Page 135 of Wrath

One

Josh

“Holy hell!” Jenna’s stomping her feet on the cement bleachers beside me. My hand’s pressed over my mouth. Then Ezra runs into the end zone, and the whole damn stadium jumps up screaming.

“Oh my God!” Jenna’s tugging on my elbow, jumping up and down.

“I’m going home,” somebody laughs in front of us.

My eyes are locked on Ezra as he runs back toward the sideline. Coach Nix claps his back. Someone—Brennan—hugs him.

I watch as he talks to two others who have their backs facing away from us and then sits on the bleachers. Coach Nix puts a towel on his neck and something weird twists in my stomach.

“I haveneverseen a high school game with numbers like this,” Jenna says.

Scoreboard’s 72 v. 27 — Fairplay. Ezra ran the ball and scored three touchdowns all on his own. I don’t know how many yards he passed for, but it had to be a ton. Three or four times, he threw almost the length of the field.

Now he’s standing again, swiping a hand back through his damp hair. I can see his shoulders rising and falling. Marcel comes to stand beside him, clapping him on the shoulder. He sits back down. Someone passes him a water bottle.

“Josh...” Jenna grabs my elbow. “You can sit back down now.”

I blink at her, and she sings the first two lines of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.”

“Hello...is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me...”

I laugh—it sounds fake—and she gives me a deep frown. “I said, I bet they’re gonna run the clock down.” She claps her hands. “That’s the game. Your stepbrother is a superstar!”Her eyes narrow. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like someone kicked your puppy. Is this gonna make his ego too big?” Her mouth rounds into a little “o,” and she nods. She mouths, “Your dad.”

I roll my eyes. My dad’s sitting on the first row, right behind the home team’s setup. He’s been cheering like a maniac the whole time.

“I don’t give a fuck about him. Heshouldbe happy. We won.”

She gives me a look that says she’s not sure she believes me, but she lets it drop. “The party after this...” She laughs. “It’s going to be crazy.”

“Where are people going?”

“You’re living in a bubble, Joshua. We’re all going to Sunny’s land.”

Ahh. Sunny Gardner.

“Josh.” Jenna laughs, and I rip my eyes away from Ezra.“What are you doing?” Again with the searching look.

“Fuck off,” I laugh.

She leans in and whisper-hisses, “You’re watching someone. Who is it?”

“I’m watching my dad, dude.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re a shitty liar.”

Then the game is over, and I’m saved by all the chaos. Getting off the bleachers, saying “hey” to everyone we know, from Sunday school teachers to the manager at Winn-Dixie. I bump into my mom and Carl at ground-level, and Carl looks like he just watched a rocket launch. Honestly, so does my mom.

“Josh!” My mom hugs me. “Wasn’t that amazing?”

I nod, and then start walking with them so everyone bottle-necking behind us doesn’t get pissed off.

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