Losing Height

1999

The night was alive and Heaven was beside herself with excitement.

She was a Darkbrook High School supporter, from the red and green bows in her hair right down to the team’s shirt swamping her lean body. It was the first game she’d ever been to without her brother practically tied to her side, untrusting of the jostling crowds and blue eyed boys around every corner. It was the first game she’d been allowed to go to which was away from her tiny town of Darkbrook, trusted only because her best friend’s older sister was driving them. Her tiny taste of freedom was sweet, made sweeter when she saw said best friend return with the salty snacks she had been sent to retrieve.

Katy beamed a smile full of braces and passed the chips in tiny hands. There was only a brief moment to exchange cheeky greetings before the crowd enclosing them erupted in applause and cheers. They knew without standing up that the cheerleaders had taken the field, fake blonde hair and lipgloss shining brilliantly under the overhead stadium lights.

Baltimore High School’s football pitch was much bigger than Darkbrook’s, Hell it was a lot nicer too. It was well known, well published in the opposing towns’ histories, that there was a rivalry between the two which had always run far thicker than blood. Baltimore was richer and flashier but its tourist industry was weak; nobody wanted to see a concrete jungle when there was one right on their doorstep. Darkbrook was smaller, quainter in an old fashioned backwards American way, and it flourished through all the curious onlookers who wanted a slice. The crowd of supporters in both the bleachers knew all of this, had probably been reared on it. There was an extra tension in the air which normal football matches didn’t have, and one which would undoubtedly lead to more unfair tackles and penalties. And more than likely a fight at the end of the night between seniors on both sides in the parking lot.

The two girls stood up straight when the players entered the field at a leisurely jog. Heaven spotted her brother straight away, a shock of freckles covering his arms like tattoos. She felt the pride instantaneously, a happy flush lighting up the freckles of her own; especially when Katy squeezed her arm in excitement.

Everyone knew about Katy’s infatuation with Daniel Tracy, newly appointed Quarterback of Darkbrook’s football team and brother of her best friend. Heaven thought it was cute most of the time, except for the dark moments in her bedroom when Katy would cry about how unloved she was. At those times she wished her best friend was in love with the cute nerdy kid in their science class or the sweet boy next door. Instead it was her sixteen year-old brother with spiky red hair and enough hearts to break to barely count Katy’s.

But there wasn’t any time to whittle away thinking. Heaven flexed up onto her tip toes to peer over the shoulder of someone’s screaming Dad, watching the colourful player’s jerseys mesh together as the first ball was called. She lost her brother amid all of them but could see the ball soaring through the air perfectly fine. Two pale hands went into the air along with everybody else’s as a touchdown for Darkbrook was scored within the first few minutes.

The rest of the game was more of a blur than anything else. The two young girls were a flurry of different emotions, one minute exuberant, the next bitterly disappointment, the next raging mad. Once upon a time Heaven had been barely interested in American football, especially her town’s own small league team. Her father loved it though, breathed it, and after the divorce it was the only tie she could create between them anymore.

So she could name every different play she saw happening on the pitch below, could reel off facts about the players that their own mothers’ probably couldn’t. She was a natural at storing information, digesting the facts, and along the way she’d found she didn’t mind the jostling crowds and funny tasting hot dogs too much. It was worth it for the 24 hours every two weeks she saw her father. They had something to talk about, her brother always butting in to remind the world that he was on the team now.

“Daniel was amazing,” Katy breathed heavily into Heaven’s ear when the game finally drew to a climactic end. Josh Thompson, a running back on Darkbrook’s team had scored the final touchdown after a feat of dodging oncoming opponents and jumping over fallen bodies.

Heaven just nodded, caught up in the crowd’s deafening roar and the massive manly hugs the player’s were laying on each other. They were submerged, right then, as people broke away from the bleachers to congratulate the boys themselves. Heaven grasped hold of Katy as she was knocked from the side by one particularly riled up supporter who had lurched down to get closer to the action. The thirteen year old pair knew when it was safe to make a getaway to the car they had been told to wait patiently at. And it was the right moment then, before the parents and students got out of hand.

It was a beautiful Indian summer night, the kind Heaven knew were cliché even then though she had just started high school and was pretending she hadn’t read months ahead for most of her classes. There was excited chatter from all around as the girls descended hand-in-hand down the side of the white bleachers. The air smelt damp and heavy, reminding them of summer storms long past, the long stretch of calm dusk which would naturally follow. It was a beautiful night; one which would become even more beautiful in the recesses of memories looked back on fondly. Heaven didn’t yet know it but this would be her favourite memory, and this her favourite night.

Katy began again explaining in detail just how much Daniel had contributed to the team’s close victory and Heaven took the open opportunity to search in the distance for their car. It wasn’t often Katy’s older sister, Jessica, did anything for anybody but herself. She was a typical seventeen year-old high school girl who liked to make a big deal out of team spirit, when team spirit meant making out with the players and bouncing around with a cropped shirt on. This game promised a particular hot jock with an even more particular outfit she had chosen to wear – something scandalous enough to have Heaven blushing as soon as she saw it – and if that meant letting her baby sister and her friend tag along too then it wasn’t a big deal. Katy had seized the opportunity as anyone starved of rides would.

Red. That was the colour of Jessica’s Ford. Red and shiny... just like a hundred other cars in the makeshift parking lot. Heaven ducked past a rowdy group of celebrators, beers already open in their hands, keeping Katy close at all times. She wasn’t much for the term ‘control freak’ but she’d been called it enough to accept that it was somewhere near the truth. Anything out of Heaven’s control, even at thirteen, was a thing for her to worry over.

“Can you remember where the car is?”She cut off Katy’s rambling, suddenly out of her depth without the knowledge.

“Oh sure, its right in the middle of the parking lot, isn’t it?”

“Right in the middle?” Heaven frowned, not comforted by her friend’s answer. “That could be pretty much anywhere. This field is huge.”

Because it was a field, just one with cones and markings and students in high visibility shirts ushering cars right onto in. And now it was a field buried under a mass of cars, all of them looking the same and yet nothing like Jessica’s red shiny Ford.

“We’ll just wander around; we’re bound to see it.”

Heaven didn’t share in Katy’s optimism but, at the risk of looking, again, like a ‘control freak’, she shrugged and let herself be led on a wild goose chase. It took until most of the cars had pulled away and everyone had left the bleachers for them to realise there were no more cars left which could be Katy’s sister’s. As soon as they did, they hooked each other close and twisted their braids nervously. Everybody knew the families and parents left soon after the game was over and only the seniors and cool teenagers stuck around for the aftermath. Apparently not Jessica, though.

“I can’t believe she would leave us like that. What a bitch! Here I was, thinking she was starting to show signs of being a normal sister but no, she goes and abandons us – abandons us! – at a high school game in the next town over. I’ll kill her, Heaven, I promise I will. Well I’ll try if Mom doesn’t get to her first,” Katy ranted until she was red in the face and breathing hard. “She didn’t even let us get our phones out of the car!”

Heaven cringed, feeling the heavy weight of being stranded temporarily settle in her stomach. It was gone almost instantly, though, because she had an older brother on the team who took longer than most girls to emerge from the changing rooms. And he was guaranteed to still be around somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere with pretty cheerleaders and rowdy boys and talks of celebration.

Cutting into Katy’s continuing rant, Heaven laughed, liking the way it filled her right up to the brim as if she had room for nothing else. With her distancing father and brother’s quick move up their high school’s social ladder it was nice to feel like this. Light and airy, untouchable for a moment.

Her best friend was giving her a perplexed look but the young girl just shrugged and motioned back towards the football pitch. It was easier most of the time to lie about how she felt. Heaven had gotten practise during the divorce at pretending that the smile or frown on her face was the same mirrored deep inside. Even Katy didn’t know the extent to which Heaven still felt the sting of being abandoned. Katy couldn’t understand. Katy had two sisters, two parents and one family. Heaven had one brother, one and a half parents and two families.

“We should go find Daniel. He can give us a life home.”

Heaven was surprised with the way Katy’s face changed so drastically that she didn’t have some form of whiplash. Or rather, she wasn’t surprised, just amused that the simple mention of her brother’s name could have such an effect on her best friend. The thirteen year old wondered quickly what that must be like. Boys to her had always been some form of enemy, whether that was fighting over the last few cookies at lunch time or fighting over the best turf in the playground. She would rather have punched a guy than kissed him. Actually, she would much rather have punched one.

If her brother had taught her anything, apart from to never use the toilet straight after him, it was that she shouldn’t trust other boys. He had it drilled firmly into her skull by her tenth birthday and now, three years on, she was his perfect little sister. His perfect little sister who wouldn’t dream of letting one of his hot, popular friends woo her with their fancy football talk. He knew she could talk it just as fast as them and he knew that boys didn’t like girls who were better versed at being boys than them. Heaven was the prodigy he would never have to worry about.

“Come on then,” Katy lurched for the empty field “or we might miss him.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re just friends with me because of my brother,” Heaven laughed into the warm air, being dragged sharply behind her.

“I was friends with you long before Daniel got hot.”

She choked on that laugh, disgusted that anyone would think her brother was hot, let alone Katy. One thing was for certain, the two would never share the same idea on men.

“Please, never say that again,” she cringed.

“Oh Heaven,” Katy sighed like she was at a great loss, eyes still honed in on the field and then moving on to the small crowd near the deserted bleachers. “There!”

Heaven peered up from the grass terrain, white lines breaking up so much fake green, to observe the group some distance away. Enclosed around something like a bunch of curious kids, the teenagers were sure making a din – enough for it to reach the two girls’ perked ears. Katy breathed in her excitement and tried to calm her palpitating heart so it stopped imitating a hummingbird. Heaven, meanwhile, was already posed to rush right over there. She’d seen enough of her brother’s friends in action to know what those players were crowding around wasn’t anything innocent. Certainly no interesting bit of scenery.

She didn’t say anything to a bewildered Katy, only bolted with her pale, spindly legs to cover the distance in thirty two seconds flat. As soon as she was there, dwarfed by the older teenagers, she pushed out her arms to get to the middle. Call it a sixth sense or merely common sense, but Heaven knew exactly who was involved in this, and their mother was going to kill him.

“Daniel!”

She burned with shame at the sight. Her brother at 6, 0 ft stood towered over a spunky boy with black as midnight hair and blue eyes. He looked no more than fourteen and wasn’t even close to her brother’s impressive height. It was a clear fight, no bets needed to be placed. Her brother would make mincemeat of this baby. And he was nothing but a bully for it.

“Daniel,” she called again, sharper this time, sounding more like their mother than she ever had before.

The teenagers around scoffed and made their sarcastic, witty comments about him being wrapped around his baby sister’s finger. Heaven watched, fuming, as his shoulders tensed and fists turned stark white under the still oppressive overhead lights. There was nothing she could say now. She would only make this a whole lot worse. Turning pitying eyes onto his dead-man-walking opponent, she was surprised to see him levelling a calm gaze right back at her.

“Who’s this Tracy? Your Mom?” he poked at Daniel, using the surname still tattooed on the back of his player’s jersey. Heaven caught the name again on another jersey wrapped up in a busty blonde and felt her anger double at the thought of her ignorant brother and his lovesick conquest and this stupid twit trying to insult her.

The crowd spoke their acknowledgment of his insult with both sides and teams laughing. A breathless Katy appeared somewhere amid them and stared at Daniel as if he was the Second Coming. Some help she would be if things got ugly thought Heaven.

“Excuse me?” She blinked and refocused on this stranger, now a common enemy of her and her brother. “Were you talking about me?”

The boy shifted so he was facing solely her as if Daniel was suddenly unimportant. The older boy huffed angrily, a big bull testing out his weight, and let dangerous arms ready up for their satisfying attack. Heaven almost wished he’d just hurry up and do it already. That way this punk could be taught a lesson and they could go home.

“I don’t see any other Moms around here, especially not with the same kind of ugly hair,” the boy quipped easily, laughing already before he’d even gotten the words out.

“Listen here you little-,” Daniel spat but Heaven’s hand was resting on his shoulder, holding him back.

“Look, jerk, I don’t know who you think you are but if you don’t shut up my brother here is going to kick the shit out of you. Just because your team’s bitter about losing to the better school doesn’t mean you can start fights which are way out of your league and pick on girls younger than you. It takes a real man to stand up to someone his own size,” she smirked triumphantly, knowing her little rant had stunned enough of the crowd into silence. Who knew Daniel’s little sister had it in her? But not this little jerk, apparently.

“It takes a real man to let his sister fight his battles,” he turned back to Daniel who was all over again more than ready for a brawl.

“Fine, Stupid,” Heaven scoffed “have Daniel kick the shit out of you.”

“Heaven,” her brother murmured, ready to completely shake off her arm.

“Wait... your name is Heaven?” his black hair fell right into his laughing eyes “what kind of a name is that?”

“Coming from you, Jax,” someone in the crowd hollered, causing a ripple of amusement to spark through the once dormant crowd.

“Who would be pretentious enough to call their kid Heaven?”

Oh now he’d done it. Nobody talked about the Tracy’s parents like that, nobody stepped up to the older brother and nobody talked down to the younger sister. Little Jax had stepped right in it and he didn’t even know it yet.

“You might as well be called Angel. Do you like that name, Angel, I think it suits you a lot better,” he sent her a flirty wink before he was consumed in the mass which was her brother.

Flipping red hair over one shoulder and scanning uncaring eyes over the scene, she took hold of Katy’s limp arm and tugged.

“We’ll see you by the car Daniel.”