The Beast (7 page)

8:46 PM

From: Ruth

To: Alyssa

got another plan

8:52 PM

From: Alyssa

To: Ruth

4get it. i give up.

“S
o you're not feeling any symptoms at all, Alyssa?” the doctor asks.

I look at my mother, who has a vise grip on my hand. “None, Doc.”

“No dizziness?”

Somehow Mom manages to squeeze my hand even harder. “Nope,” I lie.

“Blurred vision?”

My hand is going to go numb pretty soon from lack of blood flow. “Nope,” I lie again, “I can see as well as ever.”

“Headaches?”

Concern flashes across my mom's eyes. “No,” I reply, trying to ignore the small man banging away with a sledgehammer inside my head. “No headaches either.”

Mom and I continue to hold hands as the doctor studies my file and then closes it.

“Well,” she says, “it seems awfully quick for you to return to the field, but if you're not suffering any of the standard concussion symptoms, I suppose you have my go-ahead to resume playing.”

Mom gives me one more hand squeeze, and we stand up together.
Wow
, I think.
That was easy
.

“Of course,” Dr. Lopez says, “before I sign off on anything, I still need to run a series of neuropsychological tests.”

“Neuropsychological?” I ask.

“It just means on your brain,” Dr. Lopez says.

“Should we be concerned?” Mom says.

“I don't think so, Ms. Duncan. If your daughter feels as good as she says she does, she should pass with flying colors.” She looks at me with her head tilted to the side, and I wonder if she suspects I've been lying to her. “Ready, Alyssa?”

I
just need to sit in my tree. If I can do that, everything will be okay.

I can handle losing Rick. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure of that. He may look perfect, but it's been a long time since our relationship has been perfect. The guy has muscle to spare, but he doesn't seem to have any fingers. Why else would a boyfriend stop calling his girlfriend
the week after she has a concussion
?

So, yeah, if Rick and I are through, I'll be just fine.

As for playing goal, I'm pretty sure I can give that up too. Soccer has been my life as long as I can remember, but maybe it's time to try something else. Maybe I don't have a choice. It took less than fifteen minutes to fail the doctor's brain tests and another fifteen for her to finish lecturing me about honesty and safety. Luckily, Mom was on the other side of the room during the lecture. Otherwise, I think she might have squeezed my hand hard enough to break it.

I was sure she would have a meltdown in the car, but I was wrong. Surprisingly, she stayed pretty calm and asked why I lied about how I was doing. I said because I didn't want to worry her. I could tell by the way her eyes wobbled that this made her feel worse, but she managed not to cry. She asked me to make a deal with her. If she tried not to get so upset about things, would I promise not to lie about my health? I said yes. When we shook hands to seal the deal, her hand wasn't as viselike as before.

She told me that she still wanted to come to my game, even though I wasn't going to be playing in it, but I told her it wasn't worth it.

“When, and if, I ever play again,” I said, “I'd love to see you in the bleachers. But I'd really rather not ride the bench in front of you.”

Mom said I was being silly. “
Of course
you'll play again,” she says. But she agreed to stay away from the games for now.

Anyway, I'm not so sure she's right. What if I don't get to play again? What if Becca's even better than me by the time my head heals? Could I deal with a future without soccer?

I hope so. If Mom can keep her cool after finding out her daughter still has a profound brain injury, then I should be able to keep cool over losing my spot on the team.

If I
do
lose my spot, I have two options: acceptance or bitterness. And the first option seems way better than the second.

No matter how many times I tell Ruth that I don't want to pick on Becca anymore, she keeps sending me texts with ideas for more missions, more ways to humiliate Becca Miller. Ruth may be an evil genius, but she has serious issues with letting go of her anger. I'd rather quit the team tonight than end up like that.

If I do quit, maybe Mom can stop working so hard. Maybe I can take her job at Big's Bar and Grill. Come to think of it, if I become a waitress, I might as well stop the beast. Something tells me beasts don't get very good tips.

So yeah—maybe I'll quit.

Or maybe I won't.

I still need to think on it before I come to any conclusions, which is why I need to get to my tree as soon as possible. I do all my best thinking there.

After the last bell, I go straight to my gym locker and change into my uniform. Today's game isn't until six o'clock, so it's not surprising that I'm the only one in the locker room. I put my bag over my shoulder and head outside.

As I cross the athletic parking lot, I can already see the leafy top of the yellow poplar tree. It'll be nice to get up there and sit on one of the branches for a while.

I walk along the track for a while and then cut through the field. My tree's looking more and more inviting. When I get to the base of its trunk, I set my bag down and close my eyes. The waves of wooziness have receded over the last few days, but it's better to be safe. With my eyes still closed, I grab for a branch. Above the rustle of leaves I hear something I'm not expecting. A human voice.

I open my eyes. You have to be kidding me.

Rick and Becca are sitting above me. I watch Rick's dangling feet as he scoots closer and closer to Becca, then puts his arm around her.

I'm too stunned to understand whatever Becca's saying. Or to say anything myself, for that matter. Or even to hang onto the tree.

I land awkwardly, first on a knee and then on my shoulder. The branch I'd been grabbing must have rustled, or maybe I grunted in pain when I hit the ground, because as I get up I hear Rick's voice: “Hello? Is someone down there?”

Instead of answering him, I pick up my bag and run. It's the first time I've run in a week, and I feel light-headed right away. I stumble and fall, but I lurch back up and keep going as fast as I can.

I don't know where I'm headed, but I'm in a hurry to get there.

I
don't get very far. I have to sit down in the parking lot and wait for the dizziness to go away. When it does, I stagger the rest of the way back to the school. I'm not really thinking anymore. I'm just going wherever my feet take me, which turns out to be the girls' locker room. I sit on the bench in front of my locker and close my eyes. My skin feels clammy. My stomach is wobbling. It feels good to have my head dropped, my eyes sealed tight.

I don't know how long I sit like that, but it must be awhile, because when I open my eyes, I'm surrounded by my teammates. They're changing into their uniforms and lacing up their cleats.

“You okay, Alyssa?”

It's only now that I realize Juanita has her hand on my shoulder. I give the same response I've been giving for over a week: “Fine.”

“We better get going then,” she says. “Don't want to miss warm-ups.”

I follow her toward the door.

“Alyssa!”

It's Madison Wong, one of our team's defenders.

“Yeah?”

“You forgot your bag,” she says.

“Duncan!”

“What, Coach?”

“Where's Becca off to now?”

I look over his shoulder at my tree.
Is she still sitting up there?
I wonder. “Got me, Coach.”

“Am I ever going to be able to count on that girl?”

Sure
, I think.
You can count on her. You can count on her to take your entire life away from you.

“Guess Erin will have to play goalie,” Coach says, rubbing his buzz cut.

“I'll play, Coach.” I'm not sure who's more surprised—Coach or me.

“You know I can't let you do that, Duncan.”

“Doc cleared me to play yesterday,” I tell him. I dig around my bag and come up with the letter Dr. Lopez gave me. What it says, of course, is that I
can't
play. But that's in between lots of official medical jargon, enough to fill up the entire page. Rather than taking the time to read it, maybe Coach will just glance and take my word for it.

But he doesn't. He grabs the letter from me and brings it close to his face. Crap. I'm screwed.

The buzzer sounds. Time to start warm-ups.

Coach must not have gotten to the part where Dr. Lopez says I can't play, because he says, “Well, why didn't you say so earlier, Duncan? You have a jersey?”

I hold the yellow jersey up from out of my bag.

“What are you waiting for? Get out there!”

As I trot out to the field, I ask myself a different question—not
What am I waiting for
, but
Why am I being so stupid? Why am I risking my life for a soccer game?
Immediately, my injured brain comes up with an answer:
Because she doesn't get to take everything
.

She can have my boyfriend or my starting goalie spot or my tree. But she can't have everything. I get to keep at least part of my life, no matter how dangerous keeping it might be.