Fadeaway by E. Vickers (ebook smartphone TXT) 📗

Because you didn’t want her to do it herself. Because who knows where that would have led.

I text Kolt, just so I can say I’ve done something.

Did you talk to Jake?

I tried but he didn’t answer

You think he’s OK?

I think he’s the MVP of the state tournament

So yeah he’s OK

Will you go check on him? Daphne said he was acting weird. I’d go but this place is a disaster and I still have to clean up.

U serious?? It’s almost midnight and my cars out of gas

My mom whisper-shouts at me from her bedroom doorway. “Is everybody gone?”

“Yeah, the last people just left. Can I talk to Dad for a second?”

Mom gestures at a mound under the covers. “Good luck. I barely got him horizontal before he passed out.”

I watch the rise and fall of the comforter as Dad lies there, his face slack and blank. What does she mean by “passed out”? That he was so exhausted from tonight’s game—and this season, and the six years of late nights leading up to it—that he fell asleep, hard and fast, the second his head hit the pillow? Or does it have more to do with the empty beer bottles lined up along the windowsill that he snuck in over the course of the party?

I learned discipline from my parents, by their instruction and their example. Mom has put up with so much from both of us for so long, and she never even breaks a sweat. But lately Dad has been so focused and disciplined when it comes to the game and the season that things have started slipping in other areas. He’s still as fit as most of the guys on the team, but instead of running three miles every day, it’s ten or nothing. (Usually nothing.) Instead of lean protein, it’s greasy burgers. And now the line of beer bottles, when he’d always limited himself to two.

When my phone shakes my pocket, I hope it will be Kolt. Normally I’d rather have a text from Daphne, but tonight all I can think of is what I saw in the locker room—and the fact that she’s still thinking about Jake.

It’s her. And yup, she’s still thinking about him.

Jake will be fine. Don’t check on him—I didn’t mean to dump that on you. He and Kolt are probably passed out in front of Demon Slayer or something. I’m going to sleep. You should too. xoxo

It’s impossible not to picture her in her soft shorts and the Stanford T-shirt she sleeps in. She always could fall asleep so quickly, so peacefully, even on bus trips or curled up on a couch during movie nights.

Jake must know that about her too. The thought burns me up. And even though I’m exhausted, I’m too mad—at Daphne, at Jake, at myself—to fall asleep. I lie there listening to Coach’s passed-out snores keeping no time whatsoever with the tick of the clock on my wall.

Everything is out of sync, and there’s no chance of my brain shutting off until I clear this up.

There’s still a light on in my parents’ room, so I knock softly. Mom’s awake, reading. “I need to check on something real quick,” I tell her. “Jake was acting weird tonight, so I’m going to make sure he’s okay. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Mom rests a hand on my arm. “You are a good kid, Seth. Wake me up when you get back.”

I don’t pass a single car on the long drive into town, but when I get to Jake’s, there’s one parked at the curb. A beat-up truck, actually, with Kolt hunched over the wheel in an old basketball hoodie, looking pretty ticked off. He must have borrowed one of his dad’s semifunctional trucks since his truck is out of gas. And Jake’s truck is in the driveway.

I pull over—across the street and far enough back that they won’t notice me—and cut the engine and the lights. If Jake’s home and Kolt’s on it after all, maybe I don’t have to get involved.

Jake comes out of the house then, hood up and hands stuffed in his pockets.

As he walks to the truck, though, there’s something off. The way he keeps looking around, maybe, or the little bit of stagger in his step.

Jake shrugs out of his backpack and tosses it in the bed of the truck, then climbs in the passenger seat. I swear, Kolt gasses it before Jake’s door is even closed, and they tear down the street.

Straight toward me. Shit. I pull up my own hood and duck down, but still, I want to get a good look at Jake’s face.

Even in that split second, though, I can tell he isn’t okay. His face shines too pale in the dim glow of the streetlamp. His eyes seem sunken somehow. If I had to pick one word for it, I might pick haunted.

In the very last instant before they pass, those sunken eyes lock with mine, and I shiver deeper into my hoodie and crank the engine to start the heat back up. For half a second, I think about following them, but I talk myself out of it, using the same excuses I’ve been hiding behind all night.

He’ll talk if it’s just him and Kolt. He doesn’t want you there.

He doesn’t deserve your help after what happened in the training room.

And most of all: Jake Foster is a lot of things to a lot of people, but he is not your problem. You deserve to go home and check out for tonight.

So that’s exactly what I do. I send Kolt a quick text: Let me know if you need backup. And Daphne too: He’s with Kolt. He’s fine. Then I drive straight home.

As I’m driving, it’s hard not to hope karma kicks him in the ass. Because I still can’t guarantee I won’t do it myself.

—

When my alarm blares Monday morning, it still takes everything I have to haul my butt