Forget You(20)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Seventeen of us plus Coach in the driver’s seat filled the van. A Zoey-shaped space should have remained on the second or third bench. Today the first three rows were packed–more than packed, with girls sitting on top of boys and giggling about it. The backseat was empty. There must be something wrong with the seat to drive people away. Something dark and dirty. I peeked over the third row to find out what the problem was.

Doug.

He stretched across the entire seat, asleep. His leg in the splint was propped up on his backpack. His crutches lay on the floor beside him.

To allow him to have the whole seat, the team must have figured it had taken a lot for him to drag himself to school for the trip when he couldn’t compete. Or they were shocked senseless by this show of team spirit from him.

Or they were afraid for him. Lila shrieked as Mike tickled her. Doug didn’t flinch at the noise. His face was smooth, slack, his eyes hidden beneath heavy lids and long black lashes.

Had anyone checked his vital signs?

Doug was not dead. Doug had not overdosed. If he were that bad off, he wouldn’t retain the muscle tone to clutch the prescription pill bottle in one hand. This was what I told myself so my teammates couldn’t see that my heart strained in my chest and I was back in my mother’s bedroom, trying to fix everything. I slipped off my backpack, crouched near Doug in the aisle, and tilted my head to read the label on the bottle.

"Touch my Percocet and you’re dead."

I started at the rumble of his voice. His bright eyes pinned me to the floor.

And then I found my legs and escaped back up the aisle, hurrying before Coach started the van. The argument with Doug this morning was too fresh. I didn’t want to continue the same argument all the way to Panama City, trapped in the backseat with him.

I stepped around Gabriel sprawled across an armrest and reached Coach in the driver’s seat. Coach examined a map of the area even though he’d grown up here and had probably driven to Panama City one billion times. Ian had snagged the seat next to Coach, but he had earbuds in so he couldn’t hear me. I bent to whisper in Coach’s ear, "Doug shouldn’t be here."

"He should be here. He should not be broken . Next time, hit the deer." Coach gazed up at me and used one finger to brush my bangs away from my forehead. Apparently I hadn’t done as good a job with my makeup as I’d thought. Or he could see things Brandon couldn’t. "Y shouldn’t be here either."

"Y I should." I needed to find out where I had been last night. Anyway, even on a healthy day my biggest contributions to the team were cheerleading

es, and keeping records, and I could do that with a concussion. Probably.

He shrugged. "We need to get going. Roll Fox out the door into the street if you want to, but you take responsibility for that. I don’t want to meet his padre in a dark alley down by the waterfront." He threw the map at Ian, who jumped out of his music-induced trance and spilled his Gatorade. Coach started the engine.

I had no choice. Knowing Coach’s driving, if I stood my ground I’d go through the windshield, taking out another rearview mirror. "While I’m up here, I’d like to say something to the team about the party we went to last night. So don’t drive until I’m done, okay?" I bent down and looked Coach in the eye to make sure he’d heard me.

He eyed me right back. "What kind of party? Were there bad things going on at this party?"

Beats me. "I assume."

"I don’t want to hear about it."

"Cover your ears." After Coach had gamely covered his ears with his hands and relaxed against the driver’s seat for the duration, I called out to the van in general, "May I have your attention, please."

"Speeeeech," said several boys.

"Right," I said. "I just want to thank all of you for going to the party with me last night."

I paused, waiting for the comments under boys’ breath that would give me hints about what really happened. For once, the van was silent. Every member of the team (except Doug) gazed at me, rapt, waiting for me to continue.

"It was such a memorable party," I ventured.

They stared at me, unblinking, chewing their cud like deer.

"Though it didn’t end well," I finished.

"The van’s about to wreck!" Connor yelled. "Quick, Doug, save me!"

"Doug, the van’s exploding! Carry meeeeee!" pealed more boys. Doug’s hand popped up from behind the last seat back, giving them all the bird.

I had lost their attention. "Anyway, thanks for going to the party with me." So much for finding out what had happened. I pulled one of Coach’s hands away from his ear. "The coast is clear." I turned and made my way down the narrow passage between the door and the seats, holding on tightly to each seat back as I went. Coach was not the safest driver. Sure enough, he swung around the high school sign at full speed and erk ed to a stop just short of the highway through town, tossing everything on the van to the left, including me. My grip on the seat back slipped, and my bruised ribs found out just how solid the edge of the seat back was. "Fuck!"

"What did you say?" screamed Keke and Lila.

"Zoey!" squealed the junior girls.

"First tardy, now this," mumbled assorted boys.

"I beg your pardon." I rounded the last seat back to face Doug.

"Language," he said with one eyebrow raised. "I’ve never heard you cuss before." "Y ou’re a bad influence."

"Fucking A."

With growing suspicion that I was stuck here with him for the whole trip, I tried to lighten the mood. "Must be the brain damage."

"Why didn’t you tell me this morning? That explains everything." I should have known he’d come up with a nasty one-liner. Or two. "I think the brain damage actually happened Monday night, when you did it with Brandon."

I knew he was in pain, but this was too much. He couldn’t insult what I had with Brandon. I tried to stomp my foot in the aisle in frustration, but my flip-flop stuck to the floor seasoned with a decade’s worth of spilled Coke. "Bitter much?"

"Oooooh," said Connor and Nate, leaning over the seat back to watch us, like they were a couple of deer watching the road. Slowly they sank down, and Doug and I were alone again. Relatively speaking.

But Doug had closed his eyes. I was dismissed.

I watched him for a few seconds more. Then I gazed at the floor. Dared I sit down there? The corrugated rubber for traction showed darker stains with scraps of paper and grains of sand embedded in them, which meant double-sticky with unknown substance. Coke was optimistic. But it wasn’t the sticky that turned me off so much. It was my teammates watching me sit in sticky. Down on the floor, below them, like a nut job. Because Doug Fox wouldn’t move over for me.