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Totally. Everything’s totally okay, my roommate’s just having her out-of-town boyfriend over for the night and I need a place to stay.
It was a weird, exaggerated lie, and Alex would probably wonder why I couldn’t just stay in another room in the sorority, but she was polite enough to disregard this and give me her address.
And so it came to pass that I slept on her couch that night. She’d tried to offer me the bed, but I’d refused. I didn’t want to take up any more space than I already was. Alex, such a sweetheart, remained firm in her choice to not question me about what was going on, and I could’ve hugged her for it. But we weren’t quite at the hugging level of intimacy, so I figured I’d just owe her my stellar notes for all the future classes we’d take together.
That evening, I dreamt of Simon. What else was new? More importantly, I finally caught up on my sleep. I was no longer walking around like a zombie, practically hallucinating. It was a lovely change of pace. In fact, my exhaustion was so total that I fell asleep at eight that night and woke up at eleven, thus missing my morning class. For once, though, I didn’t care. After all, missing a class wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me in the last twenty-four hours.
You needed your rest for what’s to come, my brain suggested.
That was true. In a few hours I’d have to face down the team and explain myself, an undertaking which required plenty of sleep.
When I finally did arise, I had a couple of hours before the big… the big… confrontation? Hopefully it wasn’t a confrontation. Maybe the Big Discussion? Ugh, the more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I considered preparing a speech, but that was too stiff. After all, maybe they would just move on.
Oh, who was I kidding. That wasn’t going to happen.
I’d have to address it, but ideally, when the moment came, the right words would just spring to mind. I know, I know, I was being too optimistic, but that was me — a naïve believer.
I slipped a ‘thank you’ note under Alex’s bedroom door. I considered leaving cash, too, but that seemed excessive. A note would suffice.
From there, I walked to a nearby coffee shop to do work for a few hours. In actuality, I just leaned back on a cushy sofa, much like the one I’d been sleeping on, and thought about everything — about Simon, about my team, about my scholarship. It was hard to accomplish simple tasks when your whole life feels as though it was in jeopardy, which wasn’t that off base, frankly.
After an unexpectedly good blueberry muffin and a black iced tea, I felt ready to face the team. Or as ready as I’d ever be.
I grabbed my bag from underneath the coffee table, loaded up my stuff and moved out. Each step that brought me closer to the field caused my pulse to accelerate. I had no idea what to expect, and I was worried that sheer guilt would make me start crying before I could even talk. What a mortifying thought. The thing about tears was that, once they’ve begun, they’re very hard to spontaneously stop. And I was, by nature, a crier.
Praying that I’d make it through this talk without blubbering like a fool, I crossed the threshold between the outside world and the field.
I’d made sure to get there early so that I wouldn’t enter to a throng of girls, staring at me expectantly.
Apparently, I hadn’t gotten there quite early enough, because that was the exact situation I was greeted by — the entire team, crowded around in a loose circle, chattering anxiously like a flock of sparrows.
The chatter stopped the moment I walked in. Two guesses as to what they were discussing?
I held up my arm, and waved. Oh that was stupid, shouldn’t have done that. A few of the girls waved back, most of them continued to just stare at me, mute and unsure of how to proceed.
At last I closed in on the group. The circle opened up and became a semi-circle, like an amphitheater where all the seats faced me. Well, fine. Guess I deserved that. They looked at me with anticipation. What were they hoping I’d say? Were there perfect words?
“Hey,” I said. No response. Apparently, if there were perfect words, these were not them.
I gulped, and continued, “So, Coach Simon isn’t going to be at practice today.”
No surprised faces in the bunch. They’d probably already deduced as much. I wondered distantly if they thought he’d been fired, or was taking a day off to let things cool down. I then wondered, in a much more present way, if any of them had already reported Simon to the governing board. But there was no time to consider that now — again, I was trying very hard to avoid tears, and the thought of one of my teammates turning over my lover was too much to bear.
