Free Boy21 by Matthew Quick Page A

real season now.
Basketball!
This young man’s gon’ feed my son the rock all winter long and I’m gon’ cheer White Rabbit and my Terrell on to the state championship. Ain’t that right, White Rabbit?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Look how he quiet and respectful, just like his father was in high school,” a large woman with dark purple hair extensions says. All of the other women laugh and smile and say, “Mmm-hmm!”
    “Okay, White Rabbit,” Terrell’s mom says, nodding a respectful but curt hello at Erin, who is standing with Boy21 ten feet away. “You run off with your girlfriend and your tall silent shadow. Go on now.”
    We find Coach hanging out with the other Bellmont faculty members in the parking lot drinking beer from paper cups and pretending that we students don’t know what’s in the cups. He tells me that he’ll see me in the morning—which is when basketball season officially begins—wishes Erin luck, and then says he’ll drive Boy21 home, because that’s where he’s having his Thanksgiving dinner, with the Allens.
    Finally alone, Erin and I walk back to our neighborhood holding hands.
    The few trees left around here have shed their leaves, but because no one in our neighborhood bothers to rake, we crunch our way down the sidewalks.
    “You know,” Erin says, “maybe we could stay together this basketball season. Maybe we don’t have to break up?”
    I don’t say anything.
    Erin and I have this conversation every year.
    She argues that our schedules will keep us so busy that it won’t even matter if we are together or not, but I believe that during basketball season, a romantic relationship is a distraction, and there’s no way I can simply be friends with Erin. If I see her at lunch or before school or at my locker every day, I’ll get horny, and I won’t be able to focus one hundred percent on the season. I love Erin as much as I love basketball, which is a conflict of interest. And if we kiss on my roof or hold hands—these things will most definitely take my mind off my goals. With schoolwork andPop to take care of already, I can’t mentally afford to have a girlfriend during basketball season.
    I love making out with Erin, and holding her hand, and the peachy smell of her hair after she showers—almost as much as I love the sweaty leather smell of a gym in winter, being part of a team, and working out with the guys. And while having a girlfriend and being on a team aren’t mutually exclusive, both fill a need—maybe the same need. Basketball and Erin make the rest of the world go away—focus me, make me forget, and get the endorphins flowing. It’s best to be addicted to one or the other. This will be the fourth season Erin and I have taken a break, and we’ve always gotten back together in the past, so why do I have this strange dreadful feeling tonight?
    When it’s clear that I’m not going to argue with her, Erin says, “Don’t you worry that I’ll start dating someone else?”
    I laugh because I know she’s kidding.
    Basketball will be her boyfriend for the winter, just like it’ll be my girlfriend.
    “So?” she says.
    “You need to focus on
your
season too.”
    She knows this is true because, deep down, Erin also wants to concentrate solely on basketball. She just gets a little needy the night before the season begins.
    “Can’t we at least walk to school together and talk? Sit together at lunch? Aren’t you being a little extreme?” Erin’s smile is playful. She’s messing with me. I know she gets why we break for basketball.
    “I have to stay focused,” I say. I think about the possibility of Boy21 actually playing, and then add, “Especially this year.”
    “Why?”
    I shrug, because I’m not allowed to tell her the truth.
    She gently elbows me in the ribs. “Tell me why you said
this year
!”
    I don’t know what else to say.
    “Why do you have to be so weird?” Erin says, but she squeezes my hand when she says it, so I know she isn’t