4. FIELD

FIELD

I t was two after four, and the clock in the library was louder than ever. Each second that passed by clicked loudly like someone was standing behind me, snapping their fingers in my ears. I stared down at the notes I had created for him. It had taken me hours after grabbing the missing assignments from his teacher and separating them in order of what would take him the longest to finish.

I hadn’t gone to bed until three am.

Na?ve idiot, I thought. His stupid smile and bright green eyes had burrowed deep into the back of my mind, giving me hope that he might not be as flaky and flirty as everyone said he could be.

That hope was shattered as the clock continued to mock me.

He was two hundred and forty seconds late.

I closed my book and stood from my chair, shoveling the books into my backpack as the doors to the library slammed open. Ryan skittered in like a wet cat, out of breath and frantic. His eyes widened as he watched me pack up my book, jogging over to the table with his hand out to stop me.

“You’re late,” I said.

“I love you too, beautiful.” He smiled out of breath, pulling his hand out from behind his back with a bundle of flowers. “I got these for you.”

“Whose garden did you steal them from?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that he had called me beautiful. Again.

“I paid a garden club nerd five dollars to let me raid the greenhouse, so I’m late.” He set them down when I didn’t take them and dropped his bag on the floor, moving around the desk to my side.

“That’s not a good enough excuse.” I shook my head and continued to pack my bag when he dropped to his knees beside me and closed the opening with his hands. “Get up,” I whispered at him angrily as a few of the other students started to turn and look at the commotion.

“Not until you forgive me for being late,” he pouted, those big green eyes on fire under the harsh fluorescent lights of the library. “Come on, Mouse. I’m sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you, but it backfired.” He flipped his cap off and pressed it to his chest, still staring up at him with those long lashes.

“I told you not to call me that.” I shook my head, wanting to deny him, to send him away, and to let him fail, but it was hard to say no to Ryan Cody, especially when he was staring at me like that, causing a scene in the library.

“Listen, Rae, I need you. Do you understand that? This is life or death for me. You hold my entire future in your pretty little hands.” He said.

I chewed my lip, worried that the entire situation was slipping from my fingers, but I nodded, “Fine, just get off the damn floor, stupid.” I hissed.

Ryan chuckled and pushed off his knees as he ran his hand through his messy sandy blonde hair. Those damned strands framed his flirty eyes, and the heat rose to the back of my neck.

I shook off the feeling of warmth and took my book back out, dropping it on the table next to the flowers he had brought me. The flower that secretly made me feel special and that I would attempt to keep alive for as long as possible as soon as I left today.

“I separated all your assignments to make them more manageable. We’ll get as many as we can do in the next two weeks, and hopefully, if we get enough of them done, you’ll be able to play again,” I explained to him.

“Hope is fickle,” Ryan said, “I need your guarantee,” he said, looking up from the binder.

“Whether or not you finish these papers isn’t up to me. You have to put in the work, Ryan. I can’t do that for you,” I said with a tiny shrug.

“Say my name again,” he hummed, tilting his chin.

“No.” I shook my head, ignoring how my body reacted to his attention. “Pay attention. Start with this one,” I pointed to the easiest of them all.

“I hate that one,” he groaned and slid into his chair, moving it over so he was shoulder-to-shoulder with me. He caved when I stared at him with a deep scowl. “Alright, alright, Mouse, you’re gonna burn a hole in me.”

I huffed at his nickname and watched as he pulled out his pencil and paper, slowly starting to read the assignment notes. “I don’t understand what’s so educational about writing a paper on a childhood memory.”

“It’s about reflection on your life. It’s about your ability to recount, not the memory.” I shrugged, separating the emotion from it.

“So she wants me to write a memory but doesn’t care about it just so that she can judge my ability to tell a story?” Ryan laughed, eyes flashing up to meet mine as I nodded. “That’s absurd.”

“It’s just a memory,” I said. “It should be easy; pick a favorite of yours.”

Ryan’s hand paused the nervous tapping he had started. Seeing how his father treated him, I realized there might not be as many as I had assumed, and for once, we were standing on level ground. I inhaled slowly, trying to find a way out of the corner I had backed him into accidentally. Our stories weren’t the same. I had never been…hit. I had never had a reason to think about it before, but being ignored was better than being abused.

“What’s your favorite?” He asked me.

“This isn’t about me,” I said quietly. I didn’t have any.

“Mrs. Raymond isn’t going to know the difference,” Ryan said.

“You aren’t starting this paper by plagiarizing someone else's life,” I sighed.

“Just give me an idea, Mouse. Maybe then I can make something up.” He shrugged. He was doing anything he could to avoid digging deep into his childhood, and it made my heart ache for him.

“What about a baseball memory?” I asked him, and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip, and his gaze became distant.

“Let’s do a different one. I’m sure I’ll think of something eventually.” He flipped the pages in the binder to the next one. The following six assignments he had missed were all topics involving him as a person, his memories, his family, and simple issues for normal kids, but they all seemed to make his skin crawl. Suddenly, I understood that there was a deeper issue as to why he was failing English.

“Didn’t you win that award last year?” I flipped the binder back to the first assignment and tapped the title. “For being really good at baseball?”

“Most Valuable Player,” he chuckled, but it was hollow and unexpected. “They would give those out to anyone. It’s just a pat on the back.”

“But they gave it to you,” I said.

“Only because I scored a home run in the last inning with loaded bases, winning us the game,” he made it sound so easy, so carefree, and it wasn’t the Ryan that he projected to everyone else.

“Oh,” I swallowed, trying to devise a plan on the fly. “So you’re saying you’re average?”

This time, Ryan laughed genuinely and shook his head gently before looking up at me. “I’m far from average, Mouse. I’m god damn incredible.”

“So you should have a story to tell,” I poked back at his inflated ego, how easily it had been to find it beneath his concrete walls. “You talk more than any boy I’ve ever met.”

“You talk to a lot of boys, Rae?” He asked, sliding his face into his palm as he watched me. I hated how much I loved the attention.

“I’m not a shut-in, Ryan,” I said and watched him swallow tightly at the sound of his name on my lips. Even more so, I hated how much I enjoyed making him squirm.

“That I don’t believe. I’ve never seen you at a single party,” he said, completely distracted from his work.

“You’re supposed to be writing a memory,” I said, tapping the paper.

“Tell me the last fun thing you did, and I’ll write,” He challenged me.

I stared him down, trying to figure out a reasonable answer he would deem appropriately fun enough to start his paper. Why I was even buckling to his bargaining was beyond me.

“Last semester, the yearbook club threw a wrap party,” I said.

“What did you do?” Ryan asked.

“Uh—we went bowling.” I shrugged.

“You went bowling?” He laughed so hard he nearly fell from his chair. “Rae, that’s not fun. That’s organized torture.”

“It was fun…” I said with a small grumble. “I scored a perfect game.”

He set down his pencil and leaned forward on the desk with a bark of laughter. “How do you even score a perfect game in bowling? You gotta explain this to me!”

“I’m sorry that it wasn’t getting drunk in Landry’s backyard and throwing up in a bush!” I covered my face with my hands and sighed. “That was the last fun thing I did. Now, do your work.”

“Not until you tell me how you scored a perfect score,” he said with that perfectly lopsided grin. “And for the record, I haven’t puked in a bush since junior year!”

“So talented,” I mocked him.

“Says the bowling Queen of the Wild West,” Ryan scoffed.

“You score all strikes. Across the board, there’s no science to it.” I shrugged and threw his pencil at him. “Work.”

“There’s no way you bowl perfect strikes. That’s impossible,” he laughed.

“It’s very possible, and I can do it. It’s just math.”

“You are so very serious right now,” Ryan’s tongue darted out over his bottom lip, and he nodded, seemingly impressed. “You’ll have to show me one day, Mouse.”

“No. Do your work. I have to be home for dinner in half an hour.” I said tightly.

“Can I walk you home?” He asked me, ignoring my order to finish his work.

“No,” I said.

“Why do you hate me so much?” He whined and blew out a huff of air.

“Because you’re exactly the kind of boy I’ve been avoiding the entirety of high school, and now I’m stuck tutoring you in a class you don’t respect so you can win your big match and get laid.”

“Whoa now,” he put his hands up, “I can get laid without winning a ball game.”

I practically growled at his response. “Could you take this seriously for two minutes?”

“I’m over it,” he leaned back in his chair and studied me. I was growing increasingly frustrated with his flippant attitude toward the work. “Listening to you talk about your bowling escapades is far more interesting.”

“If you aren’t working on your assignments, then there's no point to this tutoring,” I looked him over, grabbing my binder, but he reached out and stopped me. “I’m not going to sit here and let you make fun of me, Mr. Cody.”

“Oh, stop it,” Ryan shook his head, “don’t go back to the Mr. Cody crap.”

“You’re treating this like a joke, and I have things to do.” I scoffed, pushing back from the table.

“I’ll do the assignment tonight. I don’t want to sit here scribbling down some fake memory while you stare at me like I’m an idiot. I would rather use the time to talk to you .” He said.

“You are an idiot,” I stood up. “This is about you passing that class so you can play in your big, important, life-changing game, Mr. Cody. It’s not about me.”

“I hate when you call me that,” he pouted but stood up.

“I hate it when you don’t do your assignments.” I shook my head and slung my bag over my shoulder, preparing to walk home. As I left the library, I could feel him on my tail, “What are you doing?” I spun around to look at him.

“Walking you home.” He said, his hat back over his hair and his chin tucked down into his sweater as he followed behind me at a distance.

“I told you no,” I said.

“For someone so smart, you sure don’t figure stuff out very quickly. I’m a bad listener.”

I sighed, staring at him for a moment longer.

“You better hurry, Mouse. You’ll be late for dinner.” He said, cocking his head to the side with a serious look on his face.

He had stayed true to his words and walked me all the way home, almost right up the driveway, before ensuring I was inside. Dinner was boring. Mom grilled me on my whereabouts after school, and I had to fork over the letter from Mrs. Raymond about the tutoring before she left me alone.

Dad didn’t bother to show up.

I spent most of the night in my room focusing on homework that had briefly been neglected until a knock on the door pulled my attention from the book.

“That young man is back on our porch, Lorraine. I thought you understood the rules,” Mom said in a cold, authoritative tone. My heart was pounding in my chest, thinking she might do something about it herself, but part of me knew she would never make a scene—not the mayor's wife. Never. I nodded and slipped off the bed.

“I’m not sure why he’s there, but I’ll send him away,” I said, moving past her toward the stairs. I stopped in the hallway to ensure my sweater covered my chest before opening the door and stepping into the chilly air.

Ryan jumped from his spot on the bench and closed his book over, extending his hand to me. “Here,” he held a small stack of papers covered in his messy handwriting. “I finished.”

“How long have you been out here?” I asked him.

“Since you left me,” he said. I looked down at the watch on my wrist, six hours. He had been out there for six hours .

I scowled, backing away from him and wandering inside without a word. I walked to the kitchen, collected the glass pan with the leftover lasagna inside and a fork, grabbed a pop can, and carried it back outside. He was slumped on the bench, pouting, no doubt thinking I was still mad at him.

“Eat,” I said, almost dropping the pan in his lap.

“I’m not a charity case, Rae. I just wanted to finish this,” he waved the paper at me.

“You eat, I’ll read it,” I said, sitting quietly on the bench beside him.