Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1)(70)
Swim.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Andie
BY THE TIME our bus arrived at the stadium, I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. I trailed after my team, fidgeting in the awkward pantsuit I had to wear. I’d specifically asked Coach Decker if I could dress out with the team, but she’d insisted on the suit, probably because she assumed it would keep me from running onto the field midgame.
There was a cluster of reporters hovering outside the back entrance of the stadium. Kinsley and Becca huddled around me and helped me block my face from their camera flashes. I had my earbuds in and my music blaring so that even if they had shouted inappropriate questions, I couldn’t hear them. I followed my team into the locker room and set down my bag. There were pregame interviews I had to get through, but Kinsley assured me they would keep the focus on soccer.
She was wrong.
I stepped up behind the small podium and glanced out at the reporters standing and waiting to ask their questions. Before the first two games, there’d been three or four reporters there. I counted a dozen that day before Coach Decker stepped forward and announced that I would be answering questions for five minutes, “so please keep it brief.”
“Andie!”
“ANDIE!”
“Foster!”
I pointed to a short balding man in the back row.
“Do you have any response to the allegations made against you this morning concerning the affair with Frederick Archibald?”
I opened my mouth, stunned.
“Andie! When did you and Frederick start the affair? Were you two together prior to arriving for the games?”
My resolve was cracking with each question they slung my way. They didn’t care about soccer or my injury. They wanted to know every sordid detail of my “affair” with Freddie.
Liam stepped forward and yanked the mic across the podium. “Unless anyone has a question pertaining to the game today or Andie’s injury, I’ll be ending this interview right now.”
One long, thin hand reached up into the air. I followed the lanky arm down to a head of curly red hair and inhaled sharply as Sophie Boyle stood up with a commanding smile.
“I’ve got a question, Andie. Now that your injury will preclude you from participating in the remainder of the games, why exactly are you still in Rio?” Her eyes narrowed. “Hmm…surely you’d find better doctors and treatment back home in Los Angeles?”
Her question wasn’t about Freddie, but it might as well have been. The other reporters jumped on board.
“Are you staying in Rio because of Freddie!?”
They couldn’t help themselves. Even after Liam’s threat, the reporters clamored over one another to shout their questions about Freddie. Liam signaled for me to leave. I hadn’t uttered a single word and somehow, I felt like I’d just dug myself a foot deeper. Was staying quiet about an alleged affair just as bad as owning up to it? Was that what Freddie and I had been the last two weeks? An affair?
The second I was out of view from the press, I lost it. I dug my hand into my hair to keep the shouts lodged deep down in my throat. I wanted to curse and punch and yell my way out of the situation. I wanted to call Caroline out for being a conniving bitch and I wanted to prove to the world that even if I did have an illicit relationship with Freddie, it didn’t define me. I was still a good soccer player, regardless of what I did off the field.
My life had gone to shit and I couldn’t see a way to fix it. Freddie was supposed to be a fling. He brought out something in me that was exhilarating and sexy. But this? Dealing with a media frenzy and trying to defend my character to the entire world was never part of the plan.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I ripped at the collar of my blazer, trying to fill my lungs with air. The corners of my vision grew fuzzy and I pinched my eyes closed, willing the panic attack to pass.
“Andie, are you okay?”
Liam was standing there, holding my shoulders against the wall and trying to get my attention.
“Andie.”
I shook my head. “I can’t…f*ck, this thing is too tight.”
I ripped off my blazer.
“Focus on the game, Andie. Not the press. Not anything else.”
I still couldn’t catch my breath. My chest burned with the struggle.
“I just wanted to be a soccer player,” I said, hearing the words through a distorted tunnel. “I’ve chased this dream my entire life and now everything is ruined.”
He shushed me. “Trust me, Andie. It’s not over. These situations always seem like they’ll last forever, but the media will move on when they realize the story isn’t half as interesting as they thought it was. Just get better, kick ass on the field, and make your success a bigger story. This will all be over before you know it.”
He was lying because he wanted to make me feel better. He was scared that I couldn’t breathe and he was saying anything to calm me down; I knew better though. Even after I’d dried my tears—for the tenth time that day—and pushed myself off that wall, I knew my life as I’d known it before Freddie was over. I would never again be Andie Foster, Cinderella of the Olympics.
I was now Andie with a scarlet A.
WATCHING MY TEAM take the field without me was absolute torture. I reclined on the bench and crossed my arms as my teammates prepared to compete. Erin, a seasoned vet, was taking my spot in the goal, but this would be her first cap in years. I’d earned the starting position from her because of my speed and agility, and though she’d served as my mentor, there was still an air of saltiness.