Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

I groaned against the dull ache in my ribs and looked down to make sure I wasn’t imagining that I still had the football. Then I saw the ref throw both hands straight up in the air. Touchdown. I stood and tossed the football to the other ref right before Cal smashed into me.

“Hell yeah!” He hit his face mask against mine. “That’s the way we doooooo it, Wright!”

Cal and I ran back to the huddle to get ready for our extra point attempt. Sweeney just held his hands out down low and flashed me that stupid sly smile of his. I slapped him in the side of the helmet. “Thank you, Sweeney.”

Then I tipped my head back and screamed like a maniac up at the lights. Maybe this touchdown and this game didn’t fix everything that was screwed up in my life. It didn’t erase what had happened last Friday night. But I was back in the game! It felt great.

We ended up winning the game twenty-one to thirteen. Afterward, a bunch of us drove out to the old steel truss Party Bridge. Years before I was born, Highway 41 looped around the north side of Silver Mountain and came down to Freedom Lake farther to the west. It turned east, crossed Freedom River north of the lake, and continued through some low woodlands before coming out into open fields and heading south through town. Eventually the bridge over the Freedom River became unsafe for cars, and someone decided to reroute the highway to avoid it altogether. Some people adopted it as Party Bridge, and the crumbling section of forgotten road between the ROAD CLOSED sign and the river was called the Abandoned Highway of Love. Me and JoBell had made some good memories on this road.

Out on the bridge, music played from Sweeney’s comm over by the cooler, where Dylan, Chase, and Cal hung out. Cal was tracing out lines on his hand, no doubt reviewing some play from the game. JoBell was talking with Becca, Caitlyn, and Samantha in folding chairs by the fire, though I think Sam, who hadn’t even changed out of her cheerleading uniform, was vid-chatting with someone else on her comm. Rumor said she was making it with some guy from Sandpoint, but rumor said a lot of things, and I didn’t care what the word was. Sam was cool.

I leaned against the railing off to the side, happy to watch my people having fun. Happy to be with them. To belong. My whole body was stiff and sore with new bruises from the game, but the pain felt like a reminder that I was alive, that we’d won an awesome game, that I had the best friends in the world, and that maybe things would get back to normal after what went down in Boise.

TJ stepped out of the shadows into the faint glow from the firelight. “Hey, Wright,” he said stiffly. “Nice catch.”

I’d only made the one, but at least I’d scored, which was more than TJ could say. I could afford to compliment him back. “Yeah, you had a couple good grabs yourself.”

“Three,” he said as he walked by me, heading for the cooler. “I had three receptions.”

“I know that, jackass,” I said under my breath. By “a couple” I didn’t mean exactly two. I took a deep breath. No way would TJ ruin my night.

“Hey, Wright, you should come down here! The water’s great,” Brad called up to me. Him and Randy and that weirdo Skylar Grenke were down in the river. Brad’s head and shoulders were the only part of him above water.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I’m good here.”

“At least chuck me a beer?” Randy said.

“Me too,” said Brad, holding his hands up.

“Yeah, hold on,” I said.

Sweeney stepped to the railing, carrying two cans in each hand. “Way ahead of you.” He tossed two cans down to the guys before handing me one and cracking open his own. I popped the top on mine, and me and Sweeney clinked our beers together. He held his up in salute and then drank.

I chugged down half of my beer right away. “Nice pass.” I spoke through a belch.

Sweeney flashed his million-dollar smile. “What did you expect, given my superior Asian coordination and athletic prowess?”

“You’ve lived in Idaho since you were two weeks old. I doubt you mastered too many skills in Asia.”

“Yeah, then explain how else I got the ball to you.”

“I don’t know.” I laughed. “But you need new material besides the stupid jokes about your race.”

Sweeney shrugged. “It was actually a stupid pass too. Coach was kind of pissed about it. If you hadn’t scored on that play, he’d have killed me.”

I looked upriver at the moonlight sparkling on the water. One of my favorite Hank McGrew songs came on Sweeney’s comm. “Hey, crank that up,” I shouted. Dylan did, and the chorus came around:

I took another drink. The beer was perfect, ice cold. “You were right.”

“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Sweeney said. “Football.”

“Yeah. But also… I needed… I’ve been dreaming about that night. Nightmares about the redhead in that photo with me. I needed a break from all that, you know?” I swept my beer around to take in our friends down in the river and over around the fire and the cooler. “Needed all this too.”

“Don’t sweat it with that Boise stuff. In a week or so, some politician will screw up, or some dizzy nineteen-year-old singer-actress will do something or some body stupid, and people will have other stuff to post about on FriendStar.” He took a drink. “It’ll blow over.”

Becca came up to us. “What are you two moping about over here?” She touched her butterfly hair clip, and her big silver “Cowgirl Up” belt buckle sparkled in the firelight.

“Oh, nothing,” Sweeney said too quickly.

“Yeah, sounds like nothing.” Becca rolled her eyes and sipped from whatever fruity wine drink she’d brought. “Whatever it is, let me hang out with you?” She leaned in so close that I could smell her perfume. “Caitlyn is on the warpath, ripping on whoever’s not here like she always does. She was complaining that Cassie Macer doesn’t set her up right, but Cait couldn’t nail a spike if the net was half as high.”

“Hey, where is Cassie?” Sweeney downed the rest of his beer and crushed the empty can in his hand.

“That’s my point,” Becca said. “She’s not here, so Caitlyn thinks she can—”

“Timmy Macer!” Sweeney shouted. “Damn it, Timmy, you had one job to do tonight! One damn job!”

“What?” Timmy asked from where he sat on a log on the other side of the fire.

Sweeney headed in his direction. “Where’s your sister?”

Me and Becca laughed. “Want a drink of this?” she asked.

I tipped back the bottle. “Ugh. It’s too sweet. Like Kool-Aid.”

“Anything’s better than beer,” she said.

We watched Randy down in the river spread his arms and flop face-first into the dark water. He came up sputtering and shouting.

“You okay?” Becca asked, turning to me.

“I’m great. Why?”

She looked at me. “Danny, we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. I think I can tell that you’ve been pissed off or whatever. Don’t tell JoBell I told you this, but she’s been worried about you too.”

“I’m fine.” She raised one eyebrow. “Well, I’m going to be fine now,” I said. “I promise.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “Cool. Just remember. I’m your friend. If you want to talk about whatever it was, about anything. You know where to find me.”

“Thanks,” I said. She went back to the girls. I hadn’t been fooling anyone. They all knew something was up with me. I put my hands over my face and shook my head, wondering what I was going to do about all this.