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Instead, I bend down to retrieve my fallen book and clutch it to my chest, standing far away from him. “Where did you come from?”
My question is spoken with agitation, which is completely the opposite of how he appears.
Just like at the bar after he insulted the girl, he leans against the bookcase and folds his arms across his chest, bunching up his pecs.
“I was in here looking for a book,” he replies, all calm and unruffled. “Lucky for you.”
“A book on what?” I ask, again slightly agitated that he can look so collected when I’m all flustered.
“On soccer.”
I frown. “You mean for coaching?”
“Yeah. For coaching.”
He says coaching with clenched teeth and I hold the book to my chest even tighter. “Are you really my soccer coach now?”
“Looks that way.”
“How?”
Like, I understand the breakup – as hard as that still is to believe – and his suspension from the team. But I don’t get how all of that led to him becoming a coach at St. Mary’s.
He clamps his jaw for a second before he says casually, “Because Mom thought teaching a bunch of schoolgirls would be a nice way for me to spend the time while I’m here. Recovering from injury. And what can I say, I can never refuse my mom anything.”
“But that still doesn’t…”
Oh, it makes sense.
It completely makes sense now.
Leah is doing to him what she did to me.
I tried to run away with stolen money and so she called the cops before sending me here.
She’s doing the same with him. He punched his assistant coach and got suspended from the team, and so he’s here, teaching a bunch of schoolgirls that he doesn’t like.
“She’s punishing you, isn’t she?” I conclude while he watches me intently. “But that’s so crazy. You just made a mistake. You were upset over the breakup and you punched him but –”
The muscle on his cheek starts ticking and I stop.
Oh shit.
I just spilled the beans, didn’t I? I spilled that I know.
I know the real story about his fake injury.
And I did that even though my sister told me not to open my big mouth.
Damn it.
“So you know,” he says softly, dangerously, and I swallow.
“I’m not gonna say anything,” I say, lowering my voice because for the first time I realize how quiet the space is around us. How public.
We’re in a library.
Of course, the space is quiet and public.
There are students sitting up front, studying. Thank God we’re in the back, surrounded by thick, dusty volumes.
“How?” he asks.
“M-my sister. I called her and forced her into telling me.”
“But you’re not supposed to be making any calls.”
Again, he’s speaking in very soft tones, low tones, but I flinch, nonetheless. “Well, I break rules, don’t I?” His face remains blank at my declaration and his eyes remain watching and for some reason, I keep explaining. “So that’s what I did and called her. But only because you guys broke up and I was –”
“Worried,” he speaks over me.
I jerk out a nod. “Yes, and she told me everything.”
“She did.”
“Yeah, and now I know your secret.”
And that’s when it hits me.
This is his secret.
The fact that his injury is fake and that he isn’t recovering. He’s here because he got kicked off his team for punching someone.
I’m his secret keeper.
I’ve been his secret keeper since I was ten and he asked me not to tell his mom about the juice carton and I breathe out what I wanted to say back then. “I won’t tell anyone. Ever. Your secret, I mean.”
“And what’d she tell you? What’s my secret?” he asks, his arms still folded, but there’s nothing casual about him now.
Not a single thing.
Not the way he’s staring at me with dark eyes and not the way his shoulders have become rigid. Even his biceps are in permanent bunched-up mode.
“That you guys had a big fight the night before and you were upset. And you went into practice all drunk,” I begin on a whisper, staring back at him, seeing how much tighter he gets with my every word. “And you took it out on the first guy you saw. Y-your assistant coach, Ben. You beat him so badly that they had to suspend you for the rest of the season and send you to anger management therapy. And… and they told a lie to cover it all up.”
For a moment after I’m done, he only stares at me. He stares and stares and I feel like he’ll never say anything.
But then, he does.
He says a clenched-out word. “Impressive.”
And strangely, his one clipped reply makes me speak up, makes all the words gush out of my mouth. “But you’re not like that. You’re not angry. You’re calm and disciplined and level-headed. You always have been. The reason you got angry was because you were upset. You were upset over the breakup. You were hurting. Because you loved Sarah. You still do. That’s the reason you’re angry. It’s because you’re in pain. And you took it out on the first person you saw.”
