Chapter 2

Savage

<strong>July</strong>

“What if you get hurt? What’s your backup plan?”

I’ve heard this from so many people since I announced going to Tuscaloosa with the intention of declaring myself for the draft in my sophomore or junior year. 

“It’s going to be fine,” I smile at Stephanie, my normal waitress at the Diner when Malone’s not working. 

And tonight, she’s not working, she’s sitting across from me, picking at a plate of fries. We’ve just been to the movies and she hasn’t been acting like herself. She’s not been acting like herself for the last few weeks, but I know we’re both very nervous about moving from the town we’ve lived in our whole lives, to some place where we don’t know anyone. 

“Do you think it really will be?” Malone asks as Stephanie leaves us to wait on another table. “Will we really make it?”

I’m confused about why she’s asking me this question, I have all the confidence in the world we’ll make it. That ring on her finger says as much. “Of course, I wasn’t playing when I gave you that ring, Mal. We’ll be getting married in the next few years, I’ll declare for the draft, and we’ll be living the high life.”

“What if it doesn’t work out like that?”

Her line of questioning is making me angry. Shouldn’t the woman by my side, the one I’m about to spend my life with, about to marry, believe in me as much as I believe in myself? “Why are you pushing back at me on this? Don’t you believe in me?” I let the words hang in the air, they sit there, stagnant, almost like they’re being held up by the humidity of a summer day.

“It’s not that I don’t believe in you, Slade. I wanna be realistic, and I want you to realize I have dreams too.”

“I know you do,” I reach out, grabbing her hand. “And we’ll make all those dreams come true, after I sign with a team.”

She yanks her hand out of mine, pulling it up to her face. She looks upset, but I’m not sure how she can be. I’m offering her the best of life, everything I have on a silver platter. It’s nerves, I tell myself. We’re both nervous about starting a new life, in a new town. Once we get to Tuscaloosa, it’ll all be fine.

“You two need anything else?” Stephanie asks as she comes back over to us.

“No,” I shake my head, watching as Malone pushes the plate of fries away from her. “We’re good.”

Aren’t we?

Malone

“Do you ever wonder what else there is in life?”

Two days later, my best friend, Kayla, and I are sitting out back behind the Diner. We closed an hour ago, but sometimes we like to sit here and contemplate life.

“What do you mean?” she asks, sneaking the cigarette her boyfriend, Jake, a teammate of Slade’s, hates for her to smoke.

“Like are we going to spend the next few years doing exactly what the guys want us to do? Letting them follow their dreams while ours fall to the wayside?”

I feel guilty for asking this question, because I know Slade will do anything for me. He’s told me so over, and over.

“Well yeah, their dreams end in big pay days,” she looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Then we end up in big houses with more money than we know what to do with, and all we gotta do is take care of the kids and keep the social calendar.”

The way she’s talking, I can tell this is what Kayla wants out of her life. But to me, it seems so empty. “Don’t you want to work? Don’t you want to accomplish a dream of your own? A goal?”

She glances at me, and I can see the stars in her eyes. “All I care about is being with Jake for the rest of my life. Right now our parents hate that we’re together, so going off to college will mean freedom for us. We aren’t like you and Slater. People don’t worship the ground Jake walks on, and I didn’t win Homecoming Queen. We’re excited to be going away, to be starting our lives together. Are you not?”

“I don’t know,” I rub my hands up and down my thighs, feeling like I’m about to come out of my skin. “What I do know is I’m antsy, unfulfilled with what’s going on. I applied to the University of Georgia,” I blurt out quickly, needing to get the words out, needing to tell someone. 

“Malone, why would you do that?”

“I got in,” I ignore her question. “There was a late drop, I found out not too long ago. They want me, and they know nothing about Slater Harlow. They don’t know I’m his girlfriend. I got in on my own merit,” I fight back the tears that are threatening to spill, my voice strained as I tell her. 

There’s such a pride in knowing I got in by myself, but there’s also sadness, knowing that I’m facing a really hard decision. 

“Have you told him?”

“No,” I let some of the tears fall, pushing them back with a curved finger against my cheek. “I can’t, he’ll make me decide.”

Realization dawns on her, I can see it in her face. “And you aren’t sure whether your decision will be him?”

I bite my lip, the tears coming now in great big sobs, I’m heaving, putting my face in my hands. “We’re just outta high school, Kayla. How can I know that he’s what I’ll want forever? How can he know he’ll want me forever?”

She hands me a freshly lit cigarette. “Here, take a drag off this, it’ll calm you down some.”

There’s disappointment in her tone, and I get it. She does know, she’s completely sure about Jake. 

“You have a decision to make, Malone, you can’t string him along forever and you can’t go to Tuscaloosa and wonder what might have been. It’s not fair to either of you.”

Kayla gets up, leaving me with the first cigarette I’ve ever smoked and thoughts that I’ve been purposely avoiding for the past few weeks. But there, on a hot summer night in Georgia, I make a decision that will alter the course of the rest of my life.