by Claire Adams
“Nah, Zack — you did well enough last time, but this lovely lady wants to talk to the man in charge. Hit the showers.” The coach gestured for me to walk with him to the bench, and I sat down next to him. He was an older guy — it seemed like there were no young head coaches in college football — in a windbreaker spattered with our school colors, with good-quality embroidery on the sleeves and the lapel showing the school’s mascot. In the corner of my eye I saw Zack reluctantly heading back to the lockers and put my mind firmly back on the task at hand: getting good quotes out of the head coach for my feature article about the game and about him.
“Thanks for agreeing to the interview — after a game like that you must be exhausted,” I said, smiling politely as I took my recorder and my notebook out of my bag.
Bullden grinned. “You’re right about that,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “Are you a fan of football, young lady?”
I shrugged. “Please, call me Evelyn. I watched a lot of football in high school; one of my boyfriends was on our school’s team.” I somehow suppressed the blush that threatened to give me away at the thought of Zack. “I would have been a pretty terrible girlfriend if I didn’t go, you know. So, I appreciate the game.”
“Probably got your fill of training routines, too,” the coach said with another smile.
“Oh yes, definitely.” I laughed and set down the recorder between us. “Now I need to get your agreement that it’s okay for me to record. I want to make sure everything that ends up in the article is exactly what you said, exactly how you said it.”
“Good to see a responsible journalist. Of course, I’ll give my consent.” I hit the button to start the recording and the coach cleared his throat. “This is Head Coach Charlie Bullden, consenting to be recorded by Evelyn here, so she can write another great article about the team. That okay?”
I grinned. “More than okay, Sir,” I said, opening my notebook.
“Please, just call me Coach. I get too used to it from the players — even my own kids call me Coach.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Coach. Now, this was a rough game — why do you think that was? The odds for a shut out for our team were really high.”
“Well, of course you never fully know what you’re going to be up against when you play another team. You can prepare for weeks, and look at their games — their style of play, you understand — and then when you get to the actual game, they might have changed everything up during their practices.” I nodded. “In this case, we were as ready for State as we could possibly be, but they were ready for us, too — they knew about the few weaknesses the team has, and more power to them for exploiting them.”
I consulted my notes. “It’s unusual for our team to lag behind at the half, isn’t it? What did you see going on there on the field to explain it?” I licked my lips, looking up from my notebook.
The coach smiled wryly. “We had good plays; I think there was just some miscommunication. Between me and Zack or between Zack and the other players — it happens. There was a lot of pressure this game, even if we weren’t playing rivals. The last game of the season is always tough — everyone gives it all they have.” The coach paused a moment to reflect. “Especially if a team’s going up against one like ours — where we’ve won almost our whole season — they have something to prove. They may not have the record, but they knocked the top team down a peg.”
“I was thinking that when the other team came out,” I said with a smile. “They looked hungry for it. They looked like they at least wanted to go down having scored some points on us.”
The coach laughed. “You’re a shrewd woman. Of course, we had those issues in the first half, and we struggled in the third quarter, but we all came together in the fourth.”
“Do you think it was more an issue with offense or defense?”
The coach picked a piece of lint off of his chinos. “I think our defense was doing all they could. There was some scramble-up with the offense. Timing was off. Guess I’ll have to focus on that in the next couple of practices leading into the nationals.”
I found myself becoming more and more at ease with the coach the more questions I asked — it helped that he praised my thorough research on his strategies and the other team’s coach. In the back of my mind, however, the whole time I was getting the information I wanted and needed to write the best possible article about the game, I kept thinking about Zack. I hoped to avoid him; but of course, he saw me — and he would have to have noticed the way I ignored him. It was too obvious. I felt a minor irritation at the fact that he shouted across the field to me — in effect creating another spectacle of himself even after he had told me he wouldn’t do that. But then, I thought, I sort of goaded him into it by ignoring his texts and calls and the note on my door. I hadn’t given him any reason for my sudden break-off of contact.
I finished up the interview as quickly as I could, thanking the coach profusely for giving me so much to work with. “I look forward to your article, Evelyn,” Coach Bullden said, shaking my hand firmly and professionally. I smiled up into his weather-beaten face and said I’d email him the finished article before I submitted it to my editor.
I left the stadium, shivering against the chill in the air. It was a long walk across the campus to the dorms, but I didn’t mind it. I had a lot to think about; in the back of my mind I could still see Zack’s face — hopeful, excited — as he’d called out to me, asking if I needed to interview him again. I closed my eyes and swallowed against the lump in my throat. It wasn’t fair — it wasn’t nice — but I knew I made the only choice I could in the situation.
I managed to get the article done just as quickly as the first I had written for the newspaper; I sent it to Coach Bullden to get his approval — I hadn’t embellished anything, or tried anything fancy at all. The story of the game was compelling on its own, and I was glad I did my research to learn about passing game and running game, strategy and tactics; it fleshed out what there was to say about the game itself and the reasons it had so nearly gone poorly for us. The coach replied to my email quickly, thanking me for doing such a thorough job and for getting his quotes precise.
You have a bright future in front of you as a journalist, Evelyn. Keep your wonderful manners and obvious passion for getting it right, and I think you’ll have all your subjects eating out of your hand.
I turned it into Lisa, and she looked over it while I was in the office with her. “This is fantastic, Evelyn!” she said as she finished it. “You really captured the drama of the game, the complexities of what was going on — and I like that you put in the different theories the people in the crowd had for why the team was struggling, alongside the coach’s explanation.” She scrolled through the pictures I included, nodding a few times. “We’ve got a lot to work with. I’m glad Grant signed you on. You’re working out really well!”
I couldn’t help but beam at the praise — after all, as the newest member of the staff, I had the most to prove. As long as I could keep Lisa happy, keep the people I was interviewing happy, and most importantly, keep my grades up, it would be a very good addition to my resume.
Once the assignment was over, though, I still found it hard to keep myself focused. Zack didn’t try to call or text me again after the game and I was almost surprised — though why should I be, when I ignored him so obviously. I must have thought he would try harder to win me back. But that was ridiculous — stuff out of a bad romantic comedy. Zack had gotten my message; even if he had gotten a stronger message than I had intended. He was obviously already moving on.
Chapter Four
After a few days, Jess cornered me in the dorm room while I sat in front of the TV, studying History and half-watching an episode of Bones. “Something is up with you,” she said, sitting down in a chair nearby without preamble. “Spill it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shrugging and pulling my history textbook closer to me. There were so many battles to remember — s
o many dates in the Civil War — I despaired of ever keeping them all straight in my head for the final. I highlighted something that was totally irrelevant, shaken slightly by Jess’ opening.
“Oh come off it already, Evie. Anyone who knows you even a little bit could tell you’re off your feed. What’s wrong? Did you get a C on something?”
I smiled slightly, pushing my hair away from my face and setting my textbook aside. It was clear Jess wasn’t going to leave me alone until she got an answer to her question.
“No, I haven’t gotten any bad grades,” I said, looking at the TV rather than at her. “I will hopefully have an A in everything except stats, and I’m more than happy to scrounge a B in that infernal class.”
Jess laughed. “Okay, so then what is it? Because every time I see you you’ve got this gloomy look on your face like someone is holding your puppy ransom.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just…okay. Fine. So, here’s the thing.” I took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing Zack for a while. A couple of weeks. It’s no big deal or anything, but it sort of has me… confused, I guess?”
Jess raised an eyebrow.
“So let me get this straight: the cute QB who you told me is now apparently great in bed, who proclaimed his love for you in front of half of the student body, just brushed you off?”
I shook my head.
“Not…exactly.” I looked down at my lap and picked at lint balls on the blanket I’d spread over myself, twisting my lips into a grimace. “See, I’m…I’m the one who’s not seeing him. Not the other way around.”
“What? Why the hell not? He didn’t like, try and do something gross, did he?”
I shook my head, my cheeks burning. I sighed, deciding I would have to tell Jess the whole story; I owed it to her.
“So after Zack and I had sex…when I got back from classes, there was this guy hanging out outside of our dorm.” Jess’ eyes widened. “It was one of Zack’s teammates — one of the tackles, I guess. I don’t know if he was offense or defense. But he told me I shouldn’t hang out with Zack anymore, or have anything to do with him.” I rolled my eyes.
“What an asshole! Did he tell you why?”
I shook my head. “No, just said that even though we didn’t really know each other, he’d consider it a personal favor. I don’t know what he was thinking.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands. “Anyway, I told him to get the hell out of the dorm before I called one of the RAs. He left but it got me to thinking — I was really kind of letting things go too fast with Zack anyway.”
“Well, I mean, a date and sex twice — that’s not really that fast.”
“But we have history,” I insisted. “I was already…I mean, look: I wasn’t like, planning our wedding or anything, but he was already starting to be a distraction, and I guess I sort of figured I was a distraction for him, too — otherwise why would one of his teammates hang out like a creeper at my door to ask me not to have anything to do with him?”
Jess shrugged. “Maybe the guy knows there’s a case of herpes raging through the locker room and doesn’t want you to get it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It wouldn’t be a favor to him, then, would it? He’d be doing me a favor.” Jess shrugged and nodded, conceding the point. “Anyway, I decided to sort of put Zack and me on hold for a bit.”
“Ah, so that’s why he was in here the other day looking for you. I just sort of figured he was really horny and you weren’t in any of your usual haunts.”
I rolled my eyes. “I kind of…didn’t tell him, exactly.” I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment at how poorly I’d handled the situation. “I answered the first text he sent me saying I was busy and couldn’t hang out but after that I just sort of…didn’t answer.”
Jess sucked her teeth, grimacing. “I know you’re not exactly one for confrontation, Evie,” she said, her voice sounding only slightly disapproving, “But man, that’s not the way to go. You should have just said ‘Zack, I think we should take a break.’ Or something.”
“But he’d want to know why and I’d be kind of a bitch to tell him one of his teammates came to try and talk me out of having anything to do with him, right?”
“Well yeah, but it’s more of a bitchy move to just ignore the poor guy.” She made a face, thinking for a moment. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit — you had to cover the game and interview the coach! How did that go?”
I bit my bottom lip, remembering all too well how it went. “He saw me coming onto the field to do the post-game interview and came over, asking if I needed a quote from him.” My cheeks burned as I remembered the way he’d called out that he wouldn’t even make me go on another date with him for it. “I just sort of…ignored him and went right to the coach.” I twisted my lips, feeling ashamed of myself. “I’m kind of a bitch, aren’t I?”
Jess laughed. “If you really were a bitch, you wouldn’t be asking that question like it’s the worst thing you could be.” She went into the mini fridge we kept in the common area and took out a bottle of water for each of us. “Okay, so this dude shows up and tries to convince you to stop seeing Zack. You tell him to go to hell, but when you think about it you decide it’s probably a good idea after all.” I nodded. “So when Zack tries to hook up, you basically put him on ice, because it’s too hard to explain everything that’s going on.”
“Basically, yeah. I probably should have asked you for advice first, huh?”
“Yeah. Live and learn. So, Zack gets all worked up and then gives up because, of course he does…and then at the game he nearly blows it.”
“Oh come on, that can’t be my fault. There were a whole bunch of mistakes and things that happened, and that other team was just looking for an opportunity to score on us.”
Jess shrugged. “Well yeah, but where did the mistakes come from? Like was it the whole team, or was it Zack?”
I thought about what I saw in the course of the game. The team itself had been disorganized, confused — Zack wasn’t where he was supposed to be, he was slow, and he didn’t get the ball where it needed to be at the right moment.
“It was…okay, so it was mostly Zack.” I sighed. “But come on, that can’t be my fault. Zack was probably feeling the pressure.”
“You tell me: when he played in high school, was he the kind of guy to crack under pressure?” I picked at the blanket, not wanting to admit what was apparently already clear to Jess.
“No,” I said reluctantly. “He lives for pressure. He thrives on it. At least he did in high school.” Jess smiled slowly.
“I don’t know why you’re so down about it. The verdict is clear: Zack plays better when you’re in the picture. Without you he’s all distracted and stupid.”
“He’s pretty stupid, generally,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
Jess laughed. “Well yeah, but you saw how he played. It’s obvious he can’t function properly without you.”
I rolled my eyes even though I was still smiling, my cheeks warm at the thought of Zack being unable to function properly without me. But then my pleasure at the thought came crashing down.
“If that’s true,” I said slowly, feeling guilt tugging at my stomach. “Then I’ve totally screwed him up.”
Jess shrugged. “Well, so then fix it. Shouldn’t be hard.”
I groaned, rolling my eyes. “How am I supposed to fix it? Run up to him and make out with him in the quad?”
Jess laughed. “Well that’s one way. But probably you should at least explain to him what’s going on, give him a chance to understand why you acted the way you did.”
“What if he hates me?”
“I mean, if he hates you it’s because of what you already did — not much you can do about that.” I had to acknowledge that was true. “You know you’re going to be miserable until you go back to him and at least try to explain things.”
I looked at my history textbook. “You’re right. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Jess giggled, taking her bottle of water with her back into he
r room.
Chapter Five
The next night, I made the trek across campus to see Zack. I knew the frat was throwing a party — there were fliers for it all over campus — but I wasn’t there to get drunk. It was just a question of not having the opportunity until evening to actually talk; my schedule was too packed. It was already dark when I left the dorms; Jess detained me in my room until she was completely satisfied with how I looked to confront Zack and tell him what was on my mind.
“You can’t just go over there looking like you just left the library,” Jess told me when I announced I was going to go find Zack.
“Why not? I did just leave the library.”
Jess groaned and dragged me to my bedroom, sitting me down on the bed as she rummaged through my closet.
“You need to look like you’re on point, girl,” Jess said, picking up and putting back hangers, flipping through the different dresses, skirts, shirts, and everything else in my closet.
“If Zack doesn’t want to listen to what I have to say then wearing something different isn’t going to change that.”
“First of all,” Jess said, turning to face me with her arms crossed over her chest. “You don’t know that for sure. Looking sexy could very well tip the balance. Second of all, you’re going to be seeing a bunch of his frat brothers, too — you don’t want them to give you the run-around, do you?”
“They’re not going to treat me any differently based on how I’m dressed, Jess.”
Jess sighed. “Okay. Say Zack has given up on you and told his frat brothers he doesn’t want to talk to you. You show up looking like you’ve been under a pile of books all afternoon, you’re nothing more than a mousey freshman. Easy to run interference on. Roll up looking so hot you might burn them and they won’t have any blood flowing to their brains to think of lying to you.” I tried to come up with an argument against that, but I couldn’t.