Page 6 of Flagrant Foul
“Fine, I’ll listen to his words on Monday.”
Sev nods his approval, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. It makes me irrationally angry, so I plaster a fake smile on my face and start walking purposefully toward my car. It’s a smile that’s meant to be bright and sunny, but from the way my bottom lip is pulling, I suspect it might be coming off a little affected.
“I’m fine, Sev,” I call back. “Everything’s fine. Make sure you tell Nate I’m fine.”
“I’ll tell him you’re fine when I’m sure you’re fine.”
And there it is. The fucking endless concern I don’t want or need from him. It stops me in my tracks and spins me to face him.
“Don’t be such a fucking asshole, Sev. There’s nothing wrong with me, and you know what Nate’s like. You think it’s no big deal, but this shit has consequences for me.”
“It has consequences for us too.”
“Oh,us,” I say sarcastically, dragging the word out. “Right. Us being you and Nathan, right? Always you and Nathan. Always fucking you and fucking Nathan. It’s always what works for you and what you think is best. Never what I want, or what I think, right?”
“That’s right,” he says calmly.
If he were someone else, I’d think he was attempting to deflect and improve the mood with a joke, but he’s not, and it’s the wrong thing to say to me.
“Do you know what that’s like? Do you have any idea how infuriating it is? How invalidating? Do you know how it makes me feel to be watched like this? It’s more than invalidating—it’s fucking irritating. Yes, I went through a bad patch. Yes, I’m a person who has experienced anxiety and depression, but here’s a little news flash for you: mental health is like any other kind of health. It has ups and downs, and sometimes you’re well and sometimes you’re not. It’s something millions of people deal with, and it’s not some extra big fucking deal because it involved me for a while, okay? I don’t need this bullshit from you, and I don’t want it. I’m twenty-four fucking years old and I’d really, really love it if you could treat me like it for once.”
I consider it an epic failure when I slip up and bring my age into the equation like this. And unfortunately, it happens a lot. Nothing saysI’m a kid trying to act like an adultmore than yelling about how old you are at every given opportunity.
“You’re always telling me what you’re like, Teddy, what you want and what you need, but here’s what I’mlike: Iwillwatch over you. Iwillmake sure you’re okay, and Iwillstep in if you’re not.”
No matter how many times my heart hears shit like this, and no matter how many times I explain to it that he doesn’t mean it like that, it takes it the wrong way—the racing, beating out of my chest, can’t breathe in or out way.
“Whatever,” I say, raising my hand and giving him the finger as I head to my car.
It’s your fault I’m like this, asshole.
4
Teddy “T-Dog” O’Reilly
Idriveapushpin through the top right corner of the flyer and then the left. It’s slightly crooked, so I pull the right one out and adjust it. Though I’m tempted to pull the left one out too and start over from scratch, I manage to restrain myself. I’ve already overthought this flyer business more than I ever thought I could ever overthink something like this, and I swear to God, I cannot afford to waste any more time on it. This is the third flyer I’ve put up. I had a picture of Ragnar on the first iteration, but I woke up in the night in a hot sweat, convinced someone would see it and hatch a plan to steal him. I was slightly more rational by morning, but I decided to remove the image from the flyer all the same. The second version had a typo.
Let’s hope to God this one does the trick.
I step back from the bulletin board and take in my handiwork. Objectively, it looks like it was made by a fifth grader. And that’s if I’m being kind.
I’d love to rip it down and start again, but I don’t have time. Either this fucking flyer is going to work and I’ll find someone in my building to watch my fish, or I’m going to have to fly my mom in from Alabaster to do it for me. It’s that simple. I’ve been in an absolute state about Ragnar for the past few days. Thank God my mom’s prepared to help this time, but it’s obviously a short-term fix. I travel way too much for it to be an ongoing solution.
“Are you the one who needs help with your fish?” says a minuscule woman who seems to have appeared by my side out of nowhere.
She has a round face, blue eyes, and pink cheeks, and looks to be in her late seventies or early eighties. She’s giving hardcore granny vibes courtesy of her short, curly white-gray hair, and is wearing a pair of navy-blue pumps, a navy-blue blouse with a matching skirt, and has a navy-blue handbag tucked under her arm.
“I am,” I say, a prickle of hope sprouting in the back of my mind.
She rummages through her bag, flicks open a pair of cat-eye spectacles, and arranges them on the tip of her nose. The frame is severely encrusted with multicolored crystals and the lenses distort her eyes, making them appear at least twice their size. She studies me closely—andif I’m not mistaken, with some judgment. When she’s got the measure of me, she snaps the glasses off and puts them back into her purse.
“Very well,” she says with a curt nod. “I will look after your fish.” Before I have time to decide whether she looks like a responsible enough person to take care of Ragnar, she adds, “I love Betta splendens.”
That takes me by surprise and buoys me immeasurably. Putting the flyer up was an act of desperation. I wasn’t expecting much from it, and I certainly wasn’t expecting a stranger in my building to know the scientific name of Ragnar’s species. It bodes well.
“So, like, do you know much about fish?” I say.
“Do I know much about fish?” she tuts. “Of course I do, dear. I’ve been alive for eighty-two years, and I’ve kept fish for seventy-four of those years. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m an expert in the field.”
