college’s video game club.
I don’t walk to the stairs. I step from metal seat to metal seat. It’s not hard maneuvering around people, because most are congregated in the middle of the stands.
“Hey, Connor!”
I recognize the voice immediately, and she’s not talking to Connor. She’s talking to me. I turn. Cami, Emma’s best friend, is sitting about three feet to my left. She’s wearing an old orange Lion King T-shirt and cutoff denim shorts. Her pale legs are propped up on the seat in front of her like she’s attempting to get some sun.
“How are you, Connor?”
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She’s doing it on purpose. She always does it on purpose.
Cami, short for Camille, calls me Connor because she knows that there is an unwritten law in the universe that anyone who calls me by my brother’s name will get flipped off. I’ve served two detentions because of her, once because she did it during my food presentation in Spanish class and once when she said it as the principal was walking down the hallway.
“Really?” I lift my full hands.
“Sorry,” she says, as if she hadn’t noticed. She puts down the sketchbook she’s been doodling in and takes the can of Diet Coke from my hand.
I flip her the bird, and with a smile on her face, she hands the can back.
“I’m kind of surprised to see you here,” she says.
“You didn’t think I’d want to see my brother break his own record? Watching Connor achieve his goals is pretty much my purpose in life.”
She shakes her head and tucks short curls of brown hair behind her ears. “I just figured you wouldn’t want to be here—
wouldn’t want to spend another day in the Great Connor’s shadow.”
Wow. I scoff because I can’t believe she said that. She gets it.
The girl who constantly calls me by my brother’s name just to piss me off and get me into trouble gets it. Connor is the quarterback of the football team. He’s the captain of the basketball team. And when he’s not breaking track records, he’s walking on water. I can’t compete with that. And Cami gets it.
I give her a miniature “fuck you” with the hand carrying the 2 0
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
Diet Coke, but this time it’s meant as a sort of salute. She smiles and flips me the bird from behind the sketch pad.
“What are you drawing?”
She turns the pad around to reveal a small bird sitting amongst sparse tufts of grass.
“Over there,” she says, nodding her head toward the patch of grass next to the concession stand, where tiny birds with red-tipped gray wings peck at bits of popcorn.
“Nice.”
“Thanks.” She smiles at me. “Any time you want to sit for portrait, just let me know. I’ll even let you strike your favorite pose.” She rubs her cheek with her extended middle finger, and I almost laugh.
“See you later at the festivities.”
Poor Cami. She’s getting sucked into everything, too, and she’s not even related to him. I suppose that’s the downside to being BFFs with Connor’s girlfriend. I give her a sympathetic nod, and then continue up to where Mom and Dad are sitting.
“You’re going to spoil your dinner,” my mom says when she sees the two hot dogs balanced in my left hand. She takes her Diet Coke.
“I don’t like Luigi’s, so what’s it matter?” I sit down in the space my parents have left for me between them on the bleachers. I don’t understand why they’re not sitting next to each other.
I’m not five. I don’t need a parent on either side of me to make sure I don’t slip between the metal seats and break my neck.
She runs her hands through her short sandy blond hair. She had it cut this morning, and the hairdresser got a little happy 2 1
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
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with the scissors. Now Mom can’t seem to stop touching it, and every time she does, she frowns a little.
“You love Luigi’s,” she says, the slight wrinkles around her brown eyes deepening a little as she processes the idea that I don’t like the place they drag me to every year for Connor’s birthday. If I liked it, then I’d want to go there on my birthday, but I never do. I prefer Mom’s fried chicken on my birthday. She’s a really good cook, except for tuna casserole, and that’s more the tuna’s