Chelsea stared at her laptop, trying to figure out what to say. Her fingers felt twice their usual size, like she wouldn’t be able to type at all, but this had to be done, no matter how embarrassed she was or reluctant to do it.
Might as well start typing—she could always go back and edit later.
Dear Dean Simmons,
Thank you for the letter you sent addressing my recent drop in grades. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I could pretend and try to offer up some excuse, but the truth of the matter is, I haven’t been the kind of student I should have been, and certainly not the kind of student you hoped I would be when you offered me my scholarship. I haven’t even been the kind of athlete you hoped for, as my recent surgery has shown.
I’ve recently realized that I need to stop pushing myself so hard, and that I will only excel when I can do it at my own pace. I would like to come in to the office and discuss cutting back my class hours. I realize I might be forfeiting my scholarship if I do that, but perhaps that’s best anyway. There are so many deserving students out there who could benefit from that money, and it might be right to turn my allowance over to one of them while I continue to figure out the journey I need to take.
I’m out of town at the moment, but I will call and set up an appointment before the next semester starts so we can have a plan for my continued education. By then, I should also have a clearer idea about my recovery. I might need to take more time off to heal, and I’m sending a note to Coach Barkdull about that in a moment. I want to be very straightforward about where I am mentally and physically so our plan is logical and fair.
Thank you for the time you’ve invested in me. I appreciate it, as well as all the effort and faith.
Chelsea McAllister
She read it over a time or two, rearranged some words, changed a comma, changed it back, and finally hit send. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. She was saying what needed to be said, words that came from a genuine place in her heart, words that weren’t used to being spoken. She realized that she was afraid of being mocked or being called lazy or being told she was ungrateful for everything she’d been given, and in that same moment, she realized that she had to push forward against that fear. If she wanted a life that was truly her own, she had to create it and stand up for it and defend it.
She sat back and pressed her shaking fingers together, trying to still them. She had no doubt that she’d done the right thing. Now to see what came next.
***
Joey walked up to the Copper Cabin, put his right foot on the bottom step, changed his mind, and walked away. Then he turned around and went back, this time staring up at it.
He felt someone walk up beside him. It was Amber, Wes’s wife, and she stared up at the cabin with him. After a moment, she whispered, “What are we waiting for it to do?”
“I’m trying to get up my courage to knock on the door,” he replied.
“That’s it?” She sounded disappointed. “I thought it was going to sprout wings or something. You got my hopes up for nothing. Knocking’s easy. See?” She ran up the stairs, knocked, and ran back down them. “It’s everything that happens afterward that’s the hard part. You’ve got this.” She winked as she walked away.
Joey shook his head. She was so . . . Amber sometimes.
And then the door opened, and he swallowed. “Hi, Chelsea.”
“Hi. Thanks for giving me a minute to get off the couch. This knee wrap still kind of slows me down.”
Oh, good. So she hadn’t been watching him through the window, wondering what he was doing. That would have been plenty embarrassing.
She invited him in, and they sat down. Joey had no idea how to begin this conversation. Maybe he should have asked Amber to come in with him, since she was so gung ho about overcoming fears and stuff.
“Chelsea, listen,” he said after a long moment of awkward silence. “There are so many things bouncing around in my head right now, so many things I want to say and ask and clear up, and I’m a little worried that if I don’t say them right now, I might not get another chance. I have no idea what tomorrow’s going to bring, or the day after that, and right this minute is all we really have.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide and solemn. “All right. I’m listening, Joey.”
He got up and walked over to the fireplace. He couldn’t seem to hold still. “I need to know why you broke up with me when you transferred schools. You weren’t that far away—we could have had a long-distance relationship and seen each other on breaks.”
She didn’t answer for a long minute, and he turned around to see her wiping her eyes. “I broke up with you because I hated myself,” she whispered.
“I don’t understand.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “The scholarship. That stupid, stupid scholarship. I accepted it because it would give my parents something more to brag about, and I knew you had nothing—no way to pay for school at all. I couldn’t handle the guilt of it.”
“But you said yourself that they weren’t there to give scholarships to the guys. You didn’t take anything away from me—we weren’t in direct competition.”
“See, I knew that logically, but at the time, I had stolen from you. Or at least, you were the symbol of other deserving students, and I stole from them. Don’t you see? That money should have gone to someone else, but I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted them to love me. I threw people under the bus to win my parents’ love.” She wiped her cheeks with both hands. “It was cruel and selfish. I should have turned down that scholarship and asked that they look for someone else.”
Joey was trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing, but it was still confusing. “So you broke up with me because you felt guilty. Didn’t that make you feel even more guilty?”
“No. In a way, it felt like justice. If I was going to be that selfish, then I didn’t deserve to be with someone as unselfish as you are.”
Joey shook his head. “That’s just . . . that’s just so not right, Chelsea. We learn to be unselfish by watching the actions of unselfish people, not by throwing them out of our lives.”
“I know that now,” she said. “You have no idea how many thoughts and feelings and realizations I’ve had over the last twenty-four hours, Joey. If I could go back and fix my life from top to bottom, believe me, I would. There’s so very little that I’m proud of. I would give back every trophy and every medal if I could be a kinder person. My priorities were so messed up that I couldn’t see what was real, what was important. I had no balance, no understanding of what it meant to have a life outside of the pool. I wish I could change all of it. Especially how I treated you.”
Joey didn’t know how to reply for a minute. He could hear the anguish in her words, and he didn’t want her to feel that pain. At the same time, he was almost glad to hear it because he knew it meant that she was ready to change, and those changes were going to be beautiful. They would allow her to be the person he’d always seen on the inside, the real butterfly that had been trapped inside the cocoon for too long.
“The night of the meet, I was going to give you this,” he said at last, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring. “It’s not a diamond—it’s a promise ring. I wanted you to know how I felt, that I wanted to marry you as soon as we were able to. It was in my pocket when you called me. And I carried it in my pocket for a long, long time after you left.”
“May I see it?” she asked, holding out her hand, her fingers trembling.
His were trembling nearly as much when he gave it to her. “It’s not much,” he said, wanting her to understand that. “It’s not anything like what you deserved.”
“I think it’s beautiful.” She turned it around, studying it from all sides. “Rose gold and white gold vines intertwined.”
“I thought you’d like it. It’s unique, like you are.”
“I do like it, but I’m not sure I could have appreciated it. I keep trying to tell you, Joey—I have been a prideful, selfish person, but you’ve never believed that of me. Why can’t you just believe it?”
“Because I can see the real you,” he said simply. “And the real you isn’t that way.” He took the ring and put it back in his pocket. “I need to leave—we’re taking off early tomorrow, and if I don’t get some sleep, I won’t be of any use to anyone. But I want you to think about what I said, all right? And I’ll think about what you said, and when I get back, we’ll talk more.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. “All right?” he asked again.
“All right,” she replied, smiling up at him.
He carried that smile out the door with him as he left.