Like Other Girls

  Copyright © 2021 Britta Lundin

  All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023.

  First Edition, August 2021

  Designed by Marci Senders

  Cover design by Marci Senders

  Cover art © 2021 Ana Hard

  ISBN 9781368044363 (ebook)

  Visit www.freeform.com/books

  For those for whom even stepping foot on the field takes courage

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Last Winter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  WHEN MY EYES OPEN AGAIN, IT’S TO THE SIGHT OF MY teammates’ worried faces looking down at me. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I want to sprint down the court, throw an elbow into the Hixon point guard’s face, then step back and sink a three over her outstretched fingers.

  It’s not the dirty shoulder check that bothers me; it’s not that the useless refs apparently didn’t see it. It’s not even that I hit my head so hard on the floor that bright sparks still fly across my vision and pain ricochets around my brain. What bothers me is the look on everyone’s faces, like I’m some fragile knickknack on their grandmother’s shelf that shatters if you look at it sideways. I’m fine.

  “Okay, Mara, shake it off!” Coach Joyce chirps peppily.

  Shaking it off isn’t going to win this game. I need to make Hixon pay. I check the clock, the stars trailing my eyeline. Three minutes left. My balance lags a second behind my body as I get to my feet. Coach Joyce calls a time-out.

  “How you doing?” Coach asks me in the huddle.

  “Fine,” I say. “Let’s do this.” But I can feel Carly Nakata’s eyes on me like she’s going deer hunting and I’m the doe. As if I don’t have enough problems.

  Coach pulls out her whiteboard to talk strategy as Carly whispers to me, “Are you seeing stars?”

  “No,” I snap, even as the arrows on Coach’s whiteboard swim, crossing and uncrossing. Not that it matters. I don’t need a diagram to know she’s telling me to attack. I glance over my shoulder at the point guard, who’s sucking down water on her sideline. I have five inches on her and three fouls left. She messed with the wrong player. Dark spots form on the edges of my vision. I blink them away.

  “You’re not focusing,” Carly says.

  “Because you’re talking to me,” I growl.

  “No, your eyes—”

  “Mara, Carly,” Coach says. “I need your attention.” And now I’m pissed Carly’s getting me in trouble, on top of everything.

  “Coach, I think Mara has a concussion,” Carly says, and right then, I could scream.

  “I said I’m fine,” I tell Carly through gritted teeth. After I take out the point guard, maybe I need to go after Carly next.

  “Look at her eyes,” Carly insists, and Coach does. I try to look as unconcussed as possible, whatever that means. Bright-eyed, I guess, alert. No one’s taking me out of this game. Not this deep in the season. Not when it’s tied up.

  I don’t know what Coach sees, but she jerks her head toward the bench. “Sit it out,” she tells me.

  “Are you kidding?” The ref blows her whistle. Time-out’s over. I have to get back on the court. I’m not letting that point guard just get away with this.

  “Take a seat, Mara.”

  “Coach, there’s three minutes left.”

  But Coach walks away, turning her focus back to the players still in this game. The Hixon point guard catches my eye as she jogs back onto the court and smirks. My temperature spikes. It’s like she’s in some conspiracy with Carly to keep me out of the game for the final seconds. A dirty hit I can handle, but what took me out at the knees was my own damn teammate. I turn, searching, and see Carly refilling her water bottle at the cooler.

  I’m only dimly aware of the game resuming, the squeak of shoes on the glossy boards, the grunts and breathing of my teammates playing on without me. The only way to win this game is grit and effort, and I can’t give that because Carly decided to play doctor. Whose team is she on? I could have won this for us. At least, I could have helped. And instead, I’m standing here with nothing to do but watch the seconds tick down, while Carly’s biggest concern is apparently staying hydrated.

  “Hey,” I say, and she turns, her cap halfway on her water bottle.

  It goes flying when I hit her. I was aiming for a kidney, but she’s so much shorter than me, I basically hit her in the boob. She staggers backward, her water bottle falling, glugging water onto the floor. Her foot catches on the leg of the water table and she loses her balance, falling into it. I have to hop back to avoid the cooler dropping with a crash, the top popping off, water flowing onto the court. A whistle blows and the game stops. The crowd quiets. Finally, the stars clear from my vision as I look around and see everyone’s eyes on me.

  Carly sort of grunts and grasps her boob. I look at Coach, and her eyes hold a fury I’ve never seen before.

  “Coach—”

  “You’re outta here,” she says, voice thick with anger, pointing to the locker room.

  “Coach—”

  “GO, MARA!”

  And that’s how I get thrown off the basketball team.

  WHEN YOU’RE THIS FAR BEHIND ENEMY LINES, THE only way to avoid getting captured is outrunning and outwitting absolutely everyone. In other words, complete dominance, which happens to be my specialty.

  I’m keeping low, squinting in the late-summer sunshine, searching every storefront, derelict phone booth, and hidey-hole south of Main Street for the red flag. I’m two blocks into red team territory, and if any of the guys on that team spot me, I’ll have to run like hell back to Main before they catch me or I’ll be out. As I pass the antique store, a head pops out the front door. I almost take off before realizing it’s Quinn.

  “What are you, shopping for a nice vase?” I whisper, crouching with him behind the wheel of a pickup parked on th
e street.

  “Checking with the lady inside. You know Wayne’s a cheater.”

  “That’s true.” The rules say the flags have to be in sight of the road, but Wayne Warren likes to get creative in his capture-the-flag hiding places, to dubious legality. One time we found the flag tied to an actual flagpole, and Quinn tried to shimmy it for five minutes before I thought to lower the flag to our level. Another time they tied it to the parking meter enforcement buggy, and we had to run after it for two whole blocks.

  “He probably tied it to a drone that’s hovering somewhere over the courthouse,” I mutter.

  “That would be easy, we just get your brother to throw a football at it. I’d catch it and”—he makes the sound of a cheering crowd—“run it back to our side to earth-shattering applause. Cue makeout sesh with Maria Carpenter.”

  “Dude, Maria Carpenter is never going to look twice at you.”

  “Oh, she pines for me, I know she pines.” He grins.

  “She doesn’t even go to your games, dude, she’s too busy leading the volleyball team to State.”

  “Our volleyball team went to State?” Quinn asks, incredulous.

  “Twice,” I tell him. Our football team hasn’t been to State in, well, ever. A fact Quinn does not relish discussing.

  “Well, how hard can it be to go to State in volleyball, anyway? That’s a sport for girls with weak bones.”

  I snort laugh. “What does that even mean?”

  “Weak bones, you know. You can just tell looking at Maria. She’s hot, but her bones are not strong. She needs to drink more milk.”

  I shake my head. Down the block, someone opens a newspaper box and pulls out a newspaper.

  “Now you, Mara. You have bones like steel. Ranch bones. Unbreakable.”

  “Thanks, I guess?” I say, but I’m no longer listening. I’m squinting to see the newspaper box better. The door snaps closed and I see it again. A flash of red.

  “They didn’t.” I take off.

  “Where are you going?”

  I stay low as I run and squat in front of the box for our local paper. Our town is so small, the Elkhorn Sentinel is more like a pamphlet, really, but it still costs fifty cents to open the box, and the red flag is sitting primly on top of a stack of papers behind glass. Quinn follows, crouching next to me.

  “Those cheaters,” I growl.

  “You got this, Mara, just punch it out,” Quinn says jovially. I level him with a look, but he’s unfazed. “Pretend the box is Carly Nakata and lay it out, you know you want to.”

  I ignore the comment. “Do you have fifty cents?”

  “Nope.”

  I keep my eyes on the street, scanning for red-team members. I don’t see anyone, but I can’t relax until we’re back on our side. Wayne could be moments away from turning the corner and pouncing on us.

  “Go sweet-talk someone into giving us fifty cents,” Quinn says, giving me a shove.

  “What?”

  “C’mon, try the bakery. Some little old lady’s gotta have some change.”

  “You do it.”

  “You know people don’t trust boys. They only give things to girls.”

  I can’t decide whether that’s true or Quinn is making up facts again, but it’s easier not to fight him when he gets like this.

  “Fine. Don’t get yourself caught.” I duck into the bakery.

  A wave of sugary warm dough scent hits me and immediately makes me hungry. I’ve been hungry a lot this summer, since I started lifting weights in my bedroom. And by weights I mean gallon milk jugs that I’ve rinsed out and filled with water. I have a routine I printed off the internet. When I started with them, I could barely do one set of ten reps, but now I’m up to three sets. I’m even starting to see a difference when I put on a T-shirt. I’m totally getting a doughnut when this game is over.

  I scan the booths of folks, looking for a good target to hit up for change, but the booths are empty save for a cowboy in muddy boots scarfing a buttermilk bar and, in the back booth, River Reyes. Hope surges through me. I don’t know River well—she’s a weird theater girl who only ever wears black—but at least she knows my name. As I start toward River, she notices me, and then the person sitting across from her follows her look and turns around and I realize to my utter despair that it’s Carly Nakata.

  “What’s up, Mara?” River says around a bite of maple bar.

  “Hey, River,” I say hesitantly. Then, with a nod: “Carly.”

  “Mara,” Carly says coldly back.

  River looks between us with raised eyebrows. “So...” she says. “How’s your summer?”

  “Good, good. Listen, this is weird, but I’m kind of in a hurry. I’m trying to get fifty cents to, uh, buy a Sentinel.”

  “You shouldn’t support them,” Carly says. “The Sentinel’s editorial board sucks.” She doesn’t look at me when she talks, like she can’t even be bothered to acknowledge my existence. I have to laugh. Of course Carly has beef with the Sentinel editorial board. Carly has beef with everyone.

  “What, are they refusing to print your letters to the editor?” I ask.

  “No, they refuse to stand up to the school board, who cut funding for every arts program there is in order to funnel more money to the football team.” Now she glares at me as though the school budget is my fault. There’s an electricity inside Carly that never dies, which is part of what makes her so annoying. As she straightens in her seat, her purse strap falls over her V-neck T-shirt directly between her boobs, highlighting them each individually. To avoid looking at her chest, I avert my eyes to her purse, which is covered in pins for various causes, including a lesbian pride flag, a pin that says IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE ASIAN, and a she/her pronoun pin, among a slew of environmental and political messages. How does she get away with being so open about her sexuality like that? It’s like we don’t even live in the same town.

  River makes a face. “Besides, the paper sucks. Nothing ever happens here.”

  “I don’t actually—” I sigh and shift my weight. I have to get a move on. “We’re playing capture the flag. The flag is inside the paper box.”

  “Ahh,” River says. “Well, sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t have any cash.”

  “Downtown?” Carly says. “Isn’t that incredibly dangerous?”

  Does she have to take issue with everything I say? “We used to play at the park, but it got too easy, so we started playing here. It’s not so bad.”

  “What about cars?” Carly asks dubiously.

  “We run around ’em.”

  “Wow, okay. Your funeral.” She shrugs.

  Suddenly, I regret every decision I’ve made in my life that’s brought me to this moment in time.

  “You know what,” I say. “Forget it. I’m just gonna break the glass.” Maybe if I wrap my fist in my sweatshirt first I won’t get hurt. I’d make Quinn do it but (a) he’s too much of a wimp to try and (b) he’s too much of a wimp to succeed. This is all me, and the longer I stand here humiliating myself in front of Carly Nakata, the more time I’m giving the red team to get our flag first.

  “Oh my god, Mara, don’t do that. I got you,” Carly says, pulling around her purse and digging in it.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, whatever, it’s just fifty cents. Do me a favor and pull all the papers out and dump them in a puddle, though, will you?”

  “Um...”

  “I’m kidding,” she says as she pulls out one quarter and searches for another.

  “Right. Well, I’ll pay you back.”

  “Just don’t get yourself run over. It’s not worth it.”

  I want to roll my eyes at Carly being Carly—always knowing better than everyone else what’s right and what’s wrong. But I can’t because she’s still digging out a second quarter.

  Out the window, Quinn waves frantically at me. Like I’m not already moving through this as fast as I can.

  “Stay safe,” Carly says, handing me two quarters, her fingers bru
shing my palm in a movement so gentle I have to believe she’s doing it on purpose to draw attention to the fact that the last time we touched, I was punching her in the boob.

  I’m feeding the coins into the newspaper box before Quinn can ask any questions. I yank the door open and our hands knock into each other as we both go for the flag. Then he grabs it, even though I was the one to get the box open through great personal sacrifice. He takes off. Before I follow him, I reach in and yank out the stack of Sentinels. I glance into the bakery window where Carly is staring out at me with surprised eyes and a slight smile. I toss the Sentinels up and let them flutter down into the street before I take off after Quinn down Pine toward Main. If we can cross Main with the flag before they catch us, we win.

  Quinn and I have been practicing this since we were kids. At seven years old, sprinting through the pasture to get to the creek before the ram could catch us. At nine years old, playing keep-away with my brother, Noah, behind the barn. I’ve been running alongside Quinn Kegley for as long as I’ve been running.

  Quinn crosses the street between two pickups, keeping low. Not low enough, though, because Wayne appears from the alley behind us and immediately sounds an alarm to his team—“They got the flag!”—before taking off after Quinn. Quinn has two blocks to go and just a half-block lead on Wayne, who is fast enough to play cornerback on our football team, the Elkhorn Elk Hunters. Quinn, a wide receiver, is pretty fast too, but still, Wayne’s legs are so much longer.

  I start cutting across the street to intercept Wayne, but a Toyota is coming too fast down Pine, and I have to put on the brakes to let it pass. After that, it’s a wide-open street. I turn on the speed, slowly gaining on Wayne, who is gaining on Quinn. Over my shoulder, I hear pounding feet and see Stetson Ellison and Curtis Becker rounding a corner and chasing after us, but there’s no way they catch up. I bear down.

  “I’m comin’ home, baby! I’m bringin’ home the bacon!” Quinn hollers at Noah and the rest of our team, who are gathering along the dividing line sidewalk on Main. Quinn waves the red flag triumphantly over his head as he runs, which is stupid because it definitely slows him down. Wayne is gaining on him, just ten feet behind him now, maybe eight. But I’m just steps behind Wayne, and I don’t think he sees me, he’s so focused on catching Quinn.