D. MacHale - SYLO

I may have been looking at the crystals, but what I was seeing was Kent Berringer’s smug smile as he stared down at me through his face mask after nearly knocking me cold. I didn’t ever want to see that again.

I licked the rough crystals off my palm.

They were sweet in more ways than one. An instant wave of warm energy flowed through my body. Through my veins. My legs no longer felt heavy. Miraculously, impossibly, the soreness was gone. Everything snapped into focus as my senses perked up. The sunset seemed redder, the surf sounds louder, and the smell of the ocean more distinct. I didn’t question what was happening. It felt right and I knew there was only one thing I could do.

Run.

I took off sprinting along the shore. The pain from the punishing practice was a dim memory. I felt the suddenly powerful muscles in my legs flex quickly, driving me forward, pushing me faster than seemed possible. Within seconds I was standing next to Feit at the lifeguard tower. I wasn’t even out of breath.

“And that’s the Ruby,” he declared with a proud smile as he stood leaning against the tower with his arms folded.

I stood there, flexing the muscles in my arms, making a fist, experiencing my newfound strength. It was exciting…and frightening.

“This is…this is wrong,” I said.

“Wrong?” Feit said with a scoff. “What could be wrong about unlocking your full potential? Now you can show the team what you’ve really got…and Olivia too.”

I snapped a look at him. How did he know about Olivia? My blood was racing and I didn’t think it was only because of the Ruby. It was like the salts had increased my brain power as well as my physical ability…which was probably why a thought came to me.

A horrible thought.

“Did Marty take this stuff?” I asked, though I feared the answer.

“No,” Feit said quickly. “I told you, I didn’t get the chance to give it to him. Who knows? Maybe if he had used the Ruby he’d still be alive.”

Nothing felt right. I didn’t like what was happening to my body and I didn’t want to be hanging with this stranger who had seduced me into taking a substance I knew nothing about.

“I…I don’t want it,” I said, backing away.

“Really?” he asked. “You don’t want to be a star?”

“I…I don’t know what I want, but I don’t want to feel like this.”

“That’s your choice,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “If you change your mind, I’ll be around.”

I turned and ran up the beach, headed for town, sprinting impossibly fast. I tried to slow myself down but my body had the throttle, not my mind. I made it off the sand and kept going until I reached the small park at the end of Main Street. Thankfully nobody was around. I lay down on the grass and stretched out, willing myself to relax. I don’t know how long I lay there. Five minutes? Twenty? Eventually I felt the effects of the Ruby leaving my body. The first sign was that the soreness in my legs returned. I never thought I would be relieved to feel pain. A weariness then washed over me as if the effort I had been putting out had sucked every last drop of gas from my tank. I sat up and rubbed my face. What had happened? Whatever the Ruby had done, it was wrong and I knew that I would never use it again…no matter how great a player it could turn me into.

I got up and jogged home at a normal pace and went straight to my room. I didn’t want to talk with my parents because I didn’t know what I would tell them. I don’t claim to know how the human body does what it does, but I didn’t believe for a second that what those crystals did was natural or legal, no matter what Feit said. I laid down on my bed in the dark, flexing the muscles of my legs and my arms, trying to sense any lingering effects.

After convincing myself that I would live, I went to my computer and feverishly Googled any key words that might lead me to answers: ruby, Feit, fight, “fite,” sea salts, steroids, even ergogenic aids. The last search gave me some information about increasing athletic performance but I couldn’t find anything about a red sea salt that could instantly transform someone into Superman, let alone a company that manufactured the stuff.

I decided to keep my adventure on the beach to myself. I didn’t want anybody to know I had been stupid enough to take a strange substance from a complete stranger. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about what those red crystals had done for me. For those few moments when I was under their spell, I was invulnerable.

I wanted to know more about it…for all sorts of reasons.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked.

“Why? What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong.”

I answered too quickly, which was a sure tip-off that something was, in fact, wrong. My adventure with the Ruby had been the night before and I could hardly think about anything else.

“Whoa, easy,” he said defensively. “I was just wondering why you were letting Kent move in on Olivia without a fight.”

“Olivia?” I asked, momentarily baffled. “Oh. That. Sorry.”

“What did you think I meant?” he asked with confusion.

“Not that. I mean, not that there’s anything else wrong but, I mean, there’s nothing wrong. Why do you ask?”

Quinn stared at me suspiciously as we walked along Main Street toward school. He knew something was up and it bugged him that he couldn’t put his finger on it. I had to get him thinking in the wrong direction, which wasn’t easy to do.

“There’s nothing between me and Olivia to fight over,” I added quickly.

“There could have been,” he said sternly. “But you blew it.”

I shrugged. “Kent’s an all-star.”

“And rich,” Quinn added. “Don’t forget rich.”

“Jeez, are you trying to make me feel bad?”

“Yes!” he shouted. “You can’t let that guy intimidate you just because he’s smart and good looking and athletic and—”

“Rich. Don’t forget rich.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Quinn snapped. “The only real difference between him and you is that he gets what he wants because he believes he can.”

“And he can brutally dominate me on the football field.”

“You’re making me nuts, Tuck. Where’s your head? Good stuff doesn’t just happen. You have to fight for it. But you don’t. You don’t even have the guts to talk to Tori Sleeper.”

“Forget Tori! Who says I want to go out with her anyway? That’s just you pretending to know everything about everything.”

“But I do.”

“No, you don’t. Why are you so obsessed with me getting a girl anyway? Worry about yourself.”

“I’ve got a girlfriend.”

“Who?”

“Neema Pike.”

I laughed. “Really? Just because she friended you on Facebook doesn’t make you a couple.”

“Whatever. This isn’t about me. We’re talking about you and Olivia.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s leaving the island soon anyway.”

“Irrelevant, but go on.”

I took a breath to calm down, then said, “I like Olivia. I liked hanging out with her this summer. But if she only likes guys who have a boatload of money and can wreak havoc on a football field, I’m not interested.”

Quinn shook his head with disappointment. “Typical. Whenever you think something’s out of reach, you back off and say you didn’t want it anyway. What are you afraid of? Losing? Looking bad? That hasn’t stopped you from playing football.”

“Yeah, well, I’m quitting the team,” I said softly.

“What!” Quinn shouted. He hadn’t expected that. I thought his head was going to explode. “You’re giving up on that too?”

“What’s the point? I’m getting killed out there. I’m telling the coach today that I’m done.”