Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

Heads turned and the boys ducked out of sight.

“That was Griffin Connelly!” squealed Chrissie, jumping to her feet.

A moment later Griffin’s head popped back up. “It’s like a million degrees out here,” he said. “And that pool looks so nice.”

“Tough to be you,” teased Alexis. She turned and whispered something to Chrissie. “Who else are you with, Griff?”

“Hakeem and Cody,” Griffin answered. “Hey, is that lemonade? We are literally dying of sweat out here. It’s gotta be a hundred degrees.”

“Dying of sweat?” Chantel said to Mary. “What does that even mean?”

Hakeem and Cody hoisted themselves up, stepping on a couple of cinder blocks they’d dragged to the fence. “It is super hot,” Hakeem said, wiping the back of his hand against his forehead.

“Yep, yep, yep,” Cody chirped in agreement. “Roasty toasty.”

“Are you staring at the pool—or spying on us?” Alexis teased.

Griffin grinned, tilted his head from side to side. “What can I say? It beats looking at these guys.”

Chrissie laughed. Chantel crossed her arms.

“Should we invite them over?” Alexis asked in a whisper. “What do you think, Mary?”

“I don’t know—” Mary began.

“Please!” Griffin pleaded in a faux hysterical voice. He was cute, no doubt about it. Mary didn’t know-know him, but she was aware of Griffin Connelly. Everybody was. Griff was one of those boys with a brash, boisterous, full-volume personality, always seeking attention, usually surrounded by a group of friends. It was impossible not to notice him. As far as she was concerned, Griffin Connelly didn’t know that Mary existed.

Mary would soon find out she was wrong about that.

4[connection]

The boys played like sugar-amped children at a birthday party, just goofy kids not pretending to be anything other than what they were. Their splashy playfulness, to Mary, was as refreshing as the water itself. She hooted in appreciation as the boys made ridiculous dives, cannonballs, belly whoops. Hakeem dug out a rubber football from the pool house, and that led to elaborate games on the diving board, full of fabulous catches, screaming, and lots of showing off.

They were loud, and lively, and Mary considered them a happy distraction on an otherwise dull day. Griff, of course, was the natural leader. And by far the most charismatic, though not, to Mary’s surprise, a particularly gifted athlete. He was slightly awkward, unpracticed. Cody was a live wire, skinny and sinewy with an unpleasant face. The teeth, the nose, the eyes—the proportions weren’t quite right; it was all off-kilter. Hakeem was the one. When he leaped off the diving board, he performed effortless flips and twists. After sitting as spectators with Chrissie and Alexis, Mary and Chantel finally answered Griff’s tireless requests—“Come on, we need you!”—and joined in. Chrissie and Alexis lounged contently, unmoved by the din, sipping cold lemonade through plastic straws.

Mary prided herself on her ability to throw and catch a football. Skills developed after many games of touch with Jonny. Her brother and his pals—the old gang that never came around anymore. Mary laughed to herself, remembering it, how they used to call her brother Jonny Football. He was really good. When was that? She counted back the years. He was nineteen now, last played as a sophomore, so he was sixteen when he mangled his knee, had surgery, and lost interest. She had to have been around nine years old when last horsing around with a sports-obsessed brother she adored. Yeah, Griff, that’s where those tight spirals came from. Catch!

For this game, the quarterback stood at the shallow end in waist-high water. The receiver waited on the diving board one meter above the water, bounced, bounced again, and jumped off as high as possible. The quarterback tried to time the throw just right, hit the leaper in the belly with a perfect pass. Catch and splash. They kept score—boys always needed to keep score—and they shouted and laughed and called each other hilarious, insulting names. Usually at Cody’s expense, though he didn’t seem to mind. Just grinned and said, “Yep, yep, yep.” Weird kid.

Miraculously, pizzas arrived and were devoured.

Hakeem and Cody settled in to a game of cards with Chantel. Griffin plopped down between Alexis and Chrissie. The trio—a new triangle?—did a lot of scrolling, laughing, making and posting seven-second videos, looking over shoulders to see one another’s screens. Griffin tended to press close. Flirtatious, touchy, predatory. Mary wondered if Griff liked one of them, or if it even mattered to him which one. Mary grew restless. She wanted to draw something—she’d been carrying around a sketch pad lately, and a new set of colored pencils—but wasn’t about to do it with the guys around. “I’m getting changed out of this wet suit,” she said to nobody and drifted toward the pool house.

When she emerged, Griffin was there. Like he was waiting for her. He made a point of acting like he was watching the card game, standing off to the side and commenting, but Mary knew better.

“Hey,” he said. “You know, we have a connection, you and me.”

“Yeah?” Mary raised an eyebrow.

“Your brother sometimes hangs out with my sister, Vivvy—or used to. I’m not sure anymore, since she got an apartment in town with a couple of friends,” Griff said. “I don’t see her much.”

“Jonny?” Mary said, as if there was any other brother.

“Yeah, I met him a couple of times. Funny guy. He used to come over to our house. My dad works the second shift, so…”

Griff let the sentence fade out.

“Vivian Connelly,” Mary said. Maybe she had heard that name before. She wasn’t sure. Her brain was glitching out, a malfunction in the software.

Griff leaned close, whispered, “I heard he spent a few months at Western Winds. Did it work?” Western Winds was the name of a private hospital that specialized in what was officially described as “teen mental health” issues. A place to go if teenagers or young adults were showing signs of depression, got caught doing too many drugs, screwed up with the law,