All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

I sprawl on the blanket next to her feet, and tug her down into my lap. Our legs end up tangled, and she laughs as she tries to get situated.

“Rusty, no. But the other . . . I make no promises.”

Summer is teasing its way into fall, and though it’s warm out, the wind tells a different story. She presses close against me.

The sky is big above us. The countryside stretches out for miles in every direction. And neither of our lives has ever been so complicated. But I don’t feel overshadowed by any of those things. Not with her in my arms.

There’s still her parents to worry about. And she’s got me trying to rope in more guys from the team to help with a new protest about the shelter. I mentioned to Stella that Dylan might be able to help, that maybe she could do something to draw more attention so that the prosecutor would take a more serious look at the case. But she just changed the subject.

I don’t know when life stopped feeling small and started feeling too big, too much to handle, but I know it’s easier with Dylan in my arms.

Me and her together . . . I believe we’re big enough to face whatever comes.

Epilogue

One Week Later

Dylan

I completely underestimated football uniforms.

During the first and only other game I had attended, we’d had a seat high up in the student section, so I’d only really seen these big, hulking gray and red masses. But Silas’s first game back is an away game. It’s only a six-hour drive, so Dallas, Matt, and I make the trip, and we snag much better seats. And oh my goodness, Silas in a uniform is just . . . I don’t even have the words. And the game hasn’t even started yet.

Stella said she had a big art project to work on, and I can tell by the persistent worried look on Dallas’s face (and the way she keeps checking her phone) that she feels badly for leaving her behind.

Stella loves football. Or loved it.

But we have to trust that she knows her lines. And maybe she really does have a project she needs to work on, but if she doesn’t . . . I don’t blame her.

It takes us all a while to get in the groove of being without her, though. Matt tries to fill in, stepping up to play DJ as we drive. But the drive felt . . . just less without her.

“Ryan talked to her,” Dallas says, after receiving a text. “He said she’s really at the studio. He heard her talking to some other students.”

“Good. That’s good,” I say.

Dallas nods. “She’s strong.”

“She is.”

“She’s going to be okay.” I can’t tell whether she’s phrasing it as a question or a statement, so I just repeat the words back to her, and that seems to make her feel better.

Right before kick off we get a mass text from Stella.

I expect pictures! And updates! And if any of those punks suck it up, you guys better yell at them for me.

Dallas smiles, and we send her a picture of the three of us, decked out in Rusk gear, holding up our wildcat claws. Dallas keeps up a steady stream of updates for her as the game begins, and then I get sucked into watching Silas play.

I can’t see his face. But I know by the way he holds himself, the way he moves . . . I know he’s in his element. And I know he’s happy. And I swear I’m so full of pride and joy for him that I’m about to burst at the seams. Or start crying. One or the other.

I could make an effort to understand more about the game, to expand upon the knowledge that I learned last time, but I figure that can wait for another time. Today I just glue my eyes to number twenty-two and watch him do what he loves.

Football grounds him, and I will love football for all my days if only for that very reason.

It’s strange, really, to think how quickly my life has changed. I’m still figuring out what I like and what I don’t (with Silas’s help, of course). And I know I won’t undo a life of pretending in just a week. It will take time. Time to break the habits. Time to form new ones.

But I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve got new friends, new goals, new interests. It’s exciting and overwhelming, but beneath all that . . . there’s a calm that I’ve never felt before. I no longer feel the need to search for things to do, ways to ingratiate myself to people. I don’t have anything to prove, not to anyone else, anyway.

And Silas . . . he’s technically new, too, but it doesn’t feel that way.

As I watch him move across the field, graceful and strong and fearless, I can barely remember how I felt before him. I try to think back to the way things had been with Henry, but that seems like a different life, a different me.

And everything about those memories is muted and dull.

The team has now moved across the field, and they’re only yards away from the other team’s end zone. I watch Carson hand the ball off to Silas and he pushes through the huddled mass of players, breaking through and crossing the white line painted onto the field, putting Rusk’s first points on the board. I know it was probably incredibly difficult, all those big, bulky bodies in the way, but Silas makes it look so easy.

He’s good at crossing lines. Pushing boundaries.

He pushed mine, and because of it, I can breathe.

I love Silas Moore, and I feel pretty certain that because of that, my life will never feel muted again.