Page 83 of The Fundamentals

For a moment, she just stared at me. “I don’t know…what…”

“It’s fine, all good,” I said, using the words that I had employed a lot in my life to explain away everything, even when it wasn’t fine or good, even when it was horrible. “No, it’s not, not really,” I corrected myself. “But I’m going to perform today. I won’t let you guys down.”

“Everyone decent?” Sam hollered from the hallway outside the studio, where we were again having to change because there was another little problem in the locker room, something about a gas leak (but Danni had said she was sure that they were going to cap it off soon and it didn’t really pose a health risk). He waited for a moment before he barged on in, but we were dressed because it wasn’t too long before we had to take the field. Sam went into his usual pregame speech and I tried to pay attention. I wasn’t sure if it was due to a lack of sleep or the heavy dose of adrenaline from before, but I felt very weird, disconnected and unfocused.

That wasn’t the way to go into a nationally televised performance.

“What did you say?” Malina whispered to me.

I shook my head. I’d been imagining myself running out onto the field, waving, and then falling on my face in the turf. I’d also imagined that there was someone underneath that turf, a hand reaching—

“Sissy!” She tugged my arm. “Come on, we’re going down to the tunnel.”

“Right, right,” I agreed, and clapped along with the team as we walked together. I saw Danni look back over her shoulder at me and I smiled to reassure her that things were going to be ok.

I was going to be ok, I knew that I was. I just really, really wanted to see Bowie. I wanted to tell him what had happened, and I wanted him to pick me up and hug me like he always did. I wanted to be with him.

“Are we ready, ladies?” Danni asked from the mouth of the tunnel.

“Yes!” we shouted.

“Let’s go, Wonderwomen!”

As I ran, smiling and waving like the other girls, I tried to think of what my sister would do. How would she handle this? I thought of how she’d told me not to emulate her. “Just be you, Sissy,” that was what she’d said.

“I am. I’m Lissa Bowman.”

“We know,” Quinn told me, her face frozen in her performance smile. “Everything ok?”

“I’m going to be great.”

It was a close game. We were always doing something, moving around the field, going up into the stands, performing at every time-out and break in the action. I did watch Bowie, though, because no matter what I was doing, my eyes were drawn to him. I watched him take his stance on the line and then I tried not to cringe as he collided hard with the offensive players. I watched him help up Robby Baines, I watched him talking to Coach Lynch, I watched him drink water and hoped he was getting enough. I watched when he stayed down for an extra moment after a play and realized that I was squeezing the handles of my poms so hard they might have broken. I only released them when I saw that he was fine.

“I love him.” Had I said that out loud?

“We know, Sissy,” Chanel told me. “He loves you, too.”

The game clock counted down for the win, finally. We did our celebration dance, the same one that the cheerleaders had been doing since my mom was a Dame. When we were done, we were supposed to wave and run together back to the tunnel. Instead, I hesitated, looking around. Then he was there, grinning down at me.

“Hi there, honey. You were amazing today. Every time I looked over, I got so proud, I kept telling everyone to watch—”

I ran and jumped and he caught me, holding me up as I locked my arms around his neck.

“This is the best post-game celebration I ever had,” he said. “I’m going to try even harder to win if this is how you’ll react. I’m pretty sweaty, but if you don’t mind that—”

“Bowie?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you want to get married? If it was to protect me, and the threat was gone, would you think that we shouldn’t be together anymore? Because I was planning to let you go,” I explained. “I thought we could split up, but I can’t do it. I can’t lose you.”

He slid me down until I stood on the turf looking up at him again. “I didn’t want to get married. I mean, not in general. I only wanted to marry you,” he said. “I don’t know what it was, Lissa. I used to see you and I thought, damn, that woman is something. The first time I talked to you was at your sister’s wedding when you had that paint on your face and your hair fell out of its loopy thing on the top of your head, and I just…” He smiled. “I just thought, ‘She’s it.’ I married you because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I answered.

“I was hoping that you did. We got pretty lucky, didn’t we?”

I nodded and he wiped tears off my cheek with his finger. My makeup was shot, anyway. Then he bent and kissed me, and I could have floated away with happiness.

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