Chapter Four
After a few days, Jess cornered me in the dorm room while I sat in front of the TV, studying History and half-watching an episode of Bones. “Something is up with you,” she said, sitting down in a chair nearby without preamble. “Spill it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, shrugging and pulling my history textbook closer to me. There were so many battles to remember — so many dates in the Civil War — I despaired of ever keeping them all straight in my head for the final. I highlighted something that was totally irrelevant, shaken slightly by Jess’ opening.
“Oh come off it already, Evie. Anyone who knows you even a little bit could tell you’re off your feed. What’s wrong? Did you get a C on something?”
I smiled slightly, pushing my hair away from my face and setting my textbook aside. It was clear Jess wasn’t going to leave me alone until she got an answer to her question.
“No, I haven’t gotten any bad grades,” I said, looking at the TV rather than at her. “I will hopefully have an A in everything except stats, and I’m more than happy to scrounge a B in that infernal class.”
Jess laughed. “Okay, so then what is it? Because every time I see you you’ve got this gloomy look on your face like someone is holding your puppy ransom.”
I rolled my eyes. “I just…okay. Fine. So, here’s the thing.” I took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing Zack for a while. A couple of weeks. It’s no big deal or anything, but it sort of has me… confused, I guess?”
Jess raised an eyebrow.
“So let me get this straight: the cute QB who you told me is now apparently great in bed, who proclaimed his love for you in front of half of the student body, just brushed you off?”
I shook my head.
“Not…exactly.” I looked down at my lap and picked at lint balls on the blanket I’d spread over myself, twisting my lips into a grimace. “See, I’m…I’m the one who’s not seeing him. Not the other way around.”
“What? Why the hell not? He didn’t like, try and do something gross, did he?”
I shook my head, my cheeks burning. I sighed, deciding I would have to tell Jess the whole story; I owed it to her.
“So after Zack and I had sex…when I got back from classes, there was this guy hanging out outside of our dorm.” Jess’ eyes widened. “It was one of Zack’s teammates — one of the tackles, I guess. I don’t know if he was offense or defense. But he told me I shouldn’t hang out with Zack anymore, or have anything to do with him.” I rolled my eyes.
“What an asshole! Did he tell you why?”
I shook my head. “No, just said that even though we didn’t really know each other, he’d consider it a personal favor. I don’t know what he was thinking.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands. “Anyway, I told him to get the hell out of the dorm before I called one of the RAs. He left but it got me to thinking — I was really kind of letting things go too fast with Zack anyway.”
“Well, I mean, a date and sex twice — that’s not really that fast.”
“But we have history,” I insisted. “I was already…I mean, look: I wasn’t like, planning our wedding or anything, but he was already starting to be a distraction, and I guess I sort of figured I was a distraction for him, too — otherwise why would one of his teammates hang out like a creeper at my door to ask me not to have anything to do with him?”
Jess shrugged. “Maybe the guy knows there’s a case of herpes raging through the locker room and doesn’t want you to get it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It wouldn’t be a favor to him, then, would it? He’d be doing me a favor.” Jess shrugged and nodded, conceding the point. “Anyway, I decided to sort of put Zack and me on hold for a bit.”
“Ah, so that’s why he was in here the other day looking for you. I just sort of figured he was really horny and you weren’t in any of your usual haunts.”
I rolled my eyes. “I kind of…didn’t tell him, exactly.” I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment at how poorly I’d handled the situation. “I answered the first text he sent me saying I was busy and couldn’t hang out but after that I just sort of…didn’t answer.”
Jess sucked her teeth, grimacing. “I know you’re not exactly one for confrontation, Evie,” she said, her voice sounding only slightly disapproving, “But man, that’s not the way to go. You should have just said ‘Zack, I think we should take a break.’ Or something.”
“But he’d want to know why and I’d be kind of a bitch to tell him one of his teammates came to try and talk me out of having anything to do with him, right?”
“Well yeah, but it’s more of a bitchy move to just ignore the poor guy.” She made a face, thinking for a moment. Her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit — you had to cover the game and interview the coach! How did that go?”
I bit my bottom lip, remembering all too well how it went. “He saw me coming onto the field to do the post-game interview and came over, asking if I needed a quote from him.” My cheeks burned as I remembered the way he’d called out that he wouldn’t even make me go on another date with him for it. “I just sort of…ignored him and went right to the coach.” I twisted my lips, feeling ashamed of myself. “I’m kind of a bitch, aren’t I?”
Jess laughed. “If you really were a bitch, you wouldn’t be asking that question like it’s the worst thing you could be.” She went into the mini fridge we kept in the common area and took out a bottle of water for each of us. “Okay, so this dude shows up and tries to convince you to stop seeing Zack. You tell him to go to hell, but when you think about it you decide it’s probably a good idea after all.” I nodded. “So when Zack tries to hook up, you basically put him on ice, because it’s too hard to explain everything that’s going on.”
“Basically, yeah. I probably should have asked you for advice first, huh?”
“Yeah. Live and learn. So, Zack gets all worked up and then gives up because, of course he does…and then at the game he nearly blows it.”
“Oh come on, that can’t be my fault. There were a whole bunch of mistakes and things that happened, and that other team was just looking for an opportunity to score on us.”
Jess shrugged. “Well yeah, but where did the mistakes come from? Like was it the whole team, or was it Zack?”
I thought about what I saw in the course of the game. The team itself had been disorganized, confused — Zack wasn’t where he was supposed to be, he was slow, and he didn’t get the ball where it needed to be at the right moment.
“It was…okay, so it was mostly Zack.” I sighed. “But come on, that can’t be my fault. Zack was probably feeling the pressure.”
“You tell me: when he played in high school, was he the kind of guy to crack under pressure?” I picked at the blanket, not wanting to admit what was apparently already clear to Jess.
“No,” I said reluctantly. “He lives for pressure. He thrives on it. At least he did in high school.” Jess smiled slowly.
“I don’t know why you’re so down about it. The verdict is clear: Zack plays better when you’re in the picture. Without you he’s all distracted and stupid.”
“He’s pretty stupid, generally,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
Jess laughed. “Well yeah, but you saw how he played. It’s obvious he can’t function properly without you.”
I rolled my eyes even though I was still smiling, my cheeks warm at the thought of Zack being unable to function properly without me. But then my pleasure at the thought came crashing down.
“If that’s true,” I said slowly, feeling guilt tugging at my stomach. “Then I’ve totally screwed him up.”
Jess shrugged. “Well, so then fix it. Shouldn’t be hard.”
I groaned, rolling my eyes. “How am I supposed to fix it? Run up to him and make out with him in the quad?”
Jess laughed. “Well that’s one way. But probably you should at least explain to him what’s going on, give him a chance to understand why you acted the way you did.”
“What if he hates me?”
“I mean, if he hates you it’s because of what you already did — not much you can do about that.” I had to acknowledge that was true. “You know you’re going to be miserable until you go back to him and at least try to explain things.”
I looked at my history textbook. “You’re right. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Jess giggled, taking her bottle of water with her back into her room.