I see you, I want to tell him. I think you see me too. “Yeah,” I tell him. “This is good.”
Twenty-Eight
Gray’s got a lacrosse game the following Thursday, so I head off to book club without him—we read “Age, Race, Class and Sex,” this week, and I was thinking about suggesting we watch the PBS documentary about Audre Lorde, but when I walk into Ms. Klein’s classroom after eighth period Dave looks surprised to see me at all.
“You’re here?” he asks, pulling a bag of pretzels and a tub of onion dip out of his backpack. It was his turn to bring snacks today. “Doesn’t Gray have that big game against Hartley?”
“I mean, yeah,” I say, ignoring the twinge of guilt I feel at missing it—the same twinge I’ve been feeling all day, truth be told. “But he gets it.”
“Really?” Elisa puts in, dropping her shoulder bag on the floor and plunking down in an empty seat next to Ms. Klein. “That’s the school he got kicked out of, isn’t it? Feels like kind of a big deal.”
“Thanks a lot,” I say, snagging a couple of pretzels out of the bag and crunching thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to be that girl, you know? The one who drops her commitments to go cheer on some dude.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with supporting somebody you care about,” Elisa says, holding her hand out for the pretzel bag and waggling her long fingers until I pass it over. “I mean, you guys all came to my game, didn’t you?”
“I mean, sure,” I say, “but that’s different.”
“Why, because she’s a girl?” Dave asks. “Isn’t that reverse sexism?”
“Reverse sexism is one hundred percent not a thing,” Lydia says immediately.
“Well, let’s dig into that,” Ms. Klein says, setting her book of essays down on the desk like she suddenly suspects we won’t be getting to it anytime soon. “Can anyone explain to me why it’s not a thing?”
“Because men unequivocally have more power than women in our society,” Maddie says easily, and I look at her in surprise—she’s been pretty quiet at meetings up until now, but her voice is confident and clear. “It’s like how racism against white people isn’t a thing.”
Ms. Klein nods. “Racism—and sexism, and ableism—are all power structures,” she explains. “They’re systems of oppression that are larger than any one interaction. So when we’re thinking about them, it’s important for us to ask ourselves what groups of people have historically been in charge in our society, and how the ways that our institutions are set up make it possible for those same groups to hold on to that power.”
“So, just to throw out a random, totally hypothetical example,” Elisa says, “a system where the entire school dress code is way more restrictive for girls than it is for guys—that would be sexism. Whereas Marin not going to Gray’s game because she’s trying to prove some point about something—”
“That’s just dumb,” Lydia finishes triumphantly.
“Hey!” I protest, but I’m laughing. After all, it’s not like they’re wrong. As much as I love this book club, I can’t act like I don’t wish I was somewhere other than here today. I care about Gray, as much as I’ve tried to keep myself from admitting it. I want to be there to cheer him on.
Elisa glances at the clock about the doorway. “Game doesn’t start till four, right?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. “I propose a field trip.”
“All in favor?” Dave asks, and a half-dozen hands go up around the classroom.
I feel myself grin.
Hartley is only about twenty minutes away, the bleachers packed with onlookers and the whole place smelling faintly of locker room. Ms. Klein tagged along too in the end, following us in her tidy little Volkswagen, and the group of us find spots on the Bridgewater side, the fluorescent lights casting everyone’s face slightly green.
“There’s Gray!” says Maddie, throwing a hand up to wave as we get ourselves settled near the top of the bleachers. I duck my face to hide my own instinctive eye roll at how swoony she sounds, but when I look up again Gray’s gazing right at me, and just like that the expression on his face erases any weirdness I felt about coming here. He looks—there is no other way to describe this, or the way it sets something burning warmly in my chest—delighted.
Even after dating Jacob for the better part of a year, I have no idea what the rules of lacrosse are, honestly, but I like watching Gray running around down there—the easy way his body moves inside his red-and-gold uniform, the concentration on his handsome face. I know he’s got mixed feelings about playing for St. Lawrence next year, but it’s obvious he could if he wanted to: he’s a natural leader, shouting casual encouragement at his teammates even as he bolts down the length of the gym.
Our team’s leading 3–2 and Gray’s heading for another goal when one of the guys from Hartley juts his lacrosse stick out in what looks to me like a purposeful jab. Gray spots it and tries to sidestep, but he’s not quite fast enough, and all at once he trips and hits the floor with a thud I feel in my spine. Beside me, Ms. Klein gasps, the kind of sound you never really want to hear from an authority figure. Lydia lets out a low, quiet swear.
For a moment Gray lies still, unmoving; the ref blows his whistle, and a murmur goes up in the stands. Before I even know I’m going to do it I’m out of my seat and scrambling down the bleachers, darting through the crowd and out onto the field.
“You can’t be out here!” one of the refs calls to me, but I’m not listening. Normally this is never something I would do—purposely drawing attention to myself, making a scene—but lately I’ve been realizing exactly what I will do, with a good enough reason.
And Gray is a good enough reason.
He’s struggling to sit up as I reach him, another ref and Coach Arwen and a bunch of guys from the team circled around him in concern. His ankle is already starting to swell.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Coach is saying, digging his cell phone out of his pocket.
“No, no, no, I definitely don’t need that,” Gray protests, but when he tries to get to his feet his whole face goes sweaty and ghost pale.
“Okay,” he says, sitting back down hard on the floor with a grimace. “Maybe I do.”
He seems to register me for the first time then. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I say. “You want me to call your moms?”
Gray shakes his head. “You can, but it’s going to be hard to get them,” he tells me. “My mom’s got a late-afternoon class. And my mom’s in court.” He looks at me, offering a weak smile; he’s hurting badly, that much is clear, though he’s trying not to show it.
“See, this would be one of those times where it would be useful for me to call them two different things.”
The ambulance arrives a few minutes later, a pair of tersely efficient paramedics peppering Gray with questions, moving his ankle gently this way and that. The one who’s a woman doesn’t look much older than us.