Nets and Lies(10)

Will began tinkering with the computer as I gathered up my things and went inside the bathroom. I didn’t bother looking in the mirror. After all, I would’ve had to fight the urge to scream at my appearance. And I wasn’t just being dramatic.

No, there was so much more.

Slowly, I peeled my clothes off. And then one stolen glance at the inside of my practice shorts sent me over the edge. I tried reasoning that it wasn’t just the shorts. I mean, I’d been teetering on the brink for an hour now. It might have been the sheer force of trying to keep my sanity in check—to block what had happened out of my mind—or to swear on my life that I would never admit it had happened.

But deep down I knew it was the shorts that sent me truly over the edge. The ones marked blood red with evidence of what had transpired on the futon in Coach T’s office.

I snatched the towel off the rack and buried my face in it. Muffled sobs reverberated against the terry cloth fabric. Defeated, I slunk into the shower. With the water pounding in the stall, my screams and sobs were drowned out. I slid down the side of shower tile, letting the water scald me. Even as splotches of red blotted my skin, I never turned away. It soothed something deeply troubled within me.

Biting into the towel, I choked off my cries. I fought to find anything or anyone else to blame for what happened. I cursed the stupid rack because it had messed up my entire night. Without it, I would have never been left alone in the gym with him. He would have never had the opportunity.

Everything I’d fought to suppress in the last hour came flashing back into my mind—as electric and dangerous as the heat storms we had in the summer. Suddenly, I was no longer in my bathroom.

I was in Coach T’s office.

My head throbbed, and I reclined on the futon in the corner. A long eternity seemed to have stretched by since Coach T had ushered all my teammates out the door. They’d been hanging around to make sure I was okay. He reassured them I was fine, and they should get on home.

Something cold pressed against my forehead and caused me to jump. When my eyes met Coach T’s, he laughed. “Easy Mel, it’s just an ice pack.”

“Oh, thanks.” I took it from him.

“That was quite a bump on the head,” he said, as he sat down beside me.

“Must’ve been. I don’t even remember coming to your office.”

“You didn’t. After you got hit by the shelf and pump, I found you sprawled out in the floor and brought you in here.”

It was then that I wanted to crawl under the futon and die of embarrassment. The thoughts of him picking me up were completely mortifying. My face flushed. “Oh God, that’s right. I remember you carrying me now.”

He laughed at my expression. “It’s okay, Mel. It’s not like you gave me a hernia or something!”

“No, it’s not okay,” I moaned. “It’s totally humiliating!”

“Just to you it is,” he replied, turning back to his desk.

“Ugh, I bet the team is going to give me crap tomorrow about being such a spaz.”

“You aren’t a spaz. I’ve been asking the Booster Club to repair that shelf for years. It could have happened to anyone.”

“But it happened to me,” I countered.

Spinning around in his seat, Coach T said, “We’re lucky that Coach Murray was still here to check you over. I was just thankful you weren’t going to need an ambulance.”

It was then I remembered the burly face of Coach Murray, one of the trainers for the football team who had once been an EMT, bending over me while I was still lying on the floor of the athletic closet.

I sighed with relief. The last thing I would have wanted was the big production of the ambulance being called with all the sirens and flashing lights. That would have been a nightmare!

I leaned forward. Even though there was no window on his office door, I knew it had to be late, so I started to stand up. “I guess I better get going.”

Coach T rose from his chair to place a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know about that. I think you’re still too woozy to be driving.”

“Um, I guess so,” I murmured. Slowly, I eased back down. As he joined me on the futon, his hand lingered on me, his fingertips feathering back and forth on my bare arm.

I shifted the ice pack. When I did, I found Coach T staring at me. “W-what?” I stammered, embarrassed by the intensity of his stare. “Oh God, is my head already swelling?”

He laughed. “Nope. But it should because you’re just so damn beautiful.”

“No, I’m not.”

He shook his head. “That’s what I love about you, Mel. You’re so unaware of how beautiful and alluring you are.”

“You must be thinking of my sister, Natalie. She’s the alluring one, not me.”

He brought his hand to my cheek. His thumb traced a line from my cheekbone to my ear. “Trust me, Mel, I’ve been with a hell of a lot of women, so I know beautiful when I see it.”

Heat once again rose in my cheeks at the reference to his sex life. Coach T mistook my reaction. “You don’t have to blush when you’re given an honest to goodness compliment. You are beautiful, Melanie. I mean, you were this brace-faced, awkward little mouse of a thing when you first walked in my gym four years ago. Talent out the ass, but so unsure of yourself.” He laughed. “Well, maybe you still are unsure of yourself. But, four years later you’ve grown to be one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen.”