Narrow Paths

Chapter Twelve

I stumbled out of Jeremy's bed around seven. I'd gone to sleep at three in the morning after Ed assured me that he was staying up all night and could sleep after Jeremy and I went to football practice.

Jeremy was an asshole with a hangover. I practically had to shove him into the shower in an attempt to wake him up. His grandmother was already awake and making a breakfast of grits.

"Are you going to eat anything, Carter?" She asked me as I helped myself to some of the milk.

"No, thank you."

I took a big drink of the milk and instantly regretted it. Grandma Germ cackled as I ran over to the sink and spat out the rancid milk.

"How long ago did that go bad?" I asked as I rinsed my mouth out with tap water.

"A few days. I was hoping Jeremy would try to drink it, I'm actually kind of sorry you had to be the victim."

"So am I."

Jeremy walked into the kitchen with such a lack of grace that I actually felt sorry for him. While Coach Greene was considerably of some of the player's occasional hangovers, he'd never been soft to Jeremy because of the severity and frequency of his hangovers.

He ate and soon we were getting into his grandma's car. I grimaced at the smell of dried puke and Jeremy nearly puked again.

"What's that smell?"

"You puked," I jerked a thumb toward the back seat and started the car.

We were at the field before anyone else. Just as my Dad had promised, my gym bag was sitting on the ground next to the locker room. Once we were inside I checked to see if anyone had taken anything, but all my possessions were still inside.

Practice was brutal. According to Coach Kennedy, we'd been slacking off for far too long. Coach Greene tended to side with his assistant coach over his players, so we were forced to run laps around the field in the heat.

We were allowed to stop after fifty laps, which I completed before anyone else. Coach Kennedy looked at me as I gasped for breath and reached for a water bottle.

"Give me ten more, Casey."

"Why? I already finished."

"Make it twenty," he said.

I swallowed my protest and began to run twenty more laps. I was the very last person to finish. Apparently, I was the only player Coach Kennedy felt it was necessary to make run seventy laps.

We did three sets of lunges across the field and back, but I planned for five. I prayed that Coach Kennedy would stop pestering me and let me simply be average instead of "pushing me to excel" like he always claimed he was doing.

I knew that Coach Kennedy hated me. It was common knowledge that he at least disliked me. He'd been arrested by my father more than once for domestic abuse and every time he took it out on me. Why the man still had his job after all the legal trouble he was in was beyond me.

It felt like it took ages for Coach Greene to finally end practice. Jeremy was out of it, stumbling around just as badly as he had the night before. He was boasting to a few other players about the chicks he'd picked up last night.

"That party was the bomb," he said to one of the freshman, "it's a shame freshies weren't allowed."

"I bet it was a blast for you, considering how the firemen were called and you threw up in your grandma's car."

He turned to me with a grin that was only half faked. "You're just jealous."

"Sure, sure."

Just like always, Jeremy refused to believe the truth of his partying antics when told. I always told him the truth, unlike everyone else, but still pretended to go along with whatever Jeremy thought had happened. The other players knew what had happened, but played along for Jeremy's sake.