Save Me (Maxton Hall Series 1)

The atmosphere in the locker room is tense, the air as if electrified by the adrenaline that floods through us. These minutes, just before the coach speaks to us and we are finally allowed on the field, are the worst and the best at the same time. In these minutes, everything seems possible: victory and defeat, pride and shame, triumphant joy and unbearable frustration. At no time is the team spirit greater or the motivation higher.

From outside, the cheers of our classmates reach us, as well as those of the opposing fans. It’s hard to believe that no one in Maxton Hall was interested in lacrosse just five years ago. Back then, it was the sport for losers – those who couldn’t convince at rugby or soccer were put on the lacrosse team, and the team was correspondingly bad. A motley bunch of pubescent hunger hooks with pimples on their faces and too long arms and legs that they didn’t know what to do with.

I thought it would be fun to sign up there. Above all, I hoped that it would drive my father mad. I never expected that I could actually enjoy it. Or that after only a few weeks I would be gripped by the ambition to make more of this team. I persuaded my friends to switch, threatened Principal Lexington with the wrath of my parents if he didn’t provide us with a better coach, and had our best designer design new jerseys for me.

It was the first time in my life that I could muster passion for anything. And it was worth it. Because today, five years later, after hours of training several times a week, after blood, sweat, tears, a few broken bones and winning three championships, we are the damn figurehead of the school.

We all worked our asses off to get to where we are now. And it fills me with pride every time I look at the determined faces of my team before a game.

Just like now.

However, there is also another feeling today. It’s dark and painful, and it’s making it difficult for me to pull the protective gear over my head for the first time in all these years.

This will be the first game of my last year of school.

When this season is over, that’s it for me. Then lacrosse was nothing but part of a slow, cruel countdown that I can’t stop. No matter how hard I try.

‘All right?’ asks Wren, bumping his shoulder against mine.

With all my might, I push the thought aside. It’s not that far yet – there’s still a whole year ahead of me in which I can do whatever I want. With a grin that is only halfway forced, I turn to him: ‘We’re going to show the Eastview shits.’

‘McCormack is mine,’ Alistair interjects instantly, as if he had just been waiting for the cue. ‘I still have a score to settle with him.’

‘Alistair,’ Kesh begins on my left. He rubs his fingers over the bridge of his nose, exactly over the spot that was broken a year ago. ‘Just don’t do it.’ His tone of voice and the meaningful look he throws at Alistair leave no doubt that this is not the first time the two have talked about the matter.

‘No,’ Alistair replies simply.

McCormack, with whom I unfortunately share a first name, deliberately hit Kesh in the face with his stick during our last game – right after he took off his helmet. I can still remember the shock when Kesh went to the ground. Of the blood that splattered from his nose and dripped onto his jersey. The minutes in which he lay unconscious in front of us.

McCormack had been suspended for the next three games, but the thought of Kesh’s battered face is enough to make anger boil up in me – and obviously also in Alistair, who still looks at Kesh with a determined expression.

‘Just don’t do anything rash,’ he says and puts on his blue jersey. Then he ties his hair into a deep-seated, messy bun and closes his locker door.

‘You know him,’ Wren murmurs, leaning sideways against the locker, a crooked grin on his lips.

‘I don’t care if I’m suspended for the rest of the season. McCormack will pay.’ Alistair pats Kesh on the shoulder. ‘Be glad that I am so committed to you and your honor.’

Before he can pull his hand away, Kesh grabs it and holds it in place. He glances over his shoulder. ‘I mean it.’

Alistair narrows his amber eyes into narrow slits. ‘So do I.’

The two stare at each other for a moment too long, and the already charged air becomes even thicker. Time to intervene. ‘You’d better save your energy for the game,’ I say in a tone that makes it unmistakably clear that I’m not talking to them as their friend at that moment, but as their captain. Two angry pairs of eyes are directed at me, but before the two can reply, I clap my hands loudly.

The team immediately gathers in the middle of the dressing room. As I walk, I pull the jersey with the number 17 over my head. The material feels familiar, as if it were a part of me. Again, this dark feeling wants to fight its way up in me, but I push it back with all my might and instead concentrate on Coach Freeman, who steps out of his dressing room at that moment and comes to us. He is a tall, lanky man who, with his long limbs, would have been mistaken for a long-distance runner or track and field athlete rather than a lacrosse player. He pulls his blue cap over his hair, which has become lighter and lighter in recent years, straightens the umbrella and then puts his arms around me and Cyril, his captain and co-captain.

He lets his gaze wander through the room. ‘For some of you, this is the first season, for others the last. Our goal is the championship,’ he growls. Anything else is unacceptable. So see to it that you get the sacks ready.’

Coach Freeman is not a man of big words, but that’s not necessary. The few sentences from him are enough to evoke a loud, approving roar in our ranks.

‘This has to be the best season Maxton Hall has ever seen,’ I add, a lot louder than the coach. ‘Clear?’

The boys bawl again, but Cyril is not loud enough yet. He holds one hand to his ear. ‘Clear?’

This time the roar is so loud that my ears are ringing – exactly as it should be.

Then we put on our helmets and grab our clubs. The way out of the changing rooms through the narrow tunnel feels like diving – the sounds from outside only reach me muffled, almost as if I had pressure on my ears. I grip my racket tighter and lead my team outside onto the court.

The grandstand is packed. The people cheer as we run onto the field, the cheerleaders dance. Music booms through the speakers and makes the floor vibrate under my feet. Fresh air rushes into my lungs, and I feel more alive than I have in weeks.

While the substitutes and the coach go to the edge of the field, we go to the middle of the field and build up in front of the players of the other team, who all look at least as motivated as we do.

‘It’s going to be a good game,’ Cyril murmurs next to me, expressing what I think.

While we wait for the referees, I let my gaze wander over the stands. From here I hardly recognize anyone, except Lydia, who sits at the top with her friends as always and acts as if the whole spectacle could not interest her less. I look at the edge of the pitch, look at the substitutes of the other team, then their coach, who is just walking up to Coach Freeman to greet him.

A head of brown hair catches my attention. A girl stands next to the two. She exchanges a few words with them and then points to something in her hand. When the wind blows her hair out of her face, I recognize her.

I really can’t afford to be seen with you.

The memory of her words feels like a punch in the stomach. No one has ever said anything like that to me.

As a rule, the exact opposite is the case. People want to be seen with me at all costs. From the first moment I entered this school, my classmates were hot on my heels and tried to get my attention. That’s how it works when your name is Beaufort. Ever since my maternal family founded the fashion house for traditional men’s clothing one hundred and fifty years ago and created a billion-dollar empire in the process, there has been no one in this country who does not know our name. ‘Beaufort’ is associated with wealth. With influence. Power. And in Maxton Hall, there are a number of people who think I can get them these things—or just a fraction of them—if they just put enough honey on my mouth.

I can’t even count on both hands how many times someone has slipped me design sketches for suits after a night of partying. How many times someone approached me under a pretext, only to ask for my parents’ contact details in the course of the conversation. How many times someone has tried to break into my circle of friends just to be able to pass on insider information about me and Lydia to the press. The picture from Wren’s sixteenth birthday two years ago, in which I pull a line of coke into my nose, is just one example of many. Not to mention what Lydia has already had to go through.

That’s why I chose my friends carefully. Wren, Alistair, Cyril and Kesh are not interested in my money – they have more than enough of it. Alistair and Cyril come from the Old English aristocracy, Wren’s father has built up an incredible fortune with stock deals, and Kesh’s dad is a successful film producer.

People want our attention.

All except …

My gaze lingers on Ruby. Her dark hair shimmers in the light of the sun and is tousled by the wind. She fights with her bangs, smoothing it out with her hand, although that doesn’t help at all, because two seconds later it is whirled again in all directions. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before the thing with Lydia. Now I wonder how that can be.

I really can’t afford to be seen with you.

Everything about her arouses my suspicion – but especially her piercing green eyes. I want to go to her to see if she looks at other people the way she looked at me: with fire in her gaze and full of contempt.

This girl watched my sister make out with a teacher. I wonder what she’s up to. Whether she is just waiting for the right time to drop the bombshell. It wouldn’t be the first headline about my family to appear in the newspapers.

Mortimer Beaufort’s affair with 20-year-old

Cordelia Beaufort’s plunge into depression

Will addiction destroy him? James Beaufort!

After a dinner with a co-worker, the media accused my father of an affair, turned an argument between my parents into a severe depression and turned me into a junkie who is about to overdose and urgently needs to be rescued. It’s hard to imagine what would be in the newspapers if journalists got wind of Lydia and Mr. Sutton.

I continue to look at Ruby. She digs a camera out of her backpack and takes a picture of the coaches as they shake hands again. My grip on the stick becomes so tight that my gloves creak. I can’t judge Ruby, I have no idea if she told the truth or if there is ice-cold calculation behind her façade.

Maybe I should have offered her more money. Or she wants something else and is just waiting for the right moment to demand it from me.

I don’t like the fact that the fate of my family – especially Lydia’s – is in the hands of this girl.

I really can’t afford to be seen with you.

We’ll see.

Ruby

I’m completely overwhelmed.

Lacrosse is a fast sport. The ball shoots from one pocket to the next, and I can hardly keep up – neither with the camera nor with the naked eye. It should have been clear to me from the beginning that I wouldn’t be able to document this game without Lin. Usually, we divide the articles about sporting events among ourselves: one notes the course of the game, the other takes the photos. But Lin was ordered to London again today by her mother at short notice, and we didn’t quickly reach anyone from the event team who could have stepped in.

But since the posts about the lacrosse team on our event blog are by far the most clicked, we didn’t want to suspend it. The only problem is that in order to write a report with the headline ‘Maxton Hall vs. Eastview – Duel of the Giants’, I would have to understand what is happening on the field in the first place. But between the roars of the players, the loud curses of the coaches and the cheers and boos of the spectators, it is difficult to keep track of the individual moves, let alone to get suitable photos of important scenes. Especially since I have to work with a camera that is certainly over ten years old.

‘Damn shit!’ Coach Freeman yells next to me so loudly that I flinch violently. I look up from the camera in my hand and realize that I missed Eastview’s second goal. Dung. Lin will kill me.

I stalk one step closer to the coach. When you’re at a game live, unlike on TV, there’s no instant replay, but maybe he’ll explain to me what happened. But before I can open my mouth, he starts screaming again.

‘Give the fuck it, Ellington!’

I whirl back to the field. Alistair Ellington sprints towards the opponent’s half, so fast that I don’t even raise the camera as a test, because it’s impossible to capture the move in one picture. He tries to dash between two defenders, but then suddenly a third enemy appears and stands in his way. Ellington is damn nimble, but small compared to his teammates. Even I realize that he has no chance against three at once.

One of the defenders throws himself heavily at him with his shoulder. Ellington counters, but slides back a good half a metre on the pitch.

‘Give up!’ the coach yells again.

Alistair continues to brace himself against the player, even on the sidelines I can hear the two of them goading each other on. Suddenly, Alistair’s already tense posture becomes even stiffer, and for a second he and the opposing player seem frozen in their positions. Coach Freeman takes a deep breath, probably to shout out another instruction, but then Alistair pulls back his stick, swings out and hits his opponent in the side with full force.

I gasp in horror. Alistair strikes a second time, this time into the opponent’s stomach. He screams in pain and kneels. Meanwhile, the other defender pounces on Alistair, pulls him to the ground with him and begins to beat him with gloved fists. Alistair also hits him with the stick. The shrill whistle of a whistle sounds, but it takes several team members to pull the beaters apart. I hear James Beaufort’s dark voice. He yells at Ellington, and I can imagine that as team captain he would like to rip his head off now.

Next to me, Coach Freeman curses non-stop. Of his swear words, ‘damn shit’ is still the nicest, all the others are definitely not suitable for young people. He has taken off his cap and is tearing his hair so brutally that I think I can see a few of them fall to the ground. Shortly afterwards, the referee sends Alistair off the pitch.

He comes to us on the edge of the pitch, takes the helmet off his head and removes his face mask. He carelessly throws both to the ground.

‘What the hell was that, Ellington?’ growls the coach.

I move inconspicuously backwards a bit so as not to get caught in the crossfire.

‘He deserves it,’ he answers. His voice is perfectly calm, as if he hadn’t just been involved in a fight.

‘You are—’

‘Suspended for the next three games?’ Alistair shrugs his shoulders. ‘If you think the team can cope with it, as far as I’m concerned.’

Then he walks leisurely past the coach, throws his stick on the floor as well and takes off his gloves. When he catches me staring, he stops.

‘Is what?’ he asks challengingly.

I shake my head.

Fortunately, the referee’s whistle saves me from having to give an answer. As fast as I can, I go back to my original position. It takes me a few seconds to figure out where the ball is – in the pocket of Wren Fitzgerald’s stick. Wren is not as fast as Alistair, but stronger. He rams an Eastview player out of the way with his shoulder, but shortly afterwards the ball is taken from him by another. However, Beaufort is hot on his heels, who intercepts the ball again when his opponent wants to pass it.

I twist the corners of my mouth disgruntled. Beaufort is really good. Damn well, in fact. He moves agilely and smoothly, adapts his steps to those of his opponents and is brutal when someone gets in his way. I can’t see his face under the helmet, but I’m sure he’s enjoying being on the pitch. When he plays, it looks like he’s done nothing but run around with a lacrosse stick all his life.

‘What are you doing?’ Alistair’s voice suddenly sounds next to me. Not only does it make me cringe in disgust, but it also reminds me why I’m actually here. I hastily open my notebook again.

‘I’m writing the article about the game for the Maxton Blog,’ I explain without looking up. ‘What’s the name of the defender who just took the ball from Wren?’

‘Harrington,’ Alistair answers. I can feel his gaze on me as Coach Freeman rants again. Apparently, Beaufort lost the ball while I was devoting myself to my notes. Eastview is back in possession.

‘Come on, Kesh,’ Alistair murmurs.

The Eastview attacker jumps half a meter into the air to catch the ball. Back on the ground, he takes two short steps and then shoots the ball forward in a powerful movement. It all happens so quickly that at first I can’t tell whether it ended up on the net or not. But then the Maxton Hall side cheers loudly in the stands when Keshav holds up his stick. Apparently, Alistair’s quiet incantation helped—it held.

‘Let me look good when you write the article,’ Alistair says as I write Keshav down on my pad at the last second.

Skeptically, I return his gaze. It’s the first time I’ve seen him up close, and I notice that his eyes are the color of Scotch. ‘You beat up another player for no reason. How do you think I’m going to wrap it up well?’

A shadow flits across his face as his gaze lands back on Keshav. ‘Who says I did that for no reason?’

I shrug my shoulders. ‘It just didn’t look like you had given much thought to what you were doing from here.’

Alistair looks at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘I’ve been waiting for months for the moment to give McCormack a beating. And just as he opened his mouth and insulted me and my friends, I finally had the official occasion.’

One of his blond curls falls into his forehead, and he brushes it out of the way. Then his gaze falls on my notes. He wrinkles his nose. ‘How are you going to decipher that later, when you write the article? You can’t read anything there.’

I would like to protest, but he is right. Under normal circumstances, my handwriting is neat, if I make an effort, even really beautiful. But at the speed with which I had to document everything here, it has mutated into a pig’s claw.

‘Normally there are two of us,’ I justify myself, even though I couldn’t really care less what Alistair Ellington thinks about my writing. ‘And it’s not so easy to take photos, watch the game and remember all the moves at the same time so that you can write them down afterwards.’

‘Why didn’t you just film the game?’ he asks. He sounds genuinely interested and not as if he is just looking for a reason to make fun of me.

Without comment, I lift my camera.

Alistair wrinkles his nose. ‘When is the part from?’

‘I guess my mum bought it before my sister was born,’ I reply.

‘And your sister is how old? Five?’

‘Sixteen.’

Alistair blinks a few times, then a grin spreads across his face. So he doesn’t look like the tough lacrosse player who beat someone up with a stick just a few minutes ago. More like a … Angel. He has beautiful, even facial features, which, together with the blond curls, make a completely harmless impression. But I know that this is deceptive. Alistair is one of James Beaufort’s best friends – and thus he is pretty much the opposite of harmless.

‘Wait a moment,’ he says suddenly, then turns around and disappears through the door that leads to the changing rooms. Before I can ask myself what he’s up to, he’s standing next to me again. In his hand he holds a black iPhone.

‘I don’t have enough storage space to record the whole game, but I can take a few pictures,’ he explains. He unlocks the display, calls up the camera app and turns the phone so that the lens points in the direction of the playing field. When he notices that I’m not moving, he raises an eyebrow. ‘You have to watch the game, not me.’

I blink perplexed. I’m so taken by surprise that I’m not even embarrassed that he caught me staring again. ‘You want to help me?’

He shrugs his shoulders. ‘I have nothing better to do now, anyway.’

‘That’s . . . really nice of you. Thank you.’ I try not to sound too suspicious, but I don’t really succeed. This situation is just so surreal. I can’t believe that this is actually Elaine Ellington’s brother. Elaine would never have helped me. On the contrary, she would have laughed at me for my camera and made sure everyone knew about it the next day.

I watch Alistair out of the corner of my eye for a while, but he actually seems to take his new task seriously. He takes one picture after the other and only sometimes lowers his cell phone to shout something motivating to his team or to insult the opponents.

I devote myself to my notes, which is much easier for me now. When Coach Freeman comes to us, I first think that he wants to send Alistair off the pitch completely because of the dirty words he shouts at an Eastview attacker. But instead, he stands next to me and begins to explain the moves and name some of the maneuvers.

During the last ten minutes of the game it starts to rain, but that doesn’t seem to dampen the mood either in the stands or on the pitch, rather the opposite. When Maxton Hall wins the game after a goal assist from Cyril Vega on Beaufort, the fans seem to go crazy. The coach lets out an animalistic scream, turns to them with clenched fists and raises his arms in the air.

Hastily, I close my pad and stuff it into my backpack. In the meantime, my hair is soaking wet, and my bangs stick to my forehead. There’s no point in plucking it up, and I don’t want to stroke it backwards at all, since I’ve inherited my dad’s high forehead.

One by one, the players jog off the pitch and give Alistair a high five – all except Keshav, who walks towards the locker room without even looking at him. An emotion flits across Alistair’s face that I can’t define. His grin slips for a split second, and his eyes become dark, impenetrable. But then he blinks, and the moment is over so quickly that I think I’ve only imagined it.

Again, Alistair catches me looking at him. He raises his eyebrows.

‘Thanks again,’ I say quickly before he can beat me to it. I don’t know if he’s nice to me when his friends are around, and I’d rather not take a chance. ‘For the pictures.’

‘No problem.’ He taps on the touchscreen of his cell phone and then holds it out to me. The numeric keypad is open on the display. ‘Give me your number so I can send you the pictures.’

I take the cell phone. Even before I have typed the last digit, a voice sounds that I know far too well by now.

‘What are you doing there?’

I look up.

James Beaufort is standing in front of me. The rain has completely soaked him: his reddish-blond hair is much darker than usual and hangs low in his forehead, which makes his facial features look even more angular. He holds the stick in one hand and his helmet in the other, and he doesn’t seem to care that water runs down his entire body from his face over his shoulders and mixes with the mud that has accumulated on his jersey during the game.

I don’t want to, but I stare at his wet body. The sight awakens something in me that has nothing to do with mistrust and aversion. It’s a feeling I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure James Beaufort is the last person I should feel it in his presence.

Resolutely, I push aside all thoughts about what that might mean and try to appear as uninvolved as possible.

Fortunately, Alistair answers his question. ‘She’s writing an article about the game for the Maxton Blog.’ He takes the cell phone out of my hand, looks at my number and then the name under which I have saved it. I doubt he knew my name beforehand. ‘I’ll send you the pictures later, Ruby.’

‘Great, thank you very much,’ I say, even though I’m already mentally preparing myself for the fact that he most likely won’t do it. No matter how much he surprised me in the last half hour – he is still Alistair Ellington.

‘I’m going to see how angry Kesh is,’ he says to James.

‘Really angry,’ says James, directing his cold gaze at his friend and teammate. ‘Just like me and everyone else. I told you to keep your hands off McCormack.’

‘And I didn’t listen to you.’ Alistair shrugs his shoulders. ‘You may be my captain, James, but not my mother.’ He sounds as if he doesn’t care what James thinks of him, but when he pats him briefly on the shoulder, it seems like an apology to me. Then he turns around to go to the locker room.

James’ gaze is now on me again. It is colder than it has just been. I don’t know if it’s me or the short confrontation with Alistair, but nevertheless I would like to get out of here as soon as possible.

‘What’s the point?’ he asks.

The rain suddenly seems much icier to me.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, sounding braver than I really feel.

He lets out a short sound, which is probably supposed to represent something like a laugh. Or a bark? I’m not quite sure. The only thing I notice is that his posture has become even stiffer and his facial expression even more unyielding.

‘Keep your hands off my friends, Ruby.’

Before I can reply, he rushes past me into the locker room to the cheers of the spectators.