by Claire Adams
I fought back the deep, hot blush I felt starting across my cheeks. “He and I went to the same high school,” I said, struggling to keep my voice neutral. I swallowed the lump I could feel forming in my throat, wondering if the people looking at me had been in the dining hall when I’d had my scuffle with Zack.
“Awesome—then it should be easy to get him to give us some good snippets. Deadline is Sunday night—we’re publishing Monday.”
I was glad I wasn’t on the editorial board; there’d be a lot of last-minute editing and proofing. The game would be Saturday—I had a few days to prepare myself for it. I smiled as graciously as I could as everyone started to clear out of the room, talking about their assignments and the deadline. I went back to my dorm full of pizza and coffee, telling myself I would get back to work right away—get some homework done, maybe do some studying. But as soon as I was in my room, I sank down onto the bed and groaned, covering my face with my hands. It wasn’t fair. I had wanted to make a clean break and get a fresh start, and here it was: I had to interview Zack for the newspaper. It was as if the Universe was forcing me to deal with that jerk. I shook my head and buried my face in my pillows, wishing that there was some way that I could turn down the assignment without making myself look like an idiot or making Professor Grant doubt me.
Suck it up, Evelyn, I told myself firmly, giving myself a shake and sitting up. This isn’t the last time you’re going to have to deal with awkwardness. Do the interview, write the article, and be done with it.
CHAPTER THREE
I was still trying to figure out what exactly I was going to do about the situation with Zack when I got out of my classes the next day —it would be awkward no matter what. I walked across the campus wishing I’d grabbed a thicker sweater; it was starting to get cold. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself I was headed to the library, where it was always warm. It would be colder once it got out closer to sunset, but the dorms weren’t that far. I could grab a heavier sweater before I went to the dining hall for dinner.
I had been consciously avoiding Zack ever since I’d made my decision to get a fresh start. That wouldn’t work, of course, with the interview I had to get with him. But at least the library was somewhere I wouldn’t have to think about him. I could just get some studying done and pretend like he didn’t exist for a couple of hours. It was a relief.
I went into the library and found myself instantly relaxing, muscles I hadn’t even known were tense beginning to uncoil along my back and shoulders. I took a deep breath—the library smelled like books, a faint trace of ozone from the copiers and computers, and something clean and lemony. I’d come to the library almost every day since classes officially started—though I’d changed up my time slightly in recent weeks. It was comfortable and homey to me. I made my way past the circulation and services desk and into the library proper, taking off my sweater; the classrooms were all pretty chilly, but the library always seemed to be a little warmer than any other building on campus except the student union.
I found a seat in the quiet section, sitting down next to a girl I didn’t know; it was oddly busy—sometimes I’d go into the library and there would be no one but me and the staff. I didn’t think anything of it; after all, midterms were coming up, and people were probably cramming and making up for last time. I got out my American History textbook and my notebook, and started to flip through for the section we were currently covering. In the thick silence of the quiet section, I heard the library entrance doors squeak open and looked up in spite of my determination to plunge into my studying.
Of all of the people to come walking into the library, it had to be him. I almost groaned as I caught sight of Zack walking past the circulation desk and heading to a different section of the library, not even looking around as he made his way past the section I was in. In a million years, I would never have guessed I would see Zack in the library looking as if he knew exactly where he was going, looking focused. I knew I was staring. I couldn’t believe my eyes; Zack, who had barely kept up his grades enough to get through high school, who had always joked about my bookworm habits, was in the campus library, textbooks in hand, looking as if he was going in for a prolonged jam session of studying.
The girl I’d sat down next to must have noticed my staring; I nearly jumped out of my chair when she spoke. “He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?” I tore my gaze away from Zack. The girl—with short-cropped blonde hair and gray-green eyes—was looking in Zack’s direction and then grinned at me.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my heart pounding. I had to stop thinking about him—but it was impossible when he kept showing up like this; first the interview I had to do with him and now him being in the library while I was. If I were paranoid, I would say that there had to be some way he was manipulating things—it couldn’t be a coincidence that he kept getting thrown in my way.
White van syndrome, I told myself. Since I had noticed Zack at the party and had ended up having sex with him—putting him at the forefront of my mind in spite of all my attempts to stop thinking about him—I was apt to notice anything having to do with him. I might have even ended up going to the game even if I didn’t have to cover it for the newspaper.
I was being ridiculous, I thought. Zack was just another person. He didn’t keep showing up in my life for any particular reason; there were lots of people at the college with us, but there weren’t so many people that it was impossible for us to run into each other—we had gone eight weeks without seeing each other, but that was just a coincidence, and just because I tended to keep strictly to my dorm, the dining hall, my classes, and the library. I had to get used to seeing him occasionally or I’d never get over him.
“He’s in here every day,” the girl was saying. I shrugged, although that piece of information surprised me more than seeing Zack in the first place. “Always comes out this time of the afternoon.”
That at least explained why I hadn’t seen him. Normally I would have gone to the Library in the morning—but after the late meeting with the campus newspaper, I had slept in a bit. Normally I reserved a private study cubicle, too; but when I’d come in to reserve after breakfast, they were taken for the rest of the day until the library closed at midnight.
I pretended to turn my attention back onto my book as if Zack’s appearance had nothing to do with me—and I was sure it didn’t. But if I took too much notice of him being in the library, the girl might ask if I knew him. It was bad enough to have made a public spectacle of myself in the dining hall, even if no one had really mentioned it to me in the days since. If she started asking questions, the whole sordid thing might come tumbling out of me, and the last thing I wanted or needed was to be the subject of gossip. I didn’t want to be Zack’s pining ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to get my work done, make my grades, and move on with my life.
It was strange, though; I thought back to high school, and I tried to remember if I had ever seen Zack set foot in the school media center. He must have had to go with his English class when they were learning how to write a research paper, but I couldn’t think of any point in time when he had gone of his own volition to study. I think he even managed to skip study hall. He had never been a dedicated student or even a particularly good student—so what was he doing in the library now? I couldn’t imagine anything that would make him decide to do better in his classes. After all, there was a common piece of gossip that most of the football team was given a certain amount of leniency in getting their work done, turning it in on time, and even the quality of their work. The college wanted to make sure to toe the line between making sure they got an education and making sure they were still able to qualify to play. No one was blatantly passed if they didn’t do any work, but Zack was smart enough to manage a C without much effort; why would he put in extra work if he didn’t have to?
I had to work hard to make myself focus on the task at hand. It was like an itch in my eyes—the urge to look up and see if Zack was still in the library, if he was actually
studying or just goofing off. I didn’t care, I told myself. If he had somehow become a better student because the standards were higher in college, then that was good for him; but I still couldn’t quite credit the possibility of a guy who belonged to the most notorious frat on campus being a good student. It just didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care. I was just there to study. But the question still purred away at the back of my mind.
CHAPTER FOUR
On Saturday, I told Jess that I had to go to the game; she was immediately interested. “Oh man, that’s right; you have to talk to douchebag afterwards!” She looked me over from head to toe and shook her head. “Oh, Evie, this is a mess. You’re not wearing this to the game are you?”
I looked down at my outfit: a long-sleeved button-down shirt with a cardigan over it for warmth, a pair of jeans, and some sneakers.
“What’s wrong with this?” I asked. It wasn’t as cute as what I had been wearing the previous game, but then, I wasn’t there to pick up a guy. I was there to watch the game, take notes, and interview Zack. The last thing I was interested in was looking cute.
“Evie, you need to be looking your absolute best if you’re going to have to deal with him. Makeup, hair, the whole nine. But not too obvious, of course. Come on.” She dragged me into my room and started going through my closet. “It’s too cold to wear a skirt this short by itself, but these tights should be warm enough…ooh, this sweater is perfect. Just enough cleavage. You’ll be a little chilly but not too bad.”
I tried to argue—I didn’t want to send any messages that I had no intention of following up on; not to Zack and certainly not to whoever we were sitting near in the section I had tickets for. Lisa had given me the newspaper’s standing tickets—close to the field, so that I had an excellent view and could keep up with everything.
Jess kept repeating to me that if I was going to have to talk to Zack, I needed to look my absolute best. “You need to make sure he knows you’re not even thinking about him,” she told me firmly, coaching me through my makeup. I had relented on the outfit; it wasn’t worth wasting time arguing with her on the subject.
“But I am thinking about him. I mean, I have to interview him. Of course I’m thinking about him.”
Jess groaned in frustration. “Evelyn. You need to show him that you don’t give a good Goddamn about the fact that he just had sex with you and then pretended like you were nothing. You need to look like you might have already decided to go home with someone else after the game. He needs to look at you and think: oh God, what have I done?”
I laughed and finally relented with my whole heart. I could see Jess’ point. If I was going to have to interact with Zack, I might as well go into it feeling confident and looking my best.
I looked at myself in the mirror when Jess was finished with me; I was in our school’s colors, but it wasn’t a super-obvious, school spirit outfit. Everything seemed to go together, and I looked as good as I could without being incredibly dressed up. Jess had managed to do my hair in such a way that it looked great—but it didn’t look as if I had slaved over it for an hour. My makeup was just enough to highlight my best features without being obvious—unless I was going to a club or something, I didn’t like to look like I was wearing a mask of makeup. Jess was excited at the thought of me getting some kind of comeuppance—and the idea of going to such an important game without even having to badger me to go with her. I shook her off and sent her to her own room to get ready; we were going to have prime seats, and I pointed out that there could be some cute guys where we were sitting—she might as well be prepared to flirt. That sent her to her room and I spent the next thirty minutes fidgeting, trying to compose the notes I had put together about the game and the stakes. I knew more than a little bit about football from dating Zack in high school, but I wanted the article to be as good as possible.
We went to the stadium and I showed our tickets to the person at the entrance. Unlike the last time, Jess hadn’t tried to bring anyone with us; I only had two tickets, so it wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. The seats were excellent—and if I were seriously interested in football they would have been a lot more thrilling. As the stadium filled up with people, I called all the details to my mind. It was the second to last game of the regular season and a qualifying game for the bowls. Our team was number one in our conference and the college we were up against was number two; they’d only lost one game that season. It was a tense game—the school we were up against wasn’t our traditional rivals, but they were a good team, with a solid lineup.
A lot of people on campus were speculating since the first string quarterback was still out of commission. He’d been injured badly in the game that Zack had taken over and was still recuperating, in no shape to play. Zack, I knew, was a good quarterback. I’d watched him play plenty of times in high school as his girlfriend, and the previous game he had taken the challenge of leading our team to victory after the shakeup without hesitating. But some people were saying it was bad luck, no matter what Zack’s skill level was. They had been saying amongst themselves that it was almost certain that Zack would end up injured this game—that we’d be doomed. It was the kind of talk that people use to hype themselves up, to raise the stakes for the game itself, and I knew it. But in spite of how angry I still was at Zack for using me the way he had, I couldn’t deny that the thought of him getting seriously injured worried me at least a little bit.
It was cold out, and I tried not to fidget in my seat as I waited for the game to start. In spite of myself, I found I was looking out over the field to try and see if I could see Zack on the sidelines. Of course, until the team made their big entrance, I wouldn’t see anything at all. It was stupid, but I was anxious about the situation. I just wanted to get it over with.
“Stop staring, Evie,” Jess said, elbowing me in the ribs. “Talk to some people, take a few notes.”
I took her advice and asked people around me what they thought about the game. The band was playing, readying for the big event, and I occasionally had to shout to be heard over them; I didn’t want to feel excited but it was impossible as more and more people got to their seats and started to cheer our school and exchange insults with the other team’s fans. I took a few different quotes and wrote a few notes about what the band was playing for the sake of color in the article; and then there was nothing to do but wait.
Fortunately, Jess’ suggestion had eaten up a good bit of time and I wasn’t left waiting for very long. The opposing team took the field first, making a splashy but not over-the-top entrance and basking in their fans’ cheers. It was an important game—the other side of the stands was totally full. Then, after they finished warming up and went to their sidelines, our marching band started up with our school’s fight song. They played the big cheer part and then started in at the beginning, and everyone—including me—was singing along as our team came out on the field. I was cheering with everyone else, swept up in the fervor of the crowd. I wanted to just be excited about the team as a whole, but I found myself looking for Zack amongst his team, finding his jersey and staring intently. If he was nervous, there was not a single sign of it in his body language or on his face. The whole team looked confident—but then, I thought, they should. We were number one in our division. This game would be tough, but I knew Zack was a capable quarterback.
The game finally began and I started taking notes in earnest. I listened carefully to the play-by-play through an earbud in my right ear, not quite blocking out the crowd around me in my interest in getting as much detail as possible. From the first snap, it was clear that the stakes were high for both teams. It was a brutal game right away, both sides pumped up and looking for a prime spot in the bowl games. My heart was pounding as I watched one play after the other. In the first half, the teams were almost even—we would score only for the other school to battle back to a tie. We would try to get our lead back and spend several plays struggling; and then the situation would be reversed. T
here were interceptions, sacks—once, Zack was down on the ground for longer than he should be and everyone held their breath. When he got up without limping and went back to the huddle, everyone exhaled in relief.
The halftime show was amazing—all that tension built up between our school and the other college made for a spectacular competition between the two bands. I wrote down all of the songs that were played, took notes on the different formations, and even snapped pictures. I took pictures all through the first half as well, trying to keep them evenly distributed between pictures of Zack and pictures of the team as a whole and pictures of the other team. Even though I knew I’d only get a couple of shots in the final article, I didn’t want to turn in a dozen pictures and have eight of them be of Zack.
Then it was the second half of the game. Both teams came back out looking almost as pumped as they had been to start with—which, considering how tense and brutal the first half had been was really saying something. Everyone was full of energy, and I was almost worried that I would end up going deaf from all of the screaming. Once more in the third quarter, it was a hotly contested game; both teams threw out their most challenging plays and both teams worked hard to try and find the weakness in the other, the one vulnerability that would let them get far enough ahead that the game would be conclusive before the final quarter. We hadn’t used our time outs that much in the first half, but the coaches seemed determined to use all of their allotted time in the second.