—I—
—I’ll tell you why, Miles. ‘Cause it ain’t personal. ‘Cause these’re words we use to … to motivate. We call you somethin’ you ain’t so you can prove what you are.
He was losing me. The cramp was worsening.
—So, he continued, the only thing that’d make you any different from those other players, the only thing that would make any of this legitimate, is if Coach Hightower used a word for somethin’ you are.
—Coach—
He held up his hand.
—That’s a question, Furling. The only thing I want comin’ outta your mouth is an answer.
I pressed down on my ankle—not in increments but suddenly, causing breathtaking pain. Speak, Miles.
—Yes sir.
—Yes what?
—I’m …
I cleared my throat.
—I’ve slept with a boy.
He stared a long moment, and then did something that still robs me of breath whenever I remember it. He made that pinching motion people will make when they don’t want to outright pick their noses—his thumb and forefinger clamping his nostrils shut—and began to twist his nose. He wasn’t twisting lightly, though, but with such intense torqueing force that I, for a second, was convinced he was going to tear that nose right off his face, tear his whole face right off his skull, revealing—
But he released. He carefully set my phone on the table and nudged it toward me.
—So what do you want? he asked.
The sudden shift in power was nauseating, and I mean that literally. I had to stare at the edge of his desk, a fixed point to focus on while I waited for my stomach to settle.
And what did I want? To remain on the team? I had that leverage now, and knew I could tell Zeller to protect me from this day forward, to punish any player who dared utter the name Gwen. I could make him reinstate me at starting Will linebacker, could probably even have him fire Coach Hightower. I could stay. I could play at King. I could be the team’s Will linebacker the next four years and, after that, maybe reach the NFL.
—I want to leave the team and keep my scholarship.
The words just appeared, like they’d been hiding behind me all this time. And once they were out, I had to keep talking in a rush, knowing that if I stopped I might not ever be able to start back up again.
—Everything still applies, I continued. Textbooks. My—my housing. I won’t be coming to Training Table anymore, so I want extra stipend money to make up for that. All four years—scholarship. Summer funding, too.
There was a knock.
—Yeah? Zeller said darkly, still staring at me. Miss Gemma, the head secretary, stuck her head in.
—Henry Purdy’s on the line, Coach.
—Tell him to hold on.
The door closed. I knew who Henry Purdy was. He owned Purdy Motors, the most successful set of car dealerships in the state. Outside, in the parking spaces reserved for the coaches, sat a row of conspicuously new vehicles. Compact, minivan, SUV, or pickup truck, all of them sported a shiny silver decal that read PURDY MOTORS. In exchange for the cars, Coach Zeller appeared in commercials for the dealerships, presided over ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new stores, and always made sure to mention that Purdy Motors was a proud sponsor of this week’s episode of “Talk to the Throne.”
Zeller bit his lower lip, thinking.
—All right, he said. We’ll say your injury’s a lot worse’n we thought. Your ankle’s not sprained. It’s broken. Given—given the amount of time it would take you to recover, we decided to let you leave the team instead.
—Okay, I said. I can say that.
—Oh, you can? he asked sarcastically. Well then, I guess that’s what you’ll say.
There was a long, awful pause. He arched his eyebrows impatiently.
—Anything else? he asked.
—No sir.
—Then get outta my fuckin’ office.
. . .
That was the last thing Coach Zeller would ever say to me and the last time I’d ever step foot in the Hay, both of which I sensed then but wouldn’t fully grasp until later. Nothing, really, was registering as I limped across West Campus, and when I reached Mennee Hall I sat on the wooden bench in front of the dorm, stunned and numb. Classes were letting out, and I watched students spill onto the sidewalks—economics majors, class presidents, a capella captains, sorority sisters, pre-laws, post-baccs. There was a tank-topped girl whose bare right arm bore a papery burn scar from elbow to shoulder. A boy on a unicycle making silly, expert navigations around the flagstones’ pocks and ridges. All these bodies shouldering the sun, all these voices ringing, just as the chapel bells would ring later that afternoon. It was two o’clock, and when I realized the team would be gathering for meetings in fifteen minutes, I began to cry.
Once I collected myself, I texted Thao and asked him to come to West around nine. I wanted to see him, but not immediately. I went to my room and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. I tried to sleep, but mostly I stared at the tree shadows playing on the ceiling.
When I heard our lock turn a little after eight, I hurriedly swung myself off the mattress, not wanting Reshawn to find me sitting in bed, thinking this would seem presumptuous, somehow. He walked in with a Styrofoam box of food from Training Table—dinner he’d put together for me. I had the urge to hug him but stopped myself, afraid something like that might make him uncomfortable. I wanted, needed to hold on to my new idea of him, and I understood that this new idea—that he was my friend, the best one I had at King—would be permanently sullied if he did something like recoil at my touch. So I made do with gratefully accepting the box of food he handed me.
—When did you write the letter? I asked.
—While you and Thao went on that walk.
I opened the box. I hadn’t
