A Very Large Expanse of Sea(58)

“You end this, young lady,” he said to me. “End it right now.”

I really wanted to tell him to go to hell, but the truth was, he kind of scared me. He seemed violently angry in a way I’d never experienced alone in a room with an adult. The door was closed. I felt like I had no power. Like I couldn’t trust him.

But this little chat had made things clearer for me.

Coach Hart was a complete asshole, and the more he screamed at me, the angrier I became. I didn’t want to be bullied into making such a serious decision. I didn’t want to be manipulated, not by anyone. In fact, I was beginning to believe that walking away from Ocean now, at a time like this, would be the greatest act of cowardice. Worse, it would be cruel.

So I refused.

And then his coach told me that if I didn’t break up with him, that he would make certain that Ocean was not only kicked off the team but expelled for gross misconduct.

I said I was sure Ocean would figure it out.

“Why are you so determined to be stubborn?” Coach Hart shouted, his eyes narrowed in my direction. He looked like someone who screamed a lot; he was a stocky sort of guy with an almost permanently red face. “Let go of this,” he said. “You’re wasting everyone’s time, and it won’t even be worth it in the end. He’s going to forget about you in a week.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I go now?”

Somehow he went redder. “If you care about him,” he said, “then walk away. Don’t destroy his life.”

“I honestly don’t get why everyone is this upset,” I said, “over a stupid game of basketball.”

“This is my career,” he said, slamming the table as he stood up. “I’ve dedicated my entire life to this sport. We have a real shot at the playoffs this season, and I need him to perform. You are an unwelcome distraction,” he said, “and I need you to disappear. Now.”

I hadn’t realized, as I walked home from school that day, how far this craziness would go. I hadn’t realized that his coach would be so determined to make this go away—to make me go away—that he’d actually be willing to hurt Ocean in the process. Here, with enough space between myself and his screaming coach, I was able to process the situation a little more objectively.

And, honestly, the whole thing was starting to freak me out.

It wasn’t that I thought Ocean wouldn’t recover from being kicked off the team; it wasn’t even that I thought I couldn’t tell Ocean what his coach had said to me, that he’d basically threatened me into breaking up with him. I knew Ocean would believe me, that he’d take my side. What scared me most, it turned out, weren’t the threats. It wasn’t the abusive rhetoric, the blatant xenophobia. No, what scared me most was that— I guess I just didn’t think I was worth it.

I thought Ocean would wake up, dizzy and destabilized by this emotional train wreck to discover that it hadn’t been worth it, actually; that I hadn’t been worth it. That he’d lost his chance to be a great athlete at a peak moment in his high school career and that, as a result, he’d lost his chance at playing basketball in college, at one day playing professionally. If this shitshow was to be believed, Ocean was good enough to be all this and more. I’d never seen him play—which seemed almost funny to me now—but I couldn’t imagine that so many people would be this upset if Ocean weren’t really, really good at putting a ball in a basket.

I felt suddenly scared.

I worried that Ocean would lose everything he’d ever known—everything he’d been working toward since he was a kid—only to discover that, eh, I wasn’t even that great, in the end. Bad deal.

He would resent me.

I was sixteen, I thought. He was seventeen. We were just kids. This moment felt like an entire lifetime—these past months had felt like forever—but high school wasn’t the whole world, was it? It couldn’t have been. Five months ago I never even knew Ocean existed.

Still, I didn’t want to walk away. I worried he’d never forgive me for abandoning him, especially not now, not when he told me every day that this hadn’t changed anything for him, that he’d never let their hateful opinions dictate how he lived his life. I worried that if I walked away he’d think I was a coward.

And I knew I wasn’t.

I looked up, suddenly, at the sound of a car horn. It was relentless. Obnoxious. I was halfway down a main street, walking along the same stretch of sidewalk I followed home every day, but I’d been lost in my head; I hadn’t been paying attention to the road.

There was a car waiting for me up ahead. It had pulled over to the side and whoever was driving would not stop honking at me.

I didn’t recognize the car.

My heart gave a sudden, terrifying lurch and I took a step back. The driver was waving frantically at me, and only the fact that the driver was a woman gave me pause. My instincts told me to run like hell, but I worried that maybe she needed help. Maybe she’d run out of gas? Maybe she needed to borrow a cell phone?

I stepped cautiously toward her. She leaned out of her car window.

“Wow,” she said, and laughed. “It’s really hard to get your attention.”

She was a pretty, older blond lady. Her eyes seemed friendly enough, and my pulse slowed its stutter.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Did your car break down?”