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Catya interjected, “But I know I’m the one who should leave.”
David sighed, and the room held its breath. At last, he said, “My decision is… “
My heart pounded and I gripped Catya. Her small hands curled around my arms as we waited in what felt like the space of forever to hear David’s answer.
“Neither,” he finished. “My decision is that neither of you goes.”
“What?” Catya and I and several of the team members behind us said simultaneously.
“That’s my decision,” David said, by way of explanation.
I cleared my throat. Hoping it didn’t sound like I was talking down to him, I said carefully, “David, one of us has to leave, or there’s Title IX issues. The conference could disband us. We can’t be in a relationship and play for the same team. And,” I turned to Catya to double-check, “we want to be in a relationship.”
She smiled sadly and nodded. There was no perfect solution here, only hard compromises made out of pure love.
“I heard your options,” David sniffed, evidently impervious to our emotional display. “I don’t like them.”
We stared at him blankly. Where was this going?
He continued, “So… we’re going to rethink this. Here’s my offer, you can take it or leave in this room, right now, or it goes away. No second chance on this one. Deal?”
I nodded, and then pivoted to look at Catya, who also indicated her agreement. She clasped my hand so tightly I wondered if I was losing circulation. Not that it mattered. If I couldn’t be with her, I didn’t want any of my limbs. What was the point of my body, save to touch hers?
“Okay,” David went on. “What we’re gonna do is — Simon, you’re gonna move to the men’s soccer team, and start coaching them. You’ll be co-head coach with Patrick. He’s old school, and he might not — rather, he will not — like it at first, but tough tits, he’ll get over it and he’s retiring in six months. We’ll need to get a new women’s coach, but that shouldn’t be hard. Maybe we’ll get a lady this time, for a change. And as long as you’re not directly coaching Catya, you can continue to see one another, in a romantic sense, that is. This way, no one has to leave the country or the school, and I keep my team, and my donors, happy. Now how does that sound?”
I looked to Catya, who grinned and turned to the team and said, “That work for you, girls?”
“Yes!” they all screamed back, delighted and overjoyed for their teammate and maybe even for their now-former coach. Their collective volume was almost ear-shattering.
“I think we have our answer,” I said simply, trying to refrain from breaking out into a downright jig. “Yes, of course. Of course we’ll take that deal.”
“Then it’s settled,” he said, leaning back in his chair, looking like he wanted a cigarette or at least a glass of hard whiskey. “Now you kids go celebrate.”
I had waited long enough, and couldn’t wait anymore. I grabbed Catya’s waist, pulled her close to me, and brought her lips to mine. We kissed instantly and ecstatically, our hands unable to grab enough of one another, our mouths celebrating in joyous chorus. The ground seemed to drop away beneath my feet as we moved ever closer, our bodies nearly levitating with happiness. I’d known that love would find a way, and I’d been proven right.
At last, we moved away from one another’s embrace, and shared a small, sacred smile.
“So we’re doing this, huh?” she asked, pointing back and forth between us to indicate a relationship.
“Yeah,” I replied, unable to contain my emotion. “We’re totally doing this.”
Epilogue
— Two Months Later —
Catya
Two months had passed since David had given Simon and I permission to keep dating one another, and now, it was time for the championships.
Yeah — we’d qualified for the championships. What, like it was hard? Just kidding, it was a ton of work, but we’d done it and now the whole of ULA was turning out for the game. Apparently, every single seat in the visiting section of our opponent’s stadium had been sold out. The pressure of thousands of people watching didn’t stress me out, though. I had a secret weapon — Simon.
While Simon may no longer have been my coach, he was now my boyfriend, and as my boyfriend, he insisted that we train hard for the championships. Mostly, that meant going to the gym together. Sometimes, it just meant really athletic sex. I didn’t complain about either option. In any case, we’d been training like hell, and I knew I was in the best shape of my life. It didn’t hurt that I was also madly in love, and woke up every day thrilled about what was to come next.
We’d been in love since the moment we met, but we’d fallen harder and harder for one another in the intervening months. Turns out, the more time we spent together, the more we found to like about each other — something that wouldn’t have been possible if Simon had left the country or if I’d left ULA.
