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Coach added an extra fifteen minutes to training, so I texted Mom to let her know. I only rode home with Sawyer if Mom was busy or working late. Sawyer showered after training and sometimes he would hang around and talk to the boys and it would cut into my homework time.
As I was about to reach Mom’s car in the parking lot, I checked the front pocket of my backpack for my phone. When I opened the passenger door, I plonked it on the seat and proceeded to unload my bag, the wave of fear of a missing phone washing over me.
“I think I left my phone in my vest,” I said, recalling how I’d used it to text her. “Can you wait a minute?”
Mom nodded irritably. “Yes. Go on.”
I ran back along the pathway to the gym, passing Danny and Nico on the way.
“Sawyer already left,” Danny called.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, giving them a wave. Flynn had asked for a ride home because his car was in the shop, so I’d seen the two of them go off together.
Thankfully the door hadn’t been locked, but most of the lights had been turned off. I only needed to get to the storage room where the bottles were stored and where my vest was hanging on a hook. I prayed that my phone was in its pocket and hadn’t fallen out somewhere on the field.
“Keep going.” I heard Coach Mercer’s voice coming from the locker room as I opened the door, the light from the hallway enough for me to see my vest. Reaching for it, I patted the pocket, relieved to feel my phone.
“Don’t you stop!” Coach Mercer’s low growl startled me, causing me to freeze. “I said don’t you dare drop!”
I held my breath, wondering who was with Coach, because it seemed Danny and Nico had been the last to leave.
And then a shiver ran through my spine as I heard a pained cry, “Dad. Please.” There were seconds of silence as I clamped down on my lower lip, the realization both obvious and mortifying. “Dad, I’m shaking.”
“I said hold it.” Coach Mercer’s hostile tone was one I’d never heard before. Oh sure, he was gruff, he was tough, he stood for no nonsense, but this was dark, this made my blood run cold, a medical impossibility I’m sure, but ice threaded through my veins. “You want this, don’t you? This is what you live for.” Each clipped statement got louder. “Keep your head in the game. You were off today, three shocking passes. To be the best, you have to train the best.” An angry hand crashed against a locker door, making me jump. “Don’t you drop yet!”
I needed to get out of the place, but for some reason my feet were immovable, glued to the floor.
“Dad?” The plea was heartbreaking and my throat thickened as I played out the scenario on the other side of the wall. Coach was pushing Cullen hard. Too hard by the sound of it. Sawyer said the team’s punishments for poor performance were often conducted in the locker room. Burpees till your muscles burned, press-ups till your arms shook, seated wall squats till your legs collapsed from under you...I wondered if that’s what Cullen was doing.
“Weak! Pathetic.” Coach Mercer slammed a locker again and in the next moment I heard a slump, like someone had dropped to the floor, followed by the crashing of a weight.
With my Converse sneakers barely touching the floor, I flew down the hallway and out of the building, fighting back tears. I slowed down, wiping my cheeks, my emotions all over the place. Had Cullen thrown three bad passes in training today? If so, I hadn’t noticed. My heart was thumping relentlessly as I reached the car. In a smart move, I slid into the back seat, citing my backpack was unpacked in the front seat. That way Mom couldn’t see my watery eyes.
“Everything all right?”
“Yep,” I said cheerily, holding up my phone for her to see. “I just had a sneezing attack,” I said, justifying my sniffles in case she noticed.
“Allergies?” Mom asked.
“The storage room is pretty dusty,” I said, confounded by my own answer.
I went straight to my room to shower, washing my hair so I could spend extra time trying to compose myself, my head spinning with the implications of what had happened. Sawyer had said that Hamish Maine’s parents had once complained that Hamish had been made to run an outrageous amount of laps at one training session which ending up with him puking, all because he’d forgotten something or missed a practice—Hamish now no longer played football. And once, Nico had gotten blisters from having to do an insane amount of pull ups. But why would Coach push Cullen, his own son? The star player. The one who’
My chest tightened just thinking about. And I wondered if my donuts had anything to do with it. Had Coach caught Cullen eating them? Had it been my fault?
I made an excuse to knock on Sawyer’s door later. “Do you have an orange marker?” I asked. “I need one for my assignment.”
Sawyer briefly looked up from his laptop screen and nodded to his desk. “Check over there.”
I tiptoed my way through his messy floor and rummaged through his pencil tin, taking an orange one which was worse than the one I owned. “Hey, how was training? Was Coach a bit mad?”
“Huh?”
I walked around his bed, peering over his shoulder to see him on a car website. “Coach was a bit grumpy.”
Sawyer shrugged. “He seemed okay. Big week, I guess.”
“Sure is.”
