The Anti-Crush by Harper West

7

Nathan

I pulledmy mud-slicked cleats through the grass, heavy breaths flowing through my lungs. Hands on my hips, I fought to recover from the last play, which involved me running down the entire field. It worked and had gotten us much closer to the other team’s end zone, but it also left me feeling light-headed.

I pushed my mouthguard out, and the mint-colored plastic clung to the inside of my helmet as I swallowed deep, greedy gulps of air. It burned my lungs and felt like dozens of micro-cuts along the inside of my throat.

But there was no time to relax or slack off. This was game night and my team was counting on me. I snapped the mouthguard in place and bit down, forcing myself to focus.

Little raindrops pounded against my helmet, creating soft thuds that drowned out most of the other noise. The chaos. The yelling. The cheering. My teammate patted my back to as I walked up to my spot on the field. Just one more run, I told myself. This game was almost over. I saw the defeat in the other team’s faces already. They meandered through the next play. They knew it didn't matter anymore.

Dark clouds rolled overhead, threatening a full-on storm, yet everyone on the field and in the stadium stayed in their places. They stood in rain-slicked baseball caps and headsets, drenched sweatshirts, ponchos, and jackets and watched as our team pulled ahead of our state rivals.

"Tanner," I barked as he faced the crowd to gave them a little bow. They cheered, growing rowdier and more supportive, but the coach's face was set in a hard line. He wasn’t impressed. McKenzie, his new girlfriend, mimicked his moves from behind the main divider. He looked over to me in the middle of his impromptu bows and blew a kiss at her.

"What?" he asked, taking his position. "I'm here, I'm here.” He swatted away my attempts to get him to focus on the game.

"Focus. Coach is watching," I hissed at him, nodding to the sideline. Coach was a hard ass and he stood in front of the bleachers with his eyes fixated on Tanner and me. The man's hair was greying at the temples, giving him a distinguished look.

"Man, so what?" Tanner huffed to me as we crouched down next to each other. "He's always watching. But look, they love me.” He pointed to the cheering crowd. It was true. He'd been a favorite since he’d started showing off on the field, doing end zone dances and leading choruses of the school anthem. Football was where Tanner came alive. He was a great player, sure, but Coach hated his antics.

"It doesn't matter, dude," I said. As quarterback, I began to count off, even though we knew the play already. We'd practiced this dozens of times—so many times that it was muscle memory. “Just stop flirting with your girlfriend during the game."

Tanner just laughed and I glared at him. "I can't help it, man. I'm in love!" he announced proudly, standing up from huddle prematurely. "I love you, baby!" he yelled as a referee tossed a yellow flag into the air. It was slick with rainwater, and it fell to the ground in a hushed, sloppy mess.

From the bleachers, McKenzie was jumping up and down and holding her hands over her heart. "I love you!" her tiny voice replied from the stands, ringing out over the noise from the stadium and the groans from both teams.

In front of her, our coach threw his hands up in frustration. Tanner silently fell back into play after waving an apology to the sympathetic crowd. I looked past him, past our coach and Tanner's new girlfriend, to someone next to her. Someone sitting quietly, despite the fact that everyone around her was standing and cheering. Her dark hair fell over her face, obscuring it silently, but the crease in her brow and the determined look on her face gave her away.

"Are you serious right now?" I gritted as I forced myself to take my own advice to focus on the game instead of my girl. My heart fluttered when I realized that I had, thought of Elizabeth as “my girl.”.

Tanner laughed. "Sorry, man. You just don't get it," he said with a happiness in his eyes that even the dark clouds couldn't dull. Right now, in his world, it was a perfect sunny day.

I stared at him and opened my mouth to argue. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong and that I did get it. I did know what it felt like to have a girl in the stands whose there for you. My eyes flickered back to the bleachers, to Elizabeth, with her dark hair and glasses, who always had her nose in a book. But I wasn’t ready to talk about all this with Tanner yet. I mean, I don’t even think Elizabeth knew what was going on in my mind. I looked back to my teammates as we readied ourselves and rolled my eyes.

"It's been three weeks. That’s not enough time for it to be love." Then again, that’s how long Elizabeth had been back in my life. The denial in my voice was obvious, but Tanner didn't seem to notice.

"Hike!"

The ball appeared, and we ran for it. Our rivals braced and gritted their teeth, ready for a fight.

Duncan caught hold of the ball and ran sideways. I darted into a clearing among, in between their defensive line, and threw my hands into the air. I had eyes on him and he glanced back, silently telling me to be ready. Sure enough,he launched the ball down the field. I broke out into a sprint. I could hear the crowd roaring, but it was distant, underneath my heavy breathing. I forced myself to go faster as the ball sailed down the field. It came closer and closer.

The crowd screamed and leapt to their feet as I made the catch of a lifetime. I held it against my body tightly, rolling my shoulders around the ball as I ran toward the goal line.

Twenty feet, my brain approximated. I heard mushy footsteps behind me. My breathing was ragged, muffled by the mouthguard, but I was determined to run it in. This was what all those hours on the field in practice were about.

Ten feet, I screamed to myself as my opponent closed in. I could feel Coach's eyes on me as I ran faster than I ever thought I could. I was so close, I could taste it.

Touchdown!

I slammed the ball down in the other team’s end zone and turned around to see my teammates dancing around the field wildly, tackling each other into the wet field. The win began to wash over me. My team rushed over and and hoisted me up onto their shoulders. Coach still had his arms crossed, but his lips weren’t pressed in a hard line anymore. For him, this was as close to a smile as it got. His assistant, however, was cheering and twirling his hat around around in the air like a lasso.

I watched as one of my teammates broke away from the field and hopped the main divider. As soon as he reached McKenzie, I realized it was Tanner. He scooped her up from her seat on the bleacher and kissed her passionately. Her hands rested delicately on his shoulders and then slid up into his hair. He picked her up in a fireman’s carry and she giggled and waved to the crowd as they made their way toward the entrance to the stadium. I watched them go with a mixture of irritation and disbelief. The guys lowered me back onto the ground as we got closer to the bleachers.

Fans gathered their belongings from the bleachers and started leaving the stadium. The place was mostly empty by the time I reached the bench. When I picked up my water bottle, I noticed Tanner had left his things behind, so I grabbed them.

"Good going, man. That was sick," Duncan said, walking up to me with his hand out. I took it with a smile.

"No kidding. Thank for setting that up," I said, returning the compliment. He grinned, patted me on the back, and ran off to his buddies. I recognized a few faces as a headed out and offered kind waves. I took another sip from my water. As I tilted my head back, I saw dark hair and a pretty smile and I paused mid-sip.

Elizabeth sat, hunched over a large, leather-bound book, and was so engrossed in the novel that she didn’t notice that the game had ended. Or maybe she just didn't care. She reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she read. When she pushed her hair away from her face, I could see her glasses more clearly, and beyond them, I could make out the way her green eyes shone as she read.

I stepped up onto the bleachers behind her and sat down on the abandoned aluminum seating, but she didn't notice. She continued to read, her dark hair moving back and forth in the wind. With a wicked smile on my lips, I dropped my helmet on the seat next to her.

It let out a loud and powerful bang that vibrated through the bleachers. It caught the attention of a few fans who were lingering behind. They turned around for a second before continuing toward the exit. Elizabeth jumped and she covered herself instinctively as she pulled her earbuds out. She was on edge, but softened when she saw me.

"You're listening to music while you're reading?" I asked with a chuckle. I slid down next to Elizabeth as I collected my helmet. She shut her book. "Doesn't that get distracting?"

"It's just something soft to drown out the game," Elizabeth admitted quietly. The strand of hair that she had tucked behind her ear fell back out of place and I fought the urge to fix it for her. "I can usually read through anything, but a football game and a stadium full of people is a whole other level of distraction."

"For sure," I said, thinking about how I could barely drown out my own thoughts when I wanted to read. Let alone twenty-thousand screaming fans.

"You played really well," she said as she absentmindedly wound the cord of her earbuds around her fingers. She rolled the thin, white cord over itself so many times that the tip of her finger turned red. She released it and started again. "I was watching, you know,” she reassured me.

I smiled. "I know."

She rolled her eyes and held out an earbud to me with a smile. When I held it up to my ear, a Modest Mouse song played. It was the same song that we'd been listening to in the library earlier. Despite the tension in the air, both of us sat in a comfortable silence, listening to the music. Neither of us was bold enough to turn and look at the other, but I could sense that she was smiling.

As we sat together in the empty stadium, the sun set and the stars began to twinkle in the night sky. We sat until the song ended, then listened to another. Then another. Elizabeth didn't skip any of them. During an instrumental song with the gentlest violin thrumming I'd ever heard, my hand touched hers.

She had the softest skin I'd ever felt.