Getting Over Garrett Delaney(42)
Author: Abby McDonald

“So who’s in for Saturday?” Josh asks, looking around the table.

“God, yes, one of you has to come,” Aiko adds quickly. “Please?”

“For what?” I ask.

“Only the greatest display of masculine aggression ever!” Josh grins at me.

“Football?” I venture. “Monster trucks?”

“Greco-Roman naked wrestling?” LuAnn suggests.

“Nope!” Josh laughs. “Ice hockey!”

“Oh.”

“Exactly.” LuAnn echoes my tone.

“Isn’t that a winter sport?” I ask, looking out at the seventy-degree summer’s day.

“It’s some exhibition match thing. Come on,” Aiko begs. “Help me, please. I’m the only girl going. I’ll drown in testosterone.”

“Sorry, hon,” LuAnn says, sounding anything but. “I’m all for sweaty men folk waving their big sticks around, but I draw the line at blood. Try Sadie.”

Aiko turns to me.

“I don’t know. . . .” I hedge. “I’ve never really been into sports. . . .”

“But you’re trying new things!” Aiko exclaims. “That’s what you told us, right? And this is new. Go crazy — you might just like it!”

“She’s right.” Josh grins. “You said you’d try anything.”

I slump lower. “I did, didn’t I?” I try to think of a way out, but that wouldn’t be in the spirit of new adventures. “Fine,” I tell them. “I’ll come. It could be fun.”

“Famous last words.” LuAnn laughs.

You used to have everything planned out, right down to your prom dress (blue, his favorite color), the route of your postgraduation road trip (eating your way through the barbecue of the South), and the song that will be playing when you guys finally kiss (Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”). You’ve spent so long planning your blissful joint future that you can’t even begin to imagine what your life is going to look like without him.

So stop trying.

Let stuff simply unfold, for once in your life, without spinning all those hopeful romantic fantasies. The less time you spend dreaming up a world of happily ever after, the more time you’ll have to actually live — no evers or afters required.

19

Despite LuAnn’s ominous words, I’m feeling pretty upbeat as we head to the game the next day, bundled up in sweaters against the chill of the stadium and armed with vast coolers of snacks. “It’s like a winter picnic,” I tell Aiko as we shuffle along the bleachers to our seats. “That’s fun, right?”

“Just wait for the action,” Jules interrupts, a disturbing gleam in his eye. Denton is with us, an arm slung over Aiko’s shoulder; Josh has brought what looks like six bags of potato chips, and even Carlos has come along —“To keep an eye on you kids,” he says, cracking a beer and stashing the rest of them away out of Jules’s reach.

Aiko snickers. “Like he’s not pretending he’s twenty-two all over again,” she whispers to me. I watch him, wondering what his deal is with Dominique. Is keeping it secret his idea or hers? And is it something real, or — eww — just a casual hookup thing?

“Ooh, they’re starting!” Aiko leaps to her feet to get a better view. Hulking guys in fifty pounds of padding are skating around, getting ready for kickoff. Or hit-off. Or whatever it is they do to start this game. The stands are full, foam fingers waving everywhere, and the organ jingle climbs another level, pumping the crowd with rowdy enthusiasm.

“This is so cool,” I say, beaming. Aiko laughs. “I don’t do sports!” I explain. “I’ve always been more into the stationary arts. Sitting. Reading. Napping.”

There’s a foghorn blare, and then the players whip around on the ice, sticks at the ready, moving so fast I can barely keep track of the tiny black puck thing. It whooshes around, flicked back and forth at lightning speed.

“I love it!” I exclaim happily. “It’s just like ice dancing, only —”

SLAM! CRACK!

Before I can finish my naive comment, a player smashes face-first into the Plexiglas barrier. Blood splatters. The crowd roars.

“Are you going to take that?” Aiko screams, suddenly baying along with the rest of them. The player turns around and hurls himself straight into the guy who pushed him. They fall to the ice and throw punches blindly until their teammates come to split them up.

“OK.” I breathe, battling a powerful wave of nausea. “It’s all over.”

But then the teammates start brawling, too.

“Oh, boy.” I crouch down in the parking lot, resting my forehead on my knees. I can still hear the yelling of the crowd, a thunder in the stadium behind me, but it’s nothing compared to the queasy storm in my stomach right now.

“You OK?” Josh hovers beside me. He must have drawn the short straw on babysitting me.

“Uh-huh,” I manage, trying to sound upbeat. “Fine. I just didn’t know his arm was going to . . . pop like that when that goalie dislocated it.”

Josh laughs. “Don’t worry. That kind of thing, they can pop right back in.”

“Oh,” I murmur, feeling another wave of nausea. “Great.”

“Here.”

I lift my head enough to see a soda cup in front of me.

“It’s supposed to calm your stomach,” Josh tells me. “Or at least, that’s what they always say.”

“Thanks.” I cautiously begin to slurp. Back inside, another roar goes up. I can only imagine what brutal fisticuffs are going down right now. “Sorry you’re missing it. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so . . . bloody.”

“It’s cool. You’ve seen one broken nose, you’ve seen them all.”

I nod slowly. “That’s . . . not at all comforting.”

The old wives’ tale about soda must be true, because slowly, the nausea ebbs away until I feel stable enough to stand. Josh helps me to my feet. “Better?”

“Uh-huh,” I murmur, not actually sure. “But, I, um, think I’ll give the rest of the game a pass. You go back,” I tell him quickly. “I can just hang out here until it’s over.”

“No, I’m good,” Josh reassures me. “They’re not my teams, anyway.” He pauses, hands bunched in his front pockets. “I can give you a ride home if you want.”