LITMIR.BIZ

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before we miss the entire first quarter. You know Bryan likes to see us in the stands.”

      Rose sat down on the bed and yanked on the half boot over her prosthetic foot, which she’d covered with a black sock dotted with gray stars.

      “I don’t know what your rush is,” Rose said. “Bryan’s not even playing tonight.”

      “Of course he’s playing,” Keri refuted. Chances were a couple of college recruiters would be in the stands to watch him. “Why would you say that?”

      “I heard at school that new coach suspended him.” Rose, two and a half years younger than her brother, was a freshman at Springhill High.

      “Heard from whom?”

      Rose shrugged her thin shoulders. “Some senior girls. They weren’t even talking to me.”

      “Then maybe you misunderstood,” Keri said. If the team’s new coach had suspended Bryan, which seemed far-fetched to say the least, Bryan would have told her.

      “Come on. Let’s get going.”

      Rose kept pace with Keri as they hurried down the hall, a testament to how far the girl had come since the accident. Sometimes it was hard to tell her left leg had been amputated from above the knee, but Keri wasn’t so sure Rose believed that.

      “Is it okay if I sit with you at the game?” Rose asked in a small voice when they stopped at the hall closet. She pulled out a black pea coat and put it on.

      “Sure.” Keri tried not to let it show she was worried about Rose’s lack of friends. “I like having you with me anytime I can get you.”

      Turning this way and that to view herself from different angles, Rose gazed into the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. “Do I look all right?”

      She sounded so unsure of herself that Keri ached for her. Why couldn’t Rose see what Keri saw? A lovely, sweet girl who looked even better on the inside?

      “You’re beautiful.” Keri tucked a hand under Rose’s arm. “Let’s get to the gym where everybody can see you.”

      Rose didn’t speak again until they were in the driveway on opposite sides of the ten-year-old Volvo Keri had bought because of its superior safety record. Her words were so soft Keri almost didn’t hear her. “You didn’t have to say I was beautiful.”

      “I said it because I believe it,” Keri assured her over the roof of the car. “But this taking an hour to get ready thing is driving me nuts.”

      Rose cracked a grin. “Teenagers are supposed to drive adults nuts. Bryan doesn’t do it, so it’s my job.”

      Headlights lit a swath of road in front of the house as a two-door Honda Civic pulled up to the curb. Keri’s reply died on her lips. It was the same Civic Bryan had gotten a fabulous deal on from a local used-car dealer.

      The car’s engine cut off, and the driver’s-side door opened. Bryan unfolded his tall, lanky frame from inside the car and slammed the door. Hard.

      Keri went to meet him at the foot of the driveway, concern compelling her forward. “Bryan, what are you doing here?”

      He moved away from his car with jerky steps, the glow from a nearby streetlight shining on his face and revealing the glisten of…tears?

      “Coach Quinlan suspended me until further notice,” he said gruffly, his eyelids blinking rapidly.

      The gossip Rose had heard at school had been right.

      “Why?” Keri asked.

      “Something about my grades,” he said in the same uneven voice.

      “I just got your report card,” Keri said. “Your grades are fine.”

      “I know,” Bryan replied.

      “Then what’s going on?”

      “You’ll have to ask Coach Quinlan.” Bryan trudged past her up the sidewalk to the front door and disappeared through it, leaving Keri completely confused.

      “Told you so.” Rose’s voice seemed to come from a distance. “Guess this means we’re not going to the game.”

      “Oh, yes we are.” Keri headed back to the car and got in, pulling the door shut and waiting until Rose was seated before shoving her key in the ignition. “Coach Quinlan has some explaining to do.”

      A LL BUT ONE OF THE PLAYERS in the locker room sat on the benches with their legs spread, their hands dangling between their knees, staring down at their high-tops as Grady delivered the postgame talk.

      The exception—a tall, barrel-chested kid named Hubie Brown who was easily the second-best player on the team—openly glared at him.

      The game had gone about as well as Grady expected. Springhill stayed close until the other team pulled away in the last two minutes of play, handing Springhill its first loss of the season.

      Close, Grady was quickly discovering, wasn’t good enough at Springhill.

      “Practice is tomorrow morning at nine, so think about what I said and be ready to go.” Grady spoke with authority, one of the many things he’d learned while on the coaching staff at Carolina State. Before his future had blown up in his face. “The harder we practice, the better we’ll get. Okay, everybody up.”

      The boys reluctantly stood. Grady put his hand in the middle of an imaginary circle. A few seconds ticked by before the hands of the boys joined his.

      “Let’s say this together. One…” Only Grady’s voice rang out in the quiet locker room. He stopped.

      “Try it again,” he ordered, looking at each boy in turn, few of whom looked back. “One, two, three, team.”

      This time all of their voices joined in, even if some were so soft they weren’t audible. Grady let his hand fall, signaling the players were free to go. They pulled on black-and-gold Springhill sweat suits and picked up gym bags before filing out of the locker room. Hubie moved more slowly than the others, his silence speaking the loudest.

      “Hubie, come over here,” Grady said.

      The boy grudgingly complied, moving toward Grady as though his feet fought quicksand. Hubie wasn’t quite eye to eye with Grady but probably had fifty pounds on him, most of it muscle.

      “You got something to say?” Grady asked.

      The boy compressed his lips, his struggle to hold back his thoughts obvious.

      “Go ahead.” Grady didn’t break eye contact. “We’re the only ones here. I won’t bench you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

      “We’d have won with Bryan on the floor.” The words burst from Hubie like water from a geyser.

      “Might have won,” Grady corrected.

      “We lost by six and Bryan’s averaging twenty. We need him, Coach.”

      “Then tell Bryan he’s letting the team down. Tell him it’s up to him when he comes back.”

      “You’re the one who can lift the suspension. Bryan doesn’t even know what you want from him.”

      “He knows.” Grady turned away, effectively ending the conversation. He wasn’t about to go into the details of his beef with Bryan with one of Bryan’s peers.

      Too many of Grady’s own peers, from teachers at the school to fans in the stands, were demanding answers.

      Grady pulled on his fleece-lined jacket, stuffed his clipboard into his gym bag and left the locker room. The game had ended thirty minutes ago, but the gym wasn’t empty. The custodial staff picked up trash from the bleachers. Some parents remained, either talking to players or one another. As did a couple of cheerleaders and other girls who’d waited around for their boyfriends.

      Everybody

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