Page 46 of Exchanged

“And touchdowns?” Brock asks.

“Two.”

Gina smiles at Brock. “Remember Justin’s senior year? That streak he was on by the end of the season?”

Brock gives a nostalgic nod and addresses us. “Justin is Garrett’s oldest brother. Justin and then Charlie and then Garrett. You should have seen that kid. He was unstoppable. Too fast and smart for any defensive line the other schools threw at him. He carried the team to the state championship that year and started at Virginia Tech the following.”

“Sounds like a talented kid,” Dad says.

“You have no idea,” Gina says. “And then he went and graduated near the top of his class and landed an internship with Rowland and Geller in downtown Atlanta, which means he works closely with Brock. We couldn’t be prouder.”

The conversation moves on, but Garrett dismisses himself, saying that he needs to head out for pre-game warm-ups.

I don’t see him again until that evening on the football field. I watch the game from the stands, seated between Trevor and Katrina, all three of us wet and miserable from the drizzle that flickers through the stadium lights like falling glass. They make futile attempts to keep their instruments dry, but I couldn’t care less if the school’s cymbals rust away in my hands.

On the field, Garrett is violently fierce, covered in mud, running reckless plays, chest-bumping his teammates and screaming encouragement in their faces. The whole team plays like it’s the last game of the season—intense, tireless, committed—but there’s something different about Garrett. He plays like he’s trying to forget himself.

In the final quarter, he gets tackled by a player from the other team a few yards from the end zone. He springs up and gets in the other guy’s face, and before anyone realizes what’s happening, the two of them are on each other. Garrett lands a punch to the other player’s stomach. He receives one across his jaw. It takes several refs to break them apart, and then one yells in Garrett’s face and points at the bench.

He spends the rest of the game there.

“Is he okay?” Trevor asks, gazing down at the back of Garrett’s head, wet with sweat and rain.

I can’t tell if he means physically or emotionally, though I don’t know the answer to either.

They lose. It’s not even close.

Garrett doesn’t get home until after midnight. He told Dad he was spending the night at Tyler’s, but I hear him shuffling up the staircase, his footsteps heavy and uneven. I meet him in the hallway. He stands in the semidarkness in his mud-streaked football uniform, eyes bloodshot, a dark bruise forming at his jawline. He seems taller tonight, older.

“Are you okay?”

He ignores me and moves toward his room, but I step in front of him, fully aware that my body can do nothing to stop his. He halts, inches from me. He smells like rain and beer.

“Garrett—”

“Don’t,” he growls. “Just don’t. I know you want to help, but I’m so over this stupid fucking year. I’m tired of living in this shitty town and playing on this shitty team.” He examines me, eyes unfocused. “How do you live here? How do you live here and not feel stuck every second of every goddamn day?”

I take a step backward. “I love this town.”

He shakes his head. “You only love this place because you don’t know any different. You don’t know what’s out there.”

“I love it because I belong here,” I say softly. “And don’t make it sound like I’m a small-town nobody who’s never seen a city.”

He glances up at the ceiling, blinking. “I just feel so cut off from … everything. From real opportunities to make something of myself. From the life I’m supposed to be living. From my family.”

He stumbles past me into his room and falls face down onto his bed without taking off his dirty uniform. The springs groan under his sudden weight. I hover in the doorway for a minute, then go downstairs and grab him a glass of water.

“You should probably drink this,” I say when I return. I nudge his arm with the glass.

He rolls onto his back, then sits up. “Did your one experience with drinking make you an expert on how to avoid a hangover?”

“In health class, Mr. VanPelt mentioned that water helps,” I admit, settling on the edge of his bed.

He reaches for the water, draining it in one go. “You’ll leave this town someday,” he says, “and then you’ll get what I mean.”

“Maybe.”

“You need to get out of Irontown, Enzo,” he tells me, suddenly urgent, the words tumbling from his mouth in a slur. “You’re too big for this place.”