by Autumn Avery
“That’s not what you said last night,” I shout after her.
The oohs and ahhs reach a new level of volume, and Emmy stops in her tracks. She turns back to me, a massive scowl on her face, and I can just feel Coach P’s eyes shooting daggers at me. I’ll have to run extra sprints for this, but the look on Emmy’s face is priceless.
8
Emmy
I instantly regret my words. I’m frozen in place. Everybody’s eyes are on me, but I’m stuck staring at Walker. He’s relishing this, I can tell. Why did I say anything!?
The better question I should be asking myself is why did I sleep with him!?
This entire moment could have been avoided if I’d stuck to my guns and maintained my professionalism. But I gave in, just like every other girl that ever succumbed to Walker’s charms.
Now these people know!
Maybe they won’t believe him. From the huge smile on his face, Walker is clearly relishing this, so maybe they’ll think it’s just a joke. Or maybe it’s not a big deal. Walker sleeps with any hot girl with a pulse, right? This isn’t news.
I can just see it now, my name plastered all over the front page of the Tribune:
Staff Reporter Succumbs to Football Star’s Charms! Another notch in the belt of Walker Johnson, Houston’s most notorious stud, who decided to take a break from sorority girls and bikini models, and instead set his sights on our very own Emmy Hutchinson.
So much for Walker being just another story.
I shouldn’t have even come today. I should have kept distance between us. That’s why I snuck out this morning before he could wake up. Last night was mind blowing, but it was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Ronald’s infidelity had thrown me into a tailspin and I ran to Walker like a wounded puppy looking for a good stroking. And he was more than happy to give it to me.
And I was happy to take it, but when I woke up the next morning, I knew I’d made a mistake.
And now here I am, in front of forty thousand people, with Walker airing all my dirty laundry out for everyone to see. It’s already sweltering today, and I can feel my body temperature rise as everyone stares at me. There’s no question that I’m blushing. No, that’s not true. I’m red from anger.
Everyone is waiting for me to say something, but I don’t think I could speak even if I could find the words. My throat feels like I swallowed a cup of sand. How did this get turned around on me?
This happens every time with Walker. I go into a situation expecting one thing, and I get another. From our first run-in at the football house to the followup that lead us into the country to visit his childhood home. And now this.
I should have just kept my mouth shut. I should have watched from the stands, taken notes and turned in my article.
Walker is grinning at me. How long have I been standing here? That’s not what you said last night! His words ringing in my head. I swallow and finally manage to speak.
“Yeah, in your dreams!” I spit back like a spiteful fourth grader, before quickly turning and strutting away. Yeah, that will show him…
I hear a roar of laughter from the gathered crowd behind me as I make my way towards the exit. I’m shaking. I’m actually shaking. I’m not used to being in the spotlight. I’m always the one behind the camera, so to speak, not in front of it. How does Walker do it?
I don’t know why I’m surprised. Nothing seems to faze him. Life is one big joke to him, isn’t it? Was all that stuff about his mom even real? Or was he just making it up to try and get in my pants?
But we already slept together, so why would he lie?
A storm of questions rages through my mind all the way back to my dorm. Why did I ever take Peter’s story? Why didn’t I tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine? Where would I be if I hadn’t walked in on Ronald and Cassie?
Ready to explode, I scan my card and push the door open, sucking cool air as I race to my room. I just need to be somewhere familiar. I’ve been so out of my element at the stadium, and I feel like I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.
Abbey is lounging lazily on her bed as I burst inside, painting her nails like some comical photo from a magazine.
“Hey, how’d the game go—” She starts to say casually, but stops when she sees the state I’m in. I must look rough. “Uh, oh. What happened?”
“Am I an idiot? Like, seriously. Am I just the dumbest girl alive?”
“You are pretty stupid,” Abbey says. I glare at her, but see the smile on her face. She’s messing with me, trying to lighten the mood.
“Seriously though.”
“What happened?”
I haven’t even told her yet that I slept with Walker. There hasn’t really been time. She was at class when I got home, and then I had to head straight to the game. But that’s not the only reason. I don’t want to tell her. Right now what happened between Walker and me is our little secret. That is unless he isn’t giving an exclusive to all the reporters back at the field.
And if I tell Abbey, somehow that makes it real.
But I really need someone to commiserate with me right now, and I know Abbey won’t judge me. Here goes…
“So, I kind of slept with Walker.”
BAM!
Abbey literally jumps in bed and slams both of her hands down on the bedposts. I wouldn’t expect a bigger reaction if a zombie had walked into the room.
“WHAT!? When!? Wait, what!? How?”
“Last night,” I say with a sigh. “I walked in on Ronald cheating on me and kind of freaked out and went over to the football house.”
“Wait,” Abbey says flatly, suddenly serious, holding up a hand like a ditzy blonde. “Slow down. Ronald cheated on you – you slept with Walker!? I don’t know which one of these to freak out over more.”
“Neither do I,” I say sadly, lying down on my back, sprawling out on the floor like a snow angel, relishing in the cool concrete floor. Abbey leans forward off the bed, looming over me with wide eyes.
“Okay, so let’s start from the beginning,” she says like a school teacher. “Ronald cheated on you?”
I let out a long sigh that empties my lungs. “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” I say. “I mean, I did hold out on him for a long time.”
“You know what? I don’t blame you!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!” She says emphatically. “I mean, obviously you weren’t ready, which means you didn’t completely trust him, and obviously there was a good reason for that!”
She makes a good point. Who really knows the ins and outs of how our subconscious works? Maybe my abstinence in our relationship was a byproduct of something in the back of my mind telling me that Ronald wasn’t the one for me. But if he’s not – then who is?
“Who was it with…?” She asks quietly.
“This bitch Cassie from one of his classes,” I mutter, trying to push the disgusting image of her face from my mind.
“Wait. Cassie Jenkins?” Abbey says quickly.
“You know her!?”
“Uh, yes. The whole school knows her. Talk about campus slut,” Abbey laughs. “If you had any kind of social life, you’d know about that tramp.”
“Well, now I hate him even more,” I say angrily, digging down into the meanest parts of my existence and praying that Ronald wakes up with crabs, or something worse, tomorrow.
“Trust me,” Abbey says comfortingly. “It’s his loss.”
“Yeah…”
“But uhm,” Abbey starts, clearing her throat. “Can we move on to the real business at hand? The fact that you boned Walker Johnson?”
Boned!
“Gah!” I shout, exasperated. “Can you not say boned?”
“Okay,” Abbey chides. “Made love?”
“Don’t be stupid!” I say, finally sitting up and leaning back against my desk. “We just…I don’t know. I don’t know what we did!”
“Well, okay. How was it?”
Abbey’s question sends me back to last n
ight. Walker’s arms around me. His hands on my waist. His tongue between my legs. The sensations come flooding back, and I feel myself starting to get hot again.
“Amazing,” I admit. “I’d like to say it was awful, that he was just a big douchebag. But, Abbey….oh my GOD.”
A twisted smile crosses Abbey’s lips, like she’s reliving my experience vicariously, and she starts to nod.
“I told you!”
“Stop!” I shout back, slapping my hands against the floor. “I wasn’t planning on this—“
“Exactly!” She says, waving an accusatory finger in my face. “I told you! And you just kept saying ‘No, Abbey. No, Abbey!’ But I was right!”
Even though I’m furious inside, I can’t help but smile. Abbey was right. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’d succumbed to Walker’s charm. But it wasn’t even fair. Those arms. Those abs…it was like God created him as a cruel joke to all women as a test to see how strong their willpower was. And I guess I failed.
“Yeah, well, it’s over now,” I say miserably. “I’m not ever seeing that asshole again!”
“What!?” Abbey gasps. “What do you mean?”
“He just humiliated me in front of forty thousand people!”
“By…?”
“He outed me!” I say, pouting and slamming my fist down. “He told me I could get the rest of the story from him if I went back to his place with him tonight, and when I said I would be the first girl to turn him down, he said, ‘That’s not what you said last night.’ Can you believe that!?”
To my horror, Abbey breaks out laughing. “What the Hell, Abs!?”
“I’m sorry,” she laughs, making a terrible attempt to stifle it with a hand over her mouth. “But that is pretty funny.”
“It’s not!” I protest, feeling more and more embarrassed by the second.
“Come on, Emmy,” she goes on. “You were trying to show him up in front of everyone.”
“I was not!”
“You were,” she says. “Come on, don’t pretend.”
Why is Abbey always right? It’s the most annoying habit she has, but also one of the reasons we’re such close friends. We’re like two sides of the same coin and manage to balance each other out well.
But this Walker thing has gotten completely out of hand. I shouldn’t have even taken the assignment, but I did. And then I gave into myself and wrote that terrible smear piece on him. Then to make things even worse, I slept with him! And now I’m regretting all of it.
I regret putting calling my journalistic integrity into question, but what I regret most, was not protecting my heart.
I’m crushing on Walker.
Falling for “The Stallion” is beyond stupid. Walker’s reputation proceeds him: he’s not a one-woman man. How did all those other girls do it? Not fall in love, I mean. I’ve never been good at divorcing emotions from sex. I mean, I knew there was a reason I never sealed the deal with Ronald.
But I jumped right into bed with Walker after only the tiniest amount of hesitation. So what is it about him? It can’t just be his looks and his body. He’s an amazing athlete too. But there’s more to him. There has to be.
But his behavior at the game has me wondering. Would the man I hope he is do something like that to me? Embarrass me in public like that? Air out all our dirty laundry for the entire world to see? He knows how big of a story that is going to be. Not to mention his coach will be furious.
I’m one of those girls, I decide, feeling a wave of sadness wash over me. Walker sucked me in, used me, and threw me aside. I’m nothing more than another warm body and “nice rack” to him. Whatever notions I had about him being a good guy are gone, and there’s only one thing to do at this point. I make up my mind:
I’ll never see Walker Johnson again.
9
Emmy
One month later…
“Real nice, Hutchinson,” Peter says, coming out of his office, a printed copy of my recent story in his hands. “Depressing. But not enough to make me jump out the window.”
“Forced labor is an important issue,” Peter. “Kids here need to understand who’s making the products they love and use.”
“Yeah,” he replies with a patronizing smile. “And here I was thinking they needed sex and alcohol.”
He tosses the printout onto my desk, his notes scribbled on in red pen. Peter was old school and refused to do things the digital way. He still uses a typewriter because it “forces him to slow down,” which he says leads to better writing.
“By tomorrow,” he says, heading back to his office.
“I’ll have it done by tonight.”
“You take life too seriously, Hutchinson,” Peter grins. “How about a followup story on the Stallion?”
“Not on your life,” I say as he vanishes into his office.
The Stallion, I scoff. Of course he’d want a followup. Everyone wants a followup. But I’m done with Walker. I’ve stuck to my guns for the last thirty-three days and broken off all contact. I wish I could say it’s been easy, but either way, I did it.
Walker Johnson is out of my life!
My phone vibrates on the desk beside me and I pick it up: Ronald cell. I ignore it. I told him to stop calling, but he hasn’t gotten the message yet. What is it about men that they can’t realize what they have until they don’t have it anymore?
Ronald had a good thing with me, and he blew it. I’m just glad he blew it now instead of later so I didn’t waste any more of my time with him. Now I won’t make the same mistake with Walker.
Walker Johnson, I think angrily. I regret even taking Peter’s first assignment on him. All the crap I put myself through with him. Ever since I met him, my whole life has been a storm that’s just now beginning to quiet down. I wonder if it can ever really be over before I graduate.
The school is so saturated with him. It’s like a sponge just soaking him up, and everywhere I turn someone is talking about him. Even if I’m not doing any more stories on him, the sports section of the Tribune is always publishing something with his name included. He’s just such a big star!
Pushing the egomaniac out of my mind, I pull up the draft on my computer and start going through Peter’s notes. Followup on the Stallion?! I feel my stomach turn. Peter got his story on Walker. Not just one either. I gave him the gossip piece, and the expose on Walker and his humble beginnings. The school loved that one. It “humanized” one of their biggest stars.
Pssht. Humanized!
It sickens me to speculate on just how many more girls were throwing themselves at Walker because of my article. How could he live such a shallow life after what he’d showed me at his home in the country? I really thought there was more to him than the guy I met at the nude cannonball contest at football house. Not that I care.
I am so over Walker Johnson it’s not even funny!
Two people like us were never meant to be together. He’s work-hard-play-hard and I’m all-work-no-play. We are complete opposites, but not the complementary opposites like Abbey and me.
It’s too bad I don’t like girls. We’d be a good match!
Besides, a guy like Walker would never settle down, even if – and that’s a big if – we ever managed to get along outside of the bedroom. I will give him credit for that night we spent together, but that’s it. Just thinking about the way he treated me afterwards makes my blood boil. I’m feeling flushed.
“Is it hot in here, Peter?” I shout across the office, noticing that I’ve started to sweat. He must be on the phone, because he doesn’t answer. My stomach turns again. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days…almost a week now. I thought it was just a bug going around, but I don’t know who I would have caught it from.
Abbey isn’t sick. No one at the Tribune is sick, and the only sick kids in my class sit on the opposite side of the lecture hall. Maybe I’ll go to the clinic and see if they have any anti-nausea meds.
It only takes a few minutes to impl
ement Peter’s revisions and send it to his e-mail. At least he still accepts electronic copies. But when I stand up, a wave of nausea and dizziness sweeps over me that forces me to sit back down.
What the Hell is this?
I wipe my forehead and realize I’m really sweating now. I’m wearing a thin blouse and the office is well air conditioned, but it feels like it’s a hundred degrees in here. Is this just memories of Walker getting me all fired up? No. This is more than that.
Slowly, I get to my feet, but as I do, the nausea returns and I find myself lunging towards the trash can. I lift it to my chin just in time, as my chicken salad sandwich from lunch comes up.
“Oh, God,” I mutter, spitting, tasting the disgusting taste of throw-up in my mouth. I hate puking!
I’d rather just lie in bed nauseous for two hours than spend ten seconds bent over a trash can with Abbey holding my hair back.
I reach for my water and rinse out my mouth, feeling slightly better. It’s definitely time for a clinic visit. Peter sounds like he’s still on a call as I get to my feet and grab my bag. It seems like I’ll be able to move now without another episode.
It’s humid outside, and the walk across campus is tolerable, but just barely. It’s a hot day already and whatever bug I’ve managed to pick up is not helping at all. I’m chugging water the whole way there. Finally, I’m crossing the parking lot to the door. The cool flood of central air is like heaven as I shoulder open the door to the clinic.
Thank God, I think, relieved at the empty waiting room. The only other time I was here, the place was jam packed, mostly with kids probably there for STD checks. I quickly head to the desk and explain my symptoms to the receptionist.
“Just have a seat and someone will be with you shortly,” she tells me curtly.
“Thank you.”
Just as I slump down into a very comfortable chair, a doctor appears. “Emmy Hutchinson?” He asks.
“That’s me,” I smile.
“Come on back,” he tells me. I push myself out of the chair and follow him into the back, passing several empty exam rooms on our way down a very lengthy corridor.