”

Sitting across from her in a tattered recliner, David was pointing at her notebook. She'd been so absorbed in writing, she'd forgotten he was there.

She and David shared some classes, and they worked on the school paper together, but mostly, she knew him through Otherlands, the coffee shop David had “discovered.” He was the first of their group of friends to push through the crowd of tattoos and piercings and order a
latte. She respected him for that small bit of bravery.

The first time Fiona came here, she had loved the place immediately, with its battered concrete floor, mismatched furniture, and hand-painted quotes on the wall. Lucy had wondered out loud whether it was where garage sale chairs came to die.

Ever since, a random group from school would converge in the living-room-style back room—provided no college kids had claimed it first. Fiona and Lucy came a few times a week, often on Friday nights, since neither of them had much by way of a social life.

“I don't think I'm open mic night material,” Fiona said now, dropping the flyer on the table.

“Because the competition's so fierce?” Lucy asked.

Lucy had a point. Like everything else about this place, the guidelines were loose. Just about anyone could perform in the every-other-Friday open mic night. People would read poems, sing, play the accordion, tell jokes, anything really.

“I don't have anything ready.”

“You are single-handedly keeping those Moleskine people in business,” Lucy said, pointing to the notebook in Fiona's lap. “You're telling me none of that scratching and humming has amounted to anything?”

Fiona glanced over her shoulder to the open mic “stage,” a simple, harmless corner up front, framed by tall potted plants. She knew what it would look like at night, though—brighter than the rest of the coffee shop, a high black stool smack in the center so she'd be taller than everyone watching her, with
her face all lit up. She cringed, not sure which freaked her out more—baring her soul or her face.

“Not really.” Fiona pulled her bangs far, far forward.

“Fiona Doyle,” Lucy said. “Two weeks ago somebody
mimed.
”

David laughed. “She even got behind the microphone.”

“A mime with a microphone,” Lucy said, nodding with David. “That's who you're up against.”

Fiona pulled her Moleskine closer in. “I don't have anything.”

“You're such a chicken.”

“Who's a chicken?” Ryan plopped down on the other side of Fiona, so her coffee splashed again.

“Your sister,” Lucy answered. “She won't do open mic night.”

“You really should, Fiona,” David added. “It'd be cool to hear an original.”

“Not gonna happen.” Ryan looked over his shoulder at the coffee bar while he spoke. “She's
my sister
, and I haven't even heard any of them.”

Attempting to change the subject, Fiona seized upon her brother's new weakness. “Who's that girl you keep looking at?”

“What girl?”

Fiona pointed toward the little pixie of a girl on the working side of the counter. Ryan blocked her shoulder with his, before she could turn fully. “Want to be a little more obvious?”

“So
this
is behind your sudden interest in my coffee shop?” Because of his soccer schedule, Ryan didn't come to the coffee shop often. He'd been here a lot over the past three weeks, though. “I thought we were bonding.”

He rolled his eyes. “So what's her name?” Lucy asked.

Ryan took a sip of coffee. “Don't know yet.”

“You Doyles,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “The only way either of you will end up with anyone is if they knock you out with a brick and drag you away.”

“Not taking advice from you, Luce,” Ryan said.

“Why's that? Think I don't get how it works?”

“Oh, please. Don't make this a gay thing,” he said. “You have no personal experience—boy or girl. I'm gonna stick with my own method.”

“Which is what?”

“Smooth and subtle.”

Lucy leaned back into the couch, propping her feet on the table. “You're so subtle, she's clueless you exist.”

“I think sometimes it's best to take it slow,” David said.

“See?” Ryan said, pointing at him. “David knows how to play it with the ladies.”

“You guys might want to poll a few ladies,” Lucy said. “It's the blind leading the blind.”

“Again, you are so not a good source.” Ryan plonked his mug on the table. Coffee spilled over the side, creating a little mug-shaped puddle.

“Because I'm not a lady?”

“Because you're worse than we are! You don't even
like
anybody.” Ryan looked at Fiona. “Am I right?”

“Don't drag me into this,” Fiona said, holding up her hands.

“David,” Ryan said, “you like girls, right?”

All the blood in David's body suddenly appeared in his face. “Um, yeah.”

“One in particular?”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, I guess so.”

David's entire head looked like it might explode from all that converging blood. Fiona felt sorry for him, but her brother didn't seem bothered. “Does she know?”

“I don't think so.”

“And that's working for you, is it?” Lucy asked. “Pining for her in silence?”

“He's not pining,” Ryan answered for him. “He's got a
plan.
There's
strategy.
”

“Um, well, I hadn't really—”

Fiona nudged both Lucy and her brother. “Stop it.” She looked at David. “Just ignore them. Lord knows I do.”

“It's okay,” he said with a smile. “I could use a little strategy. She's not going to fall in my lap.”

“See?” Lucy said, gesturing to David.

“He was agreeing with
me
,” Ryan countered.

Fiona shoved them both away from her. “Good Lord, give it up! Change of subject!”

Ryan and Lucy fell back against their sides of the couch.
A slow smile crept across Lucy's face as she focused on Fiona. “Well played, my friend.”

“Hmm?” Fiona said.

“Changing the subject.” Lucy faced Ryan. “Originally, we were discussing how your sister's a chicken.
Somehow
we got off track.”

“You used me, Fiona,” Ryan said, his hand over his heart. “I'm hurt.”