Page 50 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
Derek Booker ran the youth center and thought he could keep kids off the streets and out of gangs by teaching us to play football.
Football gave me the rush I’d always been looking for. A natural high you couldn’t get from drugs. I had mad love for the sport, and I was hooked.
We used to play on a dirt lot fenced in with rusted chain-link. We played hard, fought hard, and always had each other’s backs. We played ball in the heat, the frigid cold, the wind, and the pouring rain. Late into the night, we’d play until our knuckles bled and our sweat seeped into the dirt. Until our legs damn near gave out, and we could barely drag our tired ass home.
We weren’t just a team. We were a family.
“What are you thinking about?” Evie asked, her voice jolting me back to the present.
I looked up at the stars and the vastness of the universe. Jude claimed you could see the stars better here, without all the light pollution in cities, and I guess it was true.
“Football,” I said finally. “I was thinking about football.”
“Football? For real? You looked kind of… sad.”
I glanced at her, then up at the stars again. “I was thinking about my friend Elijah.”
“You were close?”
“He was my best friend. We were tight like brothers.”
“I’m sorry, Ridge,” she said softly. “About Elijah. And about your mom. I just…” She cleared her throat and studied her clasped hands. “I should have said that when you told me.”
“Saying the words won’t change anything. They’d still be dead.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s what I thought too. But sometimes the words still need to be said, you know?”
I nodded.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
Nobody had ever said that. Probably because I’d never confided in anyone before. She gave me a sad smile. “You know it’s not your fault, right? Not your mom’s death. And not Elijah’s. For your mom, it was the drugs, and for Elijah, it was that asshole behind the wheel. Neither of those things was your fault.”
She wanted me to agree with her. But I’d been carrying the guilt around for a long time, and it wasn’t that easy to just let it go. “Yeah, sure. I know.”
“But you don’t believe it.” A statement, not a question. “Is that why you play football the way you do?”
“How do I play football?”
“Like your life depends on it.”
“How would you know? You never came to any of the games.”
She gripped her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe I was there but you just didn’t see me.”
I did see her. Once. I’d searched for my family in the stands, and I thought I saw her. I thought I saw her smile too, but when I looked again, she was gone, and I wasn’t sure if I’d really seen her or if it had been a trick of my imagination. “Were you there for me, Cherry?”
“Pfft. No. I was there for Troy Wilkinson.”
I grinned. She came to the game for me.
“Why did you choose the nickname Dallas?” she asked.
“I didn’t want you to call me Ponyboy. Or Soda Pop. I had to protect my street cred.”
“Huh. I thought it might have been because of that one line. You know… on account of that giant ego of yours. But you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
I scratched my head like I was racking my brain to come up with an answer. It was another test, and she was convinced I’d fail. “Can you give me a clue?”
