Page 58 of Risking it All

I snorted and Lev winked. I continued, “I can’t drive. Relic drives my car because I’m lying to my parents that I am driving so they’ll stop worrying about me all the time. I’m in therapy because I can’t talk about what happened. Never once. When I do, I break out into hives, and I can’t breathe and…”

Relic took my fingers in his as I scratched at the forming welts. More silence, more hives formed on my arms, and I wanted to peel my skin off.

“A few months ago,” Demarius said, “I was invited to attend a football scouting camp. It’s a big deal to be invited, especially as I’m only going into my junior year. The camps are where college recruiters have a chance to see us high school players inaction.” He recalls a video saved to his phone and tosses it in our direction. “I’m number thirty-seven.”

It landed on my lap, and everyone gathered round to watch as a play began on the football field. The guy with ball broke three tackles only to be met by thirty-seven. When Demarius hit him, the person with the ball fell backwards over a player on his team who had slipped behind him. His body contorted in impossible ways, and everything inside me shrank and withered as I swear to God, even with no volume, I heard bones snapping.

“Oh my God,” Melanie uttered as Relic breathed out, “Fuck.”

The player landed on the ground, blood seeping onto his uniform. Demarius swiped his phone and threw it hard at the wall. Shocked at what I had seen, my heart breaking for Demarius, I looked up at him, but I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Relic did. “It was a clean hit. That was not on you. You didn’t target. Your helmet was up. You hit him clean. Textbook. There was no way for you to know someone was behind him and how he’d land.”

“He’s paralyzed, Relic!” Demarius pounded both of his hands against his chest. “He’s paralyzed because of me.”

Relic let go of me as he stood. “Not because of you.”

“Because of me,” Demarius pushed. “And everyone expects me to play again. At first, I told Coach I couldn’t make it to practice because of my job at the mall, and truth is, I did think that. So, when Macie got me the job, I was like…okay, I’ll go to practice. But I haven’t. I’ve never told Coach that I switched jobs. I can’t play again, and all I’ve ever done is play football. All my friends are on the team. My entire life has always been this. I can’t face them. I can’t tell them I’m not coming back when everyone keeps telling me that I should. That it’s not my fault and that I should shake this off. How do I shake that off?”

He pointed to where his cell landed. “Some kid will never walk again because of me. And you know what the worst part is? Hewants to talk to me. Why? So he can tell me how I’ve ruined his life? What do I say to him? What do I say to him to make what happened better?”

“Is there anything you want to say to him?” Melanie asked.

“That I’m sorry, but there aren’t enough apologies to make up for what I’ve done.”

“Maybe it’ll make you feel better if you do talk to him,” I suggested. “Maybe that can help you move forward. Maybe with football, maybe without. But move forward.”

Demarius’ head dropped, then he lifted it to look me in the eye. My stomach twisted with the desperation and pain in his soul—it was the same desperation and pain that twisted me.

“But you get it, right?” Demarius said. “You understand not wanting to face something? It’s okay to walk from all of this and never look back? It’s okay to pretend everything’s okay?”

***

I left my phone at Demarius’ so my parents couldn’t track me.

With all of us piled into Demarius’ mom’s SUV that had two back rows, I unsuccessfully breathed through my panic attack as Demarius drove. While I continually said the words in my brain that I was fine—I’m fine, everything’s fine, the world is fine, the universe is fine, existence is fine—the ultimate reality was that I was not fine. I was not okay. I was unraveling from the inside out.

Relic sat beside me in the second row, his hand holding mine, his thumb stroking my skin. That caress was the only reason I had not bolted out of the car screaming. I could feel him watching me, worried about me, touching me in a way that made me feel like he was trying to pour all his strength into me.

Demarius glanced at me from the rearview. “We don’t have to do this.”

I tossed my hand in the air and pointed at him to keep going as I let out this mashed up version of a “Humph,” because that was all I was capable of saying. From the front passenger side, Lev glanced back at me as if I were now the one wearing the shark suit. To be honest, maybe I would feel better if I had it on. Then there would be a bigger barrier between me and the real world, and I really, really needed a barrier.

“It’s the agreement,” Melanie said from the back row. She played with my hair from behind as if also trying to comfort me. “Macie visits where the carjacking happened, and you schedule a meeting with the guy from the football game.”

Demarius made a left turn that made my head pound, and I rolled my neck with the pain. He slowed at the quiet intersection where everyone knew I had been carjacked because all the news media had converged onto this place for days. We came to a stop, and everyone sat in absolute silence except me. I panted as though I had run a marathon.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t.

I didn’t have to.

I could turn away.

I could run away.

I could…I glanced up, met Demarius’ pain-filled eyes, and forced myself out the car. There was no way in hell I was ever going to be fixed, but maybe Demarius could find some peace if he visited the boy he had tackled. Dizziness attacked me as I left the car, and the doors clapped shut as everyone else exited the SUV.

Knowing I had to face this, I stumbled forward. Everyone stayed behind me but mirrored my steps as if allowing me room. In reality, this was no place special. An unassuming four-way stop in what was now land being developed for neighborhoods. A half mile from school, a short cut off the main roads for myhouse. A path I had taken hundreds of times over my life, a path I never believed I would take again.

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