Also by Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal

  I’m Not Dying with You Tonight

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  Books. Change. Lives.

  A Note from the Authors

  Like our first coauthored novel, Why We Fly was inspired by real events. In late 2016, a number of athletes took a knee during the playing of the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. Colin Kaepernick was among the earliest activists to take this action, though he was soon joined by others, including the players of the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Indiana Fever and Megan Rapinoe of the National Women’s Soccer League. As more players in the NFL and other leagues began to protest, controversy ensued.

  One particular story caught our attention. The Kennesaw State college cheer team knelt during the anthem, motivated by and in support of Kaepernick. Shortly after we saw a local news story, Kim met some members of the team at a protest march and was struck by their determination and bravery.

  Many of the athletes we mentioned suffered negative consequences for speaking up: they were fined by their leagues, lost scholarships, were removed from their place on teams, or even had their careers cut short. As we reflected on the history of athletes and activism, we realized athletes who speak up for what they believe have long paid a price—especially those who are among the first to take a stand.

  Today, the photo of John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising the Black power fist at the 1968 Olympics is an iconic symbol of protest. However, at the time, they, too, paid a price for their activism. They were stripped of their medals, sent home by the United States Olympic Committee in disgrace, and struggled to maintain a career in their sport for many years. Australian athlete Peter Norman, who stood on the podium with Carlos and Smith and supported their action, was ostracized in his home country. His record-breaking performance was overlooked, he was not selected to compete in the 1972 Olympics, and decades later, he was not welcomed to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

  With all of these significant moments in sports and cultural history swirling in our heads, we decided to tell the story of two friends on a high school cheerleading team who choose to kneel during the anthem. We wanted to explore the impact such an action might have on the characters’ lives and their friendship.

  We had completed an early draft of this novel and were deep in the editing process during the summer of 2020 when a powerful wave of demands for social justice swept through the country. That summer changed many things, including the official stance of the NFL on athletes who kneel during the national anthem. National sentiment seemed to be shifting toward a more supportive posture. We were faced with a dilemma: Do we incorporate that changing sentiment into Why We Fly?

  Standing up for what you believe is always a brave choice—particularly when many in the public square would prefer you to “shut up and play.” In order to honor the athlete-activists who, throughout history, have stood up even when their actions were not lauded, we decided to set the book during 2019. We wanted to examine and reflect on what it was like before that historic summer when the mood shifted, when leagues all over America paused to protest police brutality and injustice, when athletes’ powerful voices rose together and impacted society. We hope our readers will continue to examine the effect activism has had on athletes’ lives and careers before, during, and beyond the impactful summer of 2020.

  And to John, Tommie, and Peter, Lee Evans, Larry James, and Ron Freeman, Colin and Megan, Eric Reid, Brandon Marshall, JT Brown, Gwen Berry, Maya Moore, Billie Jean King, Seth DeValve, Bruce Maxwell, Zach Banner and Julian Edelman, the New York Liberty, the WNBA, and the Milwaukee Bucks, and countless other athletes at every level from professional to high school who’ve stood up for what they believe—we’re inspired by your courage and your tenacity. This one’s for you.

  Copyright © 2021 by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal

  Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design by Nicole Hower/Sourcebooks

  Cover art © Adriana Bellet

  Internal design by Danielle McNaughton/Sourcebooks

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  A Note from the Authors

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Back Cover

  For my sister Audra, who has always been my biggest fan.

  —K. J.

  For Maryann, who is the rarest of friends.

  —G. S.

  1

  Eleanor

  I. Will. Fly. Again.

  Every word is a squat, and every squat is a word. The mantra keeps me going, balancing on the stability ball as my physical therapist, Elliot, counts reps. That promise to myself holds my back straight and my hands steepled in front of me, even as my thighs burn and my knees shake.

  I. Will. Fly. Again.

  Every part of me hurts. I can’t squat—not even one more time—and I think a headache might be starting. I want to stop. I need to stop. But Elliot is still counting.

  “Eight more, Leni,” he says. “Come on, you got this!”

  I absolutely have not got this. He knows it. I can tell by the tight line of his mouth, the way he edges a step closer in case he needs to catch me before I fall. Elliot’s been with me since the start, so he knows the signs. Though it happened all the time when I first began PT, it’s been months since a bout of dizziness sent me off the ball. Elliot and I joke that I need one of those construction-site signs: 72 DAYS SINCE LAST WORKPLACE ACCIDENT. But who’s counting? I mean, besides me. And Elliot. He probably charts every spill, slip, and stumble.

  I am so not messing up my clean slate today.

  Because.

  Five.

  I.

  Four.

  Will.

  Three.

  Fly.

  Two.

  Again.

  One.

  “Okay, that’ll do it.” Elliot’s hand is in mine, helping me down from the stability ball. He holds on until he’s sure I’m steady, but it takes me another few seconds to feel ready to let go. Hopefully, he doesn’t notice. One thing Elliot doesn’t know about me is how good I am at faking it, and it’s best if we keep it that way.

  “So, El.” I sip water from my CamelBak bottle. It was super expensive—almost forty dollars at REI—but it’s got a straw. I learned early on that throwing back my head after PT to guzzle water equals lightning-strike brain pain. “How close are we?”

  How close am I is what I mean, but Elliot likes to tell me we’re in this together. He said it during our intro PT session, after the first fall. He promised he wasn’t giving up on me when I had to come back after the second fall, when the doctors started throwing around phrases like “prone to concussions” and “career-ending.”

  I wipe sweat from my neck with a towel, focusing on steady movements, wide eyes, good posture. I need to show him those markers that I’m stable, that I’m healing. We’re four weeks out from the start of school.

  Elliot taps on an iPad, entering whatever he records on my chart at the end of a session. “Looks promising, Leni.”

  That’s all he ever gives me. A little ways to go. Great day today. Solid improvement.

  I grit my teeth and then stop, because the grinding sends a bolt of pressure to my temple. I don’t want to hear about progress. I need a yes or a no, and it can’t be no. A no will kill me. I need to hear a when.

  “Should I make an appointment with Dr. Ratliff? Might take me a few weeks to get in to see him. I could call, just in case. For when we’re ready.”

  Elliot smiles at his screen and continues tapping, leaving me hanging. I stare at the side of his face, willing him to say, Go ahead, Leni. Make an appointment with Dr. Ratliff so he can give you medical clearance to cheer senior year. So you don’t have to sit out your last year on the team, and your final memories as the Class of 2019 aren’t limited to a physical therapist’s office. So you don’t miss your shot at cheering in college.

  Come on, Elliot. I try to beam my thoughts directly into his brain without ratcheting the pain level in mine up to a twelve on a scale of ten. Say yes.

  He sets the iPad on his desk and turns to me. He’s flat-mouthed for a second, but he can’t hold it for long. Elliot has no poker face. Smiling so wide I can see his gums, he says, “Go ahead. Call Ratliff’s office.”

  I punch the air. “YES!”

  He points a stern finger at me. “Four weeks from now, understand? Not a minute sooner. You’re not quite there yet. And try to remind yourself that medical clearance isn’t going to wipe the slate clean. You may continue to have symptoms that will need managing.”

  His words deflate me like a balloon. I know it’s his job to set “realistic expectations,” but all I can focus on is getting that clearance. I’ll deal with everything else later. “I got it.”

  I reach out to return the fist bump he offers, tell him I’ll see him next week, and head outside, shoulders back, chin up, strides long and even. If only it were as easy to rehab my brain as it was to repair my fractured ankle. But I can’t dwell on that. My ankle’s completely healed. And now I have official word from Elliot that my head is getting better too. That’s enough for now.

  Heat smacks my face like a two-by-four the second the automatic doors open. I squint against the summer sun, trying to remember where I parked. South lot? Or was that last week? I rub one temple, close my eyes, and try to picture Nelly’s bright yellow car, which is on loan to me while she’s at high-performance gymnastics/cheer camp. No mental image comes to mind. Dammit.

  Maybe I just need a minute. I sink down on the bench outside the door, dropping my gym bag, slumping down to lean my head against the backrest. My ponytail makes an uncomfortable bump, so I pull the elastic out and let my hair poof around my face. I can practically feel it frizzing into a cloud as I sit there, but for once I don’t have to worry. Elliot’s PT practice is thirty minutes away from school. I’m not likely to see anyone I know around here.

  My eyes drift closed again, and I try to empty my mind of any thoughts. That’s as hard as anything else in therapy, even those stupid squats on the stability ball. Which someone should really rename the instability ball, given how much it quivers.

  Stop! I order my brain. No thinking.

  The trouble is, if I’m not thinking, all that’s left to do is feel. The soreness in my thighs. The tightness in my ankle. The throbbing in my head. All the signs I usually try to ignore. The things that remind me how different my life is now. The pain that threatens everything I’ve worked toward for ten years.

  I feel a thud on the bench beside me, catch a whiff of cologne that isn’t quite strong enough to cover up the stench of sweat. I keep my eyes shut, trying to hold on to the moment of peace I’d almost reached. I need another minute for the headache to recede before I drive. Whoever it is will go away. They won’t talk to me. No one would start a conversation with some half-dead-looking stranger splayed out on a bench outside a doctor’s office.

  “Greenberg, that you?” a deep, familiar voice says, closer to my ear than I want it to be.

  Oh God. Please tell me that’s not who I think it is. This office is so far away from where we live. I wasn’t supposed to see anyone I recognize, let alone someone I know.

  “What’re you doing way up here? You see Dr. Ratliff too?”

  I crack one eye open and peek at my benchmate.

  Yeah, it’s exactly who I thought it was. Sam Walters, a.k.a. Three. Franklin High’s star QB.

  Ah, damn. I need to sit up, cross my knees, gather my hair. No one sees me looking so busted—ever. I don’t leave the house looking like this. I don’t even come downstairs looking like this. A bolt of energy sizzles inside me…and then fizzles. I can’t scramble to pull myself together. I hurt. And here’s Three, inconveniently seeing me at my worst.

  Ughhhhhhhh. I hate today.

  Three’s voice gentles. “Greenberg? You okay?” On the field, the offensive line can hear his baritone calling plays yards away. On campus, the stans can hear his laugh clear on the other side of the courtyard. But these words? This whisper? They’re just for me.

  “No.” Double damn—I didn’t mean to tell the truth. Why’d he have to sound so sincere?

  There’s a rustle, the crinkle of plastic wrap, and then something cool and soft touches my neck, bringing not immediate relief but the anticipation of it. I sigh and let the chill wash over me, soothing the fire in my skull. And I’m finally able to open my eyes without feeling like the sun is an ice pick stabbing directly into them. I swivel my head a quarter inch to look at Three. He sits to my right, hair in short, spiky twists, a day or two of prickly beard growth shading the light brown skin of his jawline. Looking ridiculously hot even dressed in loose gray sweats cuffed at the knee and a black tank top. His left arm stretches across the back of the bench, his hand disappearing beneath my hair, holding an instant cold pack to my neck with the perfect amount of soft pressure.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  He nods. I slither up from my slouch, and for a minute, we’re awkward—him trying to keep the ice pack on my neck, me trying to gather myself and whip the blond cloud around my head into a neat ponytail.

  Last time I saw Three was at Roman’s graduation party in May. I calculate in my head—a month and a half ago? That sounds right. We hang with the same people, go to the same parties, and sometimes sit at the same table at lunch. But that’s as far as our relationship goes.

  “I didn’t know you were injured,” I say as he relinquishes control of the ice pack to me.

  “Hell no, I’m not.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him and tick off the evidence on my fingers. “You’re outside an orthopedic surgeon’s office, smelling like physical therapy sweat and Bengay, carrying instant cold packs in your gym bag.”

  “Can’t pull the wool over your eyes, huh, Greenberg?” He rotates his right shoulder twice—his throwing arm. “Repetitive stress. But don’t let Coach hear you talk about me being injured. If it got around, every squad we play would take advantage of my weakness. Could end my career.”

  I nod. Some people might be surprised to hear a high school kid talking about his career, but everything with Three is about that. He’s so on the NFL track, it’s not even funny. He’ll probably make it too. Everyone says he’s good enough. “Hence coming way outside the district for treatment?”

  “Yeah. Funny running into you all the way up here.”

  Not really, considering Coach Pearce referred me to Dr. Ratliff last year, after the first fall. “It’s probably Franklin’s secret clinic, where they send all the athletes who need to keep their injuries on the DL.”

  “Damn, you make it sound like an undercover doping ring.”

  I smile. “Everyone knows Coach Bill Brown would do anything to get his players to State.”

  Three flashes me a smile in return, quick as a four-minute mile and full of perfect teeth made cuter by the slender gap between the front two. “Anyway, how about you, Greenberg? You gonna be back on the sidelines this fall, cheering us on when we win that trophy?”

  I feel the most nonsensical flutter in my stomach. Absolutely not, Eleanor Greenberg, I tell myself. Crushing on Three would be the world’s worst decision. “Yes.”

  He glances from the ice pack on my neck to the doors of the ortho clinic behind us, his version of listing the incriminating evidence.

  “Yes,” I repeat firmly. I yank the ice pack off my neck and hold it out to him. It was a mistake to let him see how much pain I was in. “I’m fine.”

  He pushes it back toward me. “Don’t be a hero.”

 

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