Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 45

Aiden's match goes off without a hitch.

If I thought he was a cocky little shit off field, he's a downright smug motherfucker when he scores. I'm too far away to see his face but the way he is strutting about the field with that easy confidence edges on something almost attractive in him. The thought startles me as I let out a visible shudder making Amy nudge me confusedly.

"You alright?" she asks me sipping on her coffee we snuck off to buy half way through the game

I nod vaguely at her as my heartbeat comes to terms with my consciousness. I find Aiden Romanov attractive. At the same time, he manages to get the ball in the net he had been trying for the past five seconds, in and his team swarms around to pick him up. When they set him back on the ground, he turns his head and tilts it up. Shading his eyes from the setting sun, he brings his fingertips to his mouth and kisses it. And I'll bet my soul and Amy's, that the fucker is smirking.

I still.

"Did he just—"

"He did." Amy guffaws

Something childish pinpricks at the back of my head, something teenage and paranoid: was it for me or for her?

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Nick's game lets me forget about Aiden. I'm on my feet, trying to maintain my balance on the narrow ledge, screaming nonsensically at him. When the crowd begins a chant, I enthusiastically holler along. I hate that I'm not among the faces he can see easily when he looks into the bleachers.

The game has five minutes left on the clock when it happens.

And I should've known it will, it always does.

As Nick is going for the goal and I'm dangerously bouncing up and down on my feet on a precariously creaky roof, somebody from Crenshaw pummels into him. The guy is a gracious 6'5, made of pure muscle and just comically huge. I can almost hear the sickening crunch of ribs as Nick crumbles to the ground.

My hearing slows and vision tunnels.

"No, no, no, no, not again." I almost fall off the roof as I try to clamber into the stairway. Amy follows me desperately and I don't wait to see her face. But her shaking hands say a lot. I hear the startled, collective gasp of the audience followed by vicious yelling and bellowing. Red cards are thrown and I know Nick is hurried off to the med tent.

"Hey, hey, slow down. Lyra." Amy grabs me by the arm and pulls me around. I turn almost effortlessly. "You go. I'll cover for you. We can't both be gone this close to the thing."

"That's smart, yeah, yeah." I murmur and let go of her arm that I've probably been digging half-moons into

"And, Lyra?" she says right when I am to step outside. I turn around to her. "Tell him I—I, let him know I—just let me know how he does, okay? And don't get too late."

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I don't think anything is louder than the sound of my stomach repeatedly plummeting when I burst through the blue polythene curtains of the med tent.

"Shane!" my voice is guttural, an ugly rasp materializing from somewhere in the chasm of my throat, "Liam! Where's he?"

It isn't Shane or Liam who answers me, but a familiar bass.

"This way," Aiden says and there's a small press of his hand on my lower back. I slump into his hand and run in the way he is nudging me towards

If I had paid more attention to my surroundings I would've had the logic to follow the boards that could've pointed me towards the injuries that require immediate and serious attention, and I would've located Nick sooner.