AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, they don’t. They’re upset, sure, and that’s fair, they’re entitled to feel whatever they’re feeling, but they don’t hate you.” I paused, and added, “You have to go sometime anyway. You’re not quitting the team.”
“You won’t let me.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, “because I’m right. You’re going to have to go back eventually to keep the scholarship, and better sooner than later. If you go tomorrow, you can stop the rumors from taking root and becoming impossible to whack away further down the line. If you go now, it’s a show of strength. To not go… it would be like tucking your head in the sand and admitting defeat. And I know you don’t want to be a cowardly ostrich.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Go to practice tomorrow. It’s not going to be fun at first, but you’ve got to do it, if not for you, then for me. Explain yourself and listen to what they have to say, then decide if I’m wrong. I’m guessing they’d be happy to have you back in the fold of the team. Besides being your teammates, they’re your friends. They want to be on good terms with you, it’s just how people are. Plus, the girls need a captain, Catya, and like it or not, that’s you.”
“But what if—”
“No but’s. Just go there tomorrow and try. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“They could stone me. Like, throw rocks at me, Bible-style,” she proffered. “Or embroidered a scarlet ‘A’ on my jersey.”
“Do either of those seem like things that would really happen?”
She admitted, “I guess not. Not the rocks, at least.”
“All right, then it’s all settled. You’ll go to practice, say what you have to say, and then go back to leading the team. Deal?”
“I’m sorry you won’t be there with me,” she said. “You sure you don’t wanna change your mind?”
I took a deep breath, and then exhaled for a long few seconds. This was my personal hurdle, too. I didn’t think the girls would mistreat her, but if they did, I’d effectively have thrown her to the wolves. All on her own, no shoulder to cry on. That would be my doing, the second time I’d done egregious wrong by Catya. We’d barely withstood the first, and I wasn’t sure we’d make it through a second.
“I’m sorry too,” I replied finally. “More sorry than you can know. But I’ll be there in spirit, love.” It felt good now, to call her ‘love.’ Like it fit better, when it really meant what it ought to mean, if that made sense.
“Promise?” she asked, her eyes gazing up at me with hope and affection.
“Of course. You’ll be the only thing on my mind. I’ll be sending you so many good vibes that you’re gonna telekinetically DM me back and say, ‘Stop, please, you’re flooding my mental inbox and I’m marking it as spam.’”
She chortled at my horrible joke, which only made me love her more. Then she nodded and breathed deeply. “All right, all right. I’m gonna go to practice tomorrow and take back my team.”
We high-fived and she grinned for the first time all day. I’d missed that grin.
“After all,” she continued, “we have a championship to win.”
Chapter 26
Catya
Simon and I reluctantly parted ways, both knowing that we had stuff to take care of on our own. He had to write a letter of resignation, which I still felt was wildly unnecessary, and I had to find a place to sleep.
See, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to spend the night in my own room, a mere few feet away from Grace. She hated my guts right about now, and sleeping in the same room as her just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Maybe one day, in the distant future, she could forgive me, but at the moment, the wounds were far too raw.
So after I got off the bus and grabbed my stuff, I found a nearby bench to sit on, underneath a large oak tree. I pulled out my phone and texted one of my few friends who was neither in my sorority nor on my team. Her name was Alex, and we knew one another from being on the same pre-med track for years. Granted, we weren’t all that close, and my request to sleep over would certainly be odd, but I’d helped her out on a litany of tough tests, so I figured, hoped she owed me one.
I wrote: Hey, weird question, but would you mind if I slept at your place tonight? I can sleep on the couch and be out in the morning.
The response was immediate.
Of course. Is everything okay?
People had asked me that so very many times today and I still didn’t have an answer. Was everything okay? Probably not. Would it be okay? Maybe. Not yet, but maybe.
