Charlotte's Tangled Web: L.B. Pavlov

by L B Pavlov

  We picked up Misty, and she told us all about Stanford. She went on and on about how great Coach Little was and how we were lucky to have such a great coach. She told Jack and I how Coach Little had gone to the 2004 Olympics, and many of the Stanford track coaches had been to the Olympics as well. We were both so impressed. She told me all about the team and how they were like one, big family.

  “I’m going to have to watch out for Charlie. A few of the guys are already talking about the new hotshot freshman coming from Indiana and how they hope she’s cute. They will definitely like you!” she said, giggling.

  I felt my stomach drop. I hoped she was kidding. I didn’t want anyone to look at me like that ever again.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked genuinely interested.

  “Um, not anymore. We just broke up,” I said sadly, feeling my eyes water.

  “Oh my gosh, Charlie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. The guys on the team are harmless, and I will make sure they leave you alone. I’m really sorry about your boyfriend, and if you ever need to talk, you can talk to me,” she said sweetly.

  Jack looked over at me and winked. He changed the subject immediately. “So where did you grow up, Misty?” he asked before taking a bite of his food.

  “Good ol’ Las Vegas!” she said proudly and started giggling. Misty went on to tell us about her family and how much she liked living in Northern California.

  The next day the moving truck showed up, and Jack helped me get unpacked and settled into my new room. He ran to Target while I made up the bed and put some photos out. He came back with a TV that was far too large to belong in a dorm room, a tall fan, and all sorts of food for me to keep in my room. I was pretty set.

  Jack and I had dinner Monday night, and he flew home Tuesday morning. I had a lump in my throat all through dinner, and I wished he didn’t have to leave.

  “I will come back in a couple weeks, and James and Eric will also come out soon. We can come as often as you need us. So, you’re not alone, Charlie, OK?” he said lovingly. I could tell that he felt bad about leaving me out here by myself. “When will you start running with your team?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow morning Misty wants me to go with her to practice,” I said sullenly.

  “OK, Charlie, listen, you are going to have to start eating more normally again. You can’t run that hard on a few bites of food. Come on, you could always eat us under the table. Do I need to worry about this?” he asked, concerned.

  “No, I just have a sick feeling in my stomach. I try to eat, I just can’t. I think it’s getting better though. I will try, OK? So, no, you don’t need to worry,” I said quietly.

  “OK, I want you to talk to me if you aren’t feeling better soon, OK? And, if I haven’t told you enough, I’m really proud of you. And Mom would be very proud of you too,” he said, looking at me with his kind eyes.

  “Thanks, Jack. I’m proud of you too,” I said, and he smiled.

  He took me back to the dorm, and we said our good-byes. I felt so sad when I went into my new home alone. Misty was out with her boyfriend. I went into my bedroom, and I decided to text Kathleen, Steph, and Coach Miroballi. Everyone was very surprised that I had already left for school. They had a lot of questions, and I kept the answers very brief. Coach Miroballi wanted weekly updates on my training, and he would be following my races online. He was such a great coach. I would really miss running for him.

  I opened my laptop, and there was an e-mail from my dad asking if I had arrived and settled in yet. I wrote him back with short answers to his questions. He asked me to send him a race schedule so he could come to as many races as possible. I agreed to send it.

  There was also an e-mail from Lenora. It made me smile. She said she already missed my smile, and the house wasn’t the same without me. I wished she could come here with me. I asked her when she thought she would move in with Carl, and she said she would wait to see what my father wanted her to do. She asked if I would come home for Thanksgiving so that we could cook together as always. I said that I would try but that it would depend on our race schedule.

  I was exhausted, and I had to be up early for my first team practice. I decided to take a quick shower, and then I settled in for the night. I pulled out my two beautiful boxes, and I looked at the photo of Daniel and me. I set it on my nightstand because it comforted me. I put my headset on and listened to his voice until I drifted asleep.

  I had set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. because Misty and I needed to be at practice by 7:00 a.m. to meet the team. When I got up, I French braided the crown of my hair, pulled the rest into a ponytail, and put on a little sunscreen.

  I hadn’t been running at all the past week, which was rare for me. I had never taken that many days off from training. I wondered if running would help me feel better because I always felt worse when I wasn’t running. I laced up my shoes, and I was ready. I wanted to run now. If I hadn’t been meeting my team, I would have taken off from the dorm and started running that minute. I was just ready to run all of a sudden.

  “Good morning, Charlie,” Misty said as she came out of her room. Misty was a breath of fresh air. She was warm and kind, and I could tell that we would be friends. “Are you ready to meet everyone?” She beamed at me.

  “Yes, I’m excited to meet the team,” I said even thought I was still a little nervous.

  “They are going to love you. Coach Little has been talking about you for a year,” she said. “And you know, you are his only freshman recruit this year. He has big plans for you.”

  When we got to practice, there was a big group forming. Coach Little spotted me, and he came over and gave me a big hug.

  “Let me introduce you to everyone, Charlie,” he said warmly.

  Everyone was very friendly, and made me feel very welcome. We went on an eight-mile run, and the boys’ pack was a little ahead of the girls’ pack. I immediately noticed that the main difference between my old team and this one was that everyone was a standout athlete on this team. In high school I trained alone a lot or with Daniel running or biking for the faster runs. Finding someone to run with would not be an issue here.

  We all ran together, and I liked it. My teammates would push me, and everyone seemed to want one another to succeed because we were a team. I immediately realized why Stanford University was consistently one of the best teams in the NCAA championships year after year. We finished up our run, and for the first time in over a week, I felt great. I felt a little bit like myself. I liked all the girls a lot, and I would enjoy training with them. We all decided to go home and shower and meet for lunch.

  My first day was turning out much better than I had imagined. When Misty and I were leaving to get in her car, someone chased after us. “Hey, Charlie, it was nice to meet you. I think you’re going to be a great addition to the team,” he said with a bright smile. He had big, blue eyes.

  “Um, thank you so much,” I said, a little discomforted by the attention.

  “See you at lunch,” he said, smiling again.

  When we got in the car, Misty started laughing. I just looked at her, confused.

  “That’s Nick Stevens. He is our best runner on the guys’ team. He took third in nationals last year. He’s a junior, and he’s expected to be national champion this year. I’m just laughing because the only girl who doesn’t even know who he is, is the one that he goes out of his way to talk to. Everyone is interested in Nick, if you know what I mean,” she said, giggling.

  “Well, I’m certainly not. I mean, that’s great that he is such a good runner, and that’s impressive, but that’s as interested as I will ever be,” I said quietly.

  The thought of ever liking someone as more than a friend sounded appalling to me for some reason.

  “Well, we’ll see about that, missy. He is hard to resist,” she said, smiling.

  “Is your boyfriend on the team?” I asked, attempting to change the subject.

  “Oh no. My boyfriend plays football for S
tanford. He’s adorable, I can’t wait for you to meet him!” she enthused.

  I felt my heart sink. Her boyfriend played football too. I couldn’t get Daniel out of my mind. Every conversation reminded me of him.

  The rest of the week sped by. Everyone on the team was really sweet and welcoming. Coach Little was very encouraging, and our workouts were the toughest workouts that I had ever done, and I loved it. I was running every workout at a much faster pace than I was used to, and it felt good.

  Nick Stevens took advantage of any possible reason to talk to me. He would run the warm-up with me and walk with me after practice. I tried to give him every signal I could to let him know right away that I was absolutely not interested. I heard some of the guys teasing him about following me around, and I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t even want anyone to joke about there being anything between us.

  “See you later, freshman!” he yelled as Misty and I walked to my Bug.

  We traded off driving, and I was becoming a more comfortable with it now that I was actually driving more. A lot of the guys on the team called me “freshman” or “freshy,” and I assumed that was because most of them did not know my name.

  The girls were all filling me in daily on our competition and about different races. We didn’t race as much as I had in high school, so that was good. They trained hard, worked hard, and competed in big meets only. I liked that.

  Another week had flown by. I spent my days running, oftentimes running twice a day, and sleeping a lot in between and at night. Misty always invited me to go out with her, but I had no desire. I had met her boyfriend Todd, and he was adorable, just like her. They were very much in love, and I ached when I watched them look at each other. I looked forward to going to sleep each night—sadly it was because I would put Daniel’s voice in my ears, and I felt close to him.

  I started checking my Notre Dame news updates every day. It was summer break so there wasn’t much to read. One article, though, was about a Hollingsworth quarterback passing the torch to the younger Hollingsworth. It had a few of Daniel’s stats and said that the coach expected big things from him in the fall. I was surprised when the coach said that Daniel was already working hard with the team in the gym. I guessed he had decided to go to school early too. I thought about how our summer was supposed to be and how differently it had turned out.

  A tear streamed down my cheek, and I was happy to see that I could stop myself from dwelling. I wiped my tear away and tried to think of something else. I hadn’t spoken to my dad outside of e-mail, and I still hadn’t e-mailed him the schedule, but he could go online and see it if he really wanted to.

  One of my brothers texted or called every day. James was in Europe, backpacking with a friend for four weeks, so I got an occasional text from him. I wondered if he and Daniel were still rooming together in the fall, but I refused to ask. It would make everyone uncomfortable if I started asking about Daniel.

  Jack was taking summer school classes for his master’s degree, and it sounded like he was being a good boyfriend because all he did was study and spend a lot of time with Sydney. Eric and Abi also seemed to be getting close because he mentioned her in every conversation.

  They were already nagging me about coming home for Thanksgiving. I said I would because I didn’t want to disappoint them, but I didn’t want to go home yet. It had only been a few weeks. The thought of seeing Daniel with someone else still sent me to my bed for days. I couldn’t think about that.

  We were doing eight-hundred-meter repeats at practice, and I was feeling great. My times were getting much quicker. I had never run with competition like this, and it pushed me much harder. I felt great pushing myself. It was hard to explain, but I seemed to thrive on pushing myself now. It didn’t bother me if I puked, it didn’t bother me if it hurt to go faster. I felt almost numb. I think my heart hurt so bad that I liked the distraction of something else hurting so I didn’t have to think about it. That sounds twisted, but it was all that I could conclude.

  Because I had never pushed myself like that before, I looked forward to doing it again. I also felt the presence of my mom constantly, which I needed. When we finished our workout, Coach Little asked me if I could meet with him later in the afternoon. I said I would be there.

  Misty and I were walking to the car, and Nick came running up behind us and called out, “Hey, freshy, are you leaving?”

  I turned around. Nick was an attractive guy. He could clearly get any girl that he wanted. I wished that he would put his energies elsewhere because I had absolutely no interest.

  “Yep, we’re going home,” I said, trying not to encourage him, “see you later.”

  “Hey, you want to go to lunch?” he asked jovially, yelling so that everyone could hear.

  “Um, sorry, I’m meeting with Coach Little this afternoon,” I said awkwardly, hoping that he would just walk away.

  But he didn’t. This guy was relentless.

  “What about dinner?” he shouted, and I heard the other guys start teasing him. I felt terrible because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or seem mean.

  “I can’t tonight, sorry.” I jumped in the car.

  Misty burst out laughing. “Oh my, Charlie! He has got it bad for you,” and she laughed some more. “I don’t think he has ever been rejected.”

  “I’m not trying to reject anyone, I just don’t…” and I stopped myself. I couldn’t explain this.

  “Is it Daniel?“ she asked sweetly. She knew a little bit about Daniel and me, but not the whole story.

  “Yes, I think so. I already gave my heart away, and I don’t think I will ever get it back,” I said sadly.

  “Charlie, your heart will mend, I promise you. But, for now, enjoy the fact that the hottest guy on campus is in to you,” she said smiling.

  “No! I don’t even want to think about it. What do you think Coach Little wants to talk to me about?” I asked.

  “Hmmmm…the fact that you’re running insane times at practice? It’s impressive, Charlie!” She laughed. “He probably just wants to see how you’re doing,” she amended.

  I was hoping that was it. I hoped that I hadn’t done something wrong, or my times were not disappointing him. I showered quickly and headed over to his office. His secretary let him know I was there, and she sent me in.

  Coach Little greeted me and guided me to a chair on the other side of his desk. “Hey, Charlie, take a seat. I wanted to see how you were getting settled and adjusted here at Stanford,” he said with a big smile.

  “Oh, I’m doing good, thank you,” I said.

  “It seems like you and Misty are getting along great,” he continued.

  “Oh yes, she is really sweet. She has helped me so much. Thank you for putting us together,” I said, smiling. I still felt nervous. There was something he hadn’t said yet. I could tell by the way he was posturing.

  “Well, Charlie, there is something else that I want to speak to you about.” He began cautiously, “First off, your running has been beyond impressive. You are pushing everyone on this team already, and we’ve just begun. I thought about throwing you in with the boys on those repeats to see what you could do if you were pushed harder. But I have some concerns that I want to discuss with you,” he said, pausing for a moment to choose the correct words.

  “Um, did I do something wrong?” I asked nervously, my voice shaking now.

  “No, Charlie, it’s not about doing anything wrong. Listen, when your dad phoned me that you were ill the week before you came out to school, I was concerned that he was pushing for you to come out early, and so quickly after being sick. I could tell as soon as I saw you that your health was not at its best. You have dropped a considerable amount of weight for a girl who is already extremely lean. This is a concern for me,” he said, stopping to sip some water and gauge my response.

  “Oh, Coach Little, I’m sorry about my weight. I have had a hard time eating. It was hard leaving home and with such short notice, and…” I paused.

/>   Coach Little spoke instead. “Listen, I have three daughters, Charlie. I know that you have been going through something, and I’m not trying to upset you at all. Normally when people drop weight like this, their running suffers. For some reason you seem to be pushing yourself very hard on an empty tank, and I know that won’t be good for you. So here’s the deal: if you need someone to talk to, my door is always open. If it’s something you want to work through on your own or with a friend, I respect that as well. But, as your coach, I need to tell you that I won’t let you put yourself at risk. So even if you become our number one runner, if I don’t see you put some weight back on, I will have you sit out of both practices and races,” he said firmly buy kindly.

  “I am trying,” I said as my voice started to quiver, and the tears started to come down my cheeks. I was mortified. Now I was crying in front of Coach Little. He just caught me off-guard. What if I did all of this, I thought, and I came out here all alone, and he ends up sitting me out? It would all be for nothing.

  “You are trying to eat? What does that mean? Are you sick?” he asked quietly, almost whispering with concern.

  “No, I’m not sick, Coach Little. I, um, Daniel and I broke up a few days before I left for school. And, um, my dad had this all happen so fast, and I never said good-bye to anybody. And, I just feel so sad. And my heart hurts so badly. And…” I started to sob right there in the middle of the Stanford cross-country coach’s office.

  He came around his desk and pulled up a chair next to mine.

  He patted me on the back and said, “Charlie, I’m glad you told me what was going on. Having a broken heart is not easy. I have been there before myself,” he said sweetly, and I looked up, wiping my tears.

  “You have?” I whimpered.

  “Of course I have. And I’m not going to lie to you: it doesn’t heal overnight. But it gets better every day, and making yourself sick in the process will not mend a broken heart,” he said softly.