I'll Be Here

chance, are you?”

 
     
    Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.
    ~Nick Hornby

 
    CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
     
    Sarah’s pulling my hand with purpose. 
                “You have no idea,” she says for the tenth time in the past five minutes.  Her feet are almost skipping on the sidewalk. 
    “I told him to call you last week but he wouldn’t listen to me.  Even Adam told him that he was being a jerk, but you know boys.”  Sarah rolls her blue eyes.  She’s grinning wildly, her voice on the verge of a squeal.
                It turns out that the girl that answered the door is Sarah—the girlfriend of Alex’s roommate Adam, who—get this—is the glasses-wearing bookworm at the front counter of the dorm. 
                In a cloud of peppermint and chattiness, Sarah rushes me out of the dorm in the direction of the intramural fields where she says that Alex is playing lacrosse.
                “I didn’t even know that Alex played lacrosse,” I say, my hand brushing loose hairs away from my face. 
                Sarah looks over her shoulder.  “Oh, he doesn’t.  It’s actually Joey’s team, but Joey being Joey partied too hard last night and Alex agreed to fill in for him.”
                “Oh.” 
    We cross an intersection and Sarah’s gait slows down, settling to a stop.  In front of us is hodgepodge of green sports fields speckled with sweaty boys. 
                She makes a sunshield with one hand and points with the other.  “There,” she says.
                I follow the direction of her finger, my eyes lighting on a bare-chested boy leaning against a set of low silver bleachers.  If I had a pencil I would sketch him.  His torso is long and rippled with firm muscles—hard lines that cascade into legs and arms.  He has a red tee shirt draped across his broad shoulders and when he bends to pick up a water bottle I spot the two lines of script inked on his back even from this distance.  
    There are a handful of other guys around him and they are laughing about something. 
    “The game must be over,” I say flatly, giving no hint that my heart is a tightly-balled fist.
                “Looks like it.”  Sarah presses two fingers into my back.  I don’t budge.  She turns and her face is sympathetic.  “Don’t chicken out on me now Willow.”
                I’m going to say that I’m not chickening out.  I’m going to take a step.  I’m going to surge across a lacrosse field of waiting boys and tell Alex exactly what I’m doing here. 
    I’m in love with you, I’ll say and actually, I’ll sing it—belting it out in soprano like a Broadway star.  I’m going to do it.  Honestly.  I’m about to make my move, but then Alex’s gaze flicks, landing hard on mine.  It’s like a snap.  A crackle.  A pop. 
                His mouth falls open in surprise. 
                Beside me, Sarah waves. 
                I think the atmosphere boils over and melts all the remaining polar icecaps.
                The clouds halt in the sky. 
                Then it’s actually happening.  Sarah and I are walking and I can feel the grass kissing the tops of my feet through the cuts of my sandals. 
                We stop maybe seven feet from the bleachers and Sarah’s talking to the other guys like she knows them, and she’s making introductions but I’m not really paying attention.  I’m looking at Alex’s face and I’m trying to figure out what he’s thinking but everything’s moving so fast, like all the molecules around us are heating up.  And I want so badly for him to say something to me.  Anything.  But, instead, there’s an awful, lulling nothing coming from his lips. 
                He shakes his head slowly and looks down at the clenched fingers resting on his thighs.  Suddenly, standing exposed in front of these boys with fantastic bodies in this foreign land, I feel all wrong.  Nothing is in its right place—especially not me.
    Excuse me sir, I’ve gotten off the train at the wrong stop . 
    I stagger back and spin, the sun hurling far too much brightness in my face.  My feet are moving before my body’s even registered the right direction.  I think that Sarah is shouting