The Coaching Hours(35)
Coach glances up, searching the crowd for his daughter.
I watch the poor man do a double take.
Squint.
Read.
Read it again, lean forward, toss down his clipboard, and stalk toward Rex Gunderson. He grabs him by the shirt collar and points toward where Anabelle and I are standing, forcing Rex to read the sign. Pointing, jamming his fingers in our direction.
“Yeesh,” Anabelle mutters. “It looks like he’s about to have a heart attack.”
“That does look like a very likely scenario.”
She smacks me in the abs. “Oh shit. He’s coming over.”
Anabelle
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” My father stomps over, glaring at me, at the ridiculous sign. Rips it out of my hands and tosses it to the stadium floor, along with all the other garbage the students in our section have discarded.
“Hey! I worked really hard on that!”
“You think this shit is funny, Anabelle Juliet?” My dad is so pissed—but then again, what else is new? “You have two seconds to tell me exactly what the hell is going on. Then I’m going to drag Mr. Gunderson’s bony ass over here and you’re going to repeat it to him.”
I take a deep breath, Elliot standing beside me, one hand on the small of my back. “There’s something Gunderson and Eric Johnson needs to tell you.”
“That they’re gay?” he shouts over the noise, glancing back at Rex.
“What? No!” I laugh at my dad’s confusion. “I mean, maybe they are, who knows, but that is not the point I’m trying to make right now.”
“What is your point? If you’re going to come into my house—my arena—with that tasteless sign and cause a ruckus, you better have a damn good reason for it, young lady.”
My father’s bushy brows rise expectantly, eyes shifting between Elliot and me. Noticing the narrow space between our bodies, and our hands—they’re hanging at our sides but are almost touching. A palpable air of intimacy hangs between us.
“Get to the point, Anabelle—I have some skull-crushing to do in the locker room and not much time to do it.”
I open my mouth to tell him…
…and the whole story comes out.
The bet. Overhearing it at the gym. Crying in the library then going out and getting wasted. Elliot bringing me home, back to his place. Going on a fake date with Rex but not hating it.
He’s mad, but he listens, nostrils flaring out with his displeasure. Arms crossing, steam rising from his ears.
When I finish, he nods tersely, narrowed gaze sliding to a nervous Rex Gunderson, who didn’t have the balls to join us.
Two days later, we heard through one of my dad’s wrestlers that Rex had been fired as team manager, suspended for the remainder of the semester, and is no longer able to hold a job on campus. Eric Johnson lost his partial scholarship and eligibility to wrestle at any Division 1 school.
My feelings range from glad to guilty and every emotion in between, but that’s not what has been haunting me.
Elliot is finally graduating, the end of the semester looming above us like a storm cloud, shadowing us wherever we go. With every box he packs up, every call from his mom to find out when he’ll be home, it becomes more real.
Everything about us has been too easy. Everything about him is too constant and good. He’s handsome and funny and makes me feel…
He makes me feel…
I glance up at him from my spot at the library table with an unsteady smile, pen poised above a notebook. When he notices my eyes welling up, he’s quick to reach across the table and brush away the tears with his thumb.
And tonight, after we make love, he’ll hold me with his strong, steady arms. It’ll make me feel better, for a few moments.
Until it’s time for me to let him go.
Anabelle
“What are your plans this summer?”
I can’t meet his eyes as he hefts a large box, carrying and setting it next to the door. Elliot’s pile of boxes is growing, stacked in the living room.
The semester is over and he’s packed up, ready to leave, a summer internship already waiting for him a few states over.
“Work.” I shuffle my bare feet. “I’ll probably try to see my mom for at least a week or two in Massachusetts. She’ll expect a visit since it’s been an entire semester, making me basically the world’s crappiest daughter.”
“You’re hardly the crappiest.” He laughs. “I’m sure there are worse daughters in the world.”
I don’t know what to say next, so I go with, “Thank you for leaving the couch—it would suck having to sit on the floor.”
“No problem. It’s not like I could have taken it with me anyway.”
Everything he’s taking along on his journey has to fit in his car, and it’s not much. Just a few boxes, his bedding, computer, and toiletries from the bathroom.
“As it is, I only have room for a few more boxes, so…” Those mammoth hands of his get stuffed deep into the pockets of his cargo shorts.
I look around, surveying the landscape. The bare walls, the nearly empty rooms. “What about your TV?”
He hasn’t taken that out of his room yet.
“I’m leaving it for you.”
“Jeez, Elliot, I’m not keeping your TV.”
“Anabelle, can you not make a big production out of it? You can have my bed and the TV and you won’t have to sleep in that shitty twin anymore.”
“It’s not a shitty twin! It’s just tiny.”
Since I have one more year of school before graduation, I’m staying, in this town and in this house. Who knows, I might even find myself a roommate to rent out my old room.
“So this is it, huh? You’re doing it.”
Packing up and moving to Michigan.
“It’s really not that far.”
Six hours and forty-three minutes, or an hour-and-forty-five-minute flight…not that I Googled it or anything.
“No. It’s not that far I guess. I’m excited for you.”
But not for myself. I’m going to miss him, going to lose a bit of myself when he finally turns and walks out that door for the last time.
“We can text and follow each other on social media.”
“Great.”
“You don’t seem excited.”
That’s because I’m not! I want to shout. I’m devastated you’re leaving! My best friend is leaving to create a new life for himself, one that doesn’t include me.
“I’m excited, of course I am, don’t be silly. I’m just…I don’t know, Elliot. I’m pouting. Don’t even listen to me, okay? Don’t let me ruin your day.”
“Ruin my day? Do you think I’m happy about this?”
Then stay!
Stay and finish your education here.
I hang my head, unable to look him in the eyes, afraid of what I’ll see there. “I’m just being selfish.”
“It’s not selfish, Anabelle. It just means you care.”
A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow it painfully when he adds, “You’ve been a really good friend to me.”
“Friends.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted—to be friends.”
“Of course I do! But I already have enough friends, even if most of them aren’t in Iowa, and now you’ll be long-distance, too.” Outside, cars drive slowly down the street. The sounds of the students a few houses down can be heard as they haul furniture to their curb. “You have to give me time to adjust, okay? I already miss you and you’re standing right in front of me.”
“Give you time? Time for what?”
“I’m losing someone I was just starting to, you know…love.”
“You don’t think I feel the same way?”
“As a friend? Of course.”
“No, Anabelle, I love you—I do.”
Why is he telling me this now, after all these months? Is he trying to destroy every piece of my already breaking heart?
“You love me?” I struggle to get the words out.
“Of course I do.”
“But you’re leaving, so tell me this… what difference does it make? Go chase your dream, Elliot.”
There’s an entire lifetime ahead of us.
“Anabelle, you know I have to move. Michigan has one of the best post-grad programs for kinesiology in the country, and I’m lucky to have been accepted. You just transferred, so I can’t ask you to come with me. We practically just met.”
“I know,” I answer miserably.
He steps forward, cupping my chin in his hands. “You’re so close to graduation yourself.”
“I wish you’d stop telling me things I already know.” I try to look away, but he won’t let me.
“It sucks, but it’s for the best. You’re going to graduate, and I’m going to get my master’s, and I’ll come visit every once in a while when I can. I just don’t see how long-distance can work right now.”
“It’s fine, Elliot. You already said you weren’t ready for a relationship and I respect that. I won’t pressure you. I’m mature enough to be okay with this. So, you can leave, and go with a clear conscience.” I falter, swallowing. “We’ll both miss each other, but we’ll get over it.”
Life goes on.
“Eventually, right?” His voice wavers. Shakes.