Work Text:
You aren’t thinking about anything. You aren’t drunk, which is good news for Dillon traffic, but even if you were—
(Jason’s paralyzed. They say with physical therapy, he'll regain use of his arms, his hands, his upper body.)
You still have your limbs. That’s the kind of shit you should be grateful for, or shamed by. Hard to draw a line between the two. There’s your hand with the keys, the ignition clicking, your foot on the pedals, reversing. You taught Jay how to drive stick. Tyra, too.
It was the one goddamn thing you knew how to do.
(But they don't think he’s gonna regain use of his legs.)
You are going home. Sickening. You might as well be driving down a black tunnel, even though it’s daylight. Sun won’t go down for hours: that’s late August. The start of the season; the end of the summer.
You are supposed to play for your lives with the smell of dead grass rising in the air.
You are almost seventeen. It does not get better than the opening game—that’s the idea. Before you ran out on that field, still breathing whiskey, you knew.
You knew this was the end of your life, in a way, but you didn’t think you had to believe that just yet.
You are not going anywhere. You’re driving in circles. If you had something to drink in the glovebox, you’d drain it to empty glass, weaving in and out of lanes like running drills. You hold the wheel tightly, so your hands can’t shake. Your thoughts weave for you.
You think about life. Death. How this truck is all you have. Your proudest possession. It doesn’t mean freedom, like Jason’s jeep did for him.
Your things never meant the same things.
You walked out of the room because you couldn’t listen to sympathy. Not even from Coach.
Coach loved Jay. Who wouldn’t?
(He’s never gonna walk again—)
When Billy was running his mouth, you wanted to swing around, pump the action, send a bullet through the back window, through the back of his skull. Then he’d be dead in front of your eyes, and his thrashing, dying hands would lose control, and the truck would run off the road with both of you in it. Sunday funeral: you break your neck in a ditch. Do it in a final sort of way. Don’t feel a thing, except that probably, you regret shooting Billy in that final moment.
(Never—)
You pull in the driveway. Billy’s there, hunkered down on the steps, drinking already. You get out. You are still in half your uniform.
“Short practice?” he asks.
You don’t speak. You take a beer out of the cooler beside him as you shuffle inside. The house smells rancid. The air is heavy enough to press you into the ground, no need to dig a grave.
(You didn’t know. You didn’t know it would be like this. You didn’t know it was going to be him.)