“Well,” he says, “at least you answered.”
The voice is all wrong. Not the forced calm and reasonable of a lecture, not the annoyed disappointment of a scolding, not even the icy sarcasm that slips out when he actually gets mad. This dead monotone doesn’t even sound like Dad.
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I didn’t . . .” But there’s nothing to say to make this better. Melissa taps my arm, and I shake her off. “Um, I’ll be home soon. Well, today. Kind of late this evening, probably . . .”
Only a slight grunt lets me know the line isn’t dead.
“But I’ll let you know when we’re on the road and when we’ll be back.” I’m spiraling. “And I’ll do double chores for the rest of the summer. And, oh, if you try to get hold of me and I don’t answer, it’s just because I’m playing, but I’ll call back as soon as I can . . .”
“I have to talk to your sister,” Dad says without any indication that I’ve spoken.
“She’s fine. I know she’s fine. Xiumiao’s really responsible and CPR-certified and—”
Dad gives a short “Bye” to prove he’s not hanging up on me, then hangs up on me.
Fuck. My throat tightens, which is ridiculous because I knew I wasn’t going to get away with this. The point was not to get away with this.
The point was to get out on my own terms, to prove that I want as little to do with them as they do with me. Which is a great idea, except that the second I heard Dad’s voice, I realized how untrue it was. If I was trying to prove that I don’t need his approval, I think I accidentally did the opposite.
A hand grabs my elbow, and I turn to unload some of my panic on Melissa, but it’s not her glaring at me, chest puffed out. It’s John.
“What’s up?” he asks the way you might ask “Et tu?”
“Hi. Nothing. I don’t know. I’m actually kind of”—I shove my phone in my pocket and shake my arm free—“not having a great morning.”
“Hungover?” he shoots, and before I can do more than raise my eyebrows, he launches the real attack: “Where did you disappear to last night?”
I take a second to process the fact that life is not cutting me any breaks this morning. I knew I would need to talk to John at some point, just like I knew I would have to face Dad’s anger, but I didn’t think it would have to be right now, while I’m sorting out eighty more important emotions.
“I didn’t disappear.” I shrug, looking around to find Melissa hovering far enough away to look innocent but close enough for me to see her twitch her shoulders up, like, I tried to warn you.
“You weren’t at the party or in the room,” John says. “You didn’t get back until after midnight.”
“Yep. So?”
“So?” John holds his palms up, and for a second the confusion in his eyes almost tugs at my conscience, but then he swipes back his hair and steps right into my personal bubble, his face too close to mine, his breath hot, eyes steely. “So do you have anything you maybe want to explain to me?”
My face flushes, and sweat wets my armpits. Melissa’s behind me in a flash, and I feel the sting of curious eyes as the rest of the team starts to notice the showdown.
“Chill,” Melissa advises John. “Y’all can talk after the game.”
“Why do we have to ‘talk’?” His voice spikes. “Why doesn’t she just tell me what the fuck is going on with us?”
I know what I could say if I wanted to de-escalate the situation. The Dad script, the hedging, the I statements combined with half-truths. But what’s the point? Maybe it’s just because I’m less afraid of John’s disapproval than Dad’s, but I no longer have any desire to delay the inevitable.
“You want to know what’s going on? Nothing. Nothing is going on with us, because there is no ‘us,’ which you would know if you ever stopped flirting long enough to have an actual conversation.”
The warmth climbing up my neck is equal parts guilt and rage, fear and frustration. I can tell by the way that the team turns their backs and stares at the ground that everyone heard. My face probably matches John’s bright cherry tomato ears.
My pleading eyes find Melissa’s, and she suddenly realizes that she needs my company to go top off her (still mostly full) water bottle. I walk with her to the water fountain, legs shaky, sweat trickling into my sports bra. Stupid John. Stupid everything.
The water fountain gives us enough space not to be overheard, but not enough to block the anger radiating off John as he paces around the meetup tree. Melissa fills her bottle in silence, but once the lid’s back on, hers comes off.
“Well?”
“What?”
“You just dumped John—really emphatically, I might add—over a one-night-stand.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Now I know the details must be juicy, and I want all of them.”
“I didn’t dump him! We weren’t a thing! I don’t even like him!” I steal her water and gulp down a guilty swallow. I was too harsh. I know I was. It isn’t John’s fault that I’m in huge trouble with my family.
“You say this like I’m supposed to know it.” Melissa shrugs. “All anyone knew until today is that he said y’all were dating.”
“He did?” My guilt sparks back into annoyance. He shouldn’t have done that when we never even defined the relationship!
“Well . . . he implied it heavily, at least.”
“Oh my God . . .” I look over to where John now huddles with Aaron and Chris, shoulders hunched and fists balled. “Everyone’s going to hate me.”
“Nah,” Melissa says, but her shrug doesn’t stop my pounding heart.
“I have to go tell them . . .” I have to explain. My teammates, my friends, have to know that I didn’t break any promises. At least, I didn’t mean to.
“Show me the guy from last night,” Melissa says. I know she’s trying to distract me, but it works, at least a little. I pull out my phone, still glancing toward the growing team huddle.
“How much time until our first game?” I ask.
“They’re running late getting the pitches set up. We have time. Let me see.”
On Facebook, I type “Andrew Burns” (a name I learned last night) into the search box. I wait. “Huh.” I hit refresh. “I think the service here is crappy. He was showing up earlier.”