Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mallory’s student teaching kept her too far away for too long. Thank God for the key she gave me. I spent most nights at her place. When she wasn’t at her classes, she was at the bookstore or tutoring. I became the defacto cook on nights when I stayed over, and I made enough food that she’d have dinner when I wasn’t there. It was our little bit of domestic bliss. And bliss it was.
Baseball season officially started in a few weeks. Conditioning and practice took up much of my time. It felt great to get back to the game again. My knee was almost good enough to play. And that weighed on me. It shouldn’t have been, but the steroids helped me heal. That was the only reason I’d taken them. Not to be better, but to get better.
A week after classes kicked off, Coach Hummel called me into his office. Chuck slapped my shoulder and frowned.
“What?” I asked.
“Something’s up, Betts.” He nodded toward the closed door. “Did you see the athletic director go in about half an hour ago?”
“Yeah. So?” The hammer knocked inside my heart. But it wasn’t possible. There was no way they’d found out. No way I tested dirty. I’d followed Seth’s directions. I’d also done my own research. I stopped with plenty of time to get the ’roids out of my system.
“When was the last time you saw Ross down here?” Chuck shook his head. “Your nose better be clean.”
I nodded and turned away from my friend. Coach Hummel’s office was less than ten feet away, but I had suddenly developed tunnel vision. The door narrowed to the size of a pin and never seemed to get closer until I reached for it. Then it was a hundred feet tall.
Calm down, Aaron. It’s nothing. Ross probably just wants to check on my knee. The lump forming in my throat said different, but I had no choice. I opened the door.
Coach Hummel leaned back in his chair with his Westland hat tipped back on his head, so all the lines on his forehead were visible. The bookcase behind him had scouting reports stacked by school and position. Not that anybody could tell. Hummel’s organizational skills were the stuff of legend in the clubhouse.
He sat forward, waving me in with two fingers and pointing at the unoccupied chair in front of his desk.
“Have a seat, Betts. Dr. Ross and I have something to discuss with you,” Hummel said in his soft commanding voice. During the season, he’d usually punctuate any sentence with a spit of sunflower seed shells.
Ross turned to his left. His sharp profile and thick neck screamed “football player,” even for a guy in his late fifties. Dr. Ross also had the professor thing going. His dark hair discolored into white racing stripes above his ears. He turned toward Coach without saying a word, but his hands clenched the arms of his seat. In his past incarnation as a semipro noseguard, he would’ve snapped the cheap wood.
“What’s up, Coach?” I did my best to keep the tremor from my voice.
Hummel raised his eyebrows. “Something you want to tell us, son?”
I glanced between the two men. Hummel’s gaze never left my face, and Ross didn’t even bother with so much as a glimpse at me. Knowing the coach was on my side for whatever was going down, I looked him square in the eye and lied. “No. Why?”
“Mr. Betts, you took a drug screen before winter break, did you not?” Ross’s smooth timbre rolled through me until my toenails rattled.
I could only swallow and nod.
“The results came in this morning.” Coach Hummel leaned forward and put both elbows on his already coffee-stained calendar. “You tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone.”
The bottom didn’t drop out. It disappeared. Everything I’d worked so hard for was gone. Everything. There was no way I could hide this from Mallory.
“There’s an appeals process to go through.” Coach’s voice gurgled, sounding as if he was underwater.
“But it’s unlikely to change the results.” Ross finally faced me for the first time. His nostrils flared. “Clean out your locker, Betts. You’re done.”
“Now, wait a minute. He’s got the right to appeal. It’s possible they switched samples. Or they screwed up the results. Look how damned long it took the lab to get them over to us.” Hummel leaned back in his chair again and took off his cap. He threw it on the desk. “Tell me this is just a mistake, Aaron.”
I wanted to deny it. I needed to, but damned if I didn’t want to come clean, too. After everything that Mallory had told me about her family, the guilt of what I’d done just to play baseball weighed me down like cement shoes. I kept sinking further and further into the depths of the river of ’roids. Still, I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t give up. If I said it was a mistake, then she would have to believe me. But it would be another lie on top of the biggest one of all. What choice did I have?
“It has to be, Coach. I was taking prednisone for my knee. Maybe that’s what messed up the test.” The words rolled off my tongue and out of my mouth with far too much ease.
“Prednisone doesn’t cause a positive test, Betts,” Ross snapped.
Hummel’s shoulders fell as he visibly relaxed for the first time since I stepped into the room. “Good. That’s what I thought.” He shook his head and sighed. The doubt hovered in his eyes. I knew that look. It was the one thing he couldn’t hide. Coach had faith in his players to tell him when we were injured or mentally unable to play. If we lied, he’d give us the same stare he gave me now. “Something like that could destroy the baseball program here.”
“It still can.” Ross sneered at me. He was a notorious hard-ass on all athletes, but his reputation was on the line. Any positive test reflected poorly on the entire athletic department. And prospective students could accept scholarships elsewhere instead of playing for Westland. “You’re still suspended from any and all baseball activities until the appeal process is completed. If your appeal is denied, not only will you be unable to play baseball, but you’ll be expelled from this university. Am I making myself clear enough?”
“Yes, sir.” I had a few days to come up with a plan. On top of that, I had to keep my secret as quiet as possible. “What do we tell the guys?”
“I could give two shits what you tell the guys.” Ross stood abruptly and strode to the door. He buttoned his Armani jacket. “Get a good lawyer for the appeal, Betts. You’re going to need one.”
Ross slammed the door hard enough to rattle the filing cabinets. I cringed, not at the noise but at the last slap.
“He’s got a good point, son.” Coach Hummel leaned forward in his chair again. He loved doing that. “If there is any chance that you failed, tell me now. Ross is gone. Tell me you didn’t take anything.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. There wasn’t anything I could say to Coach without lying again. He didn’t deserve that. Ross could suck my left testicle for all I cared, but Coach Hummel deserved more respect.
“Jesus, Aaron. How fucking stupid can you be?” He slammed his hands on the desk. In the time I’d known him, he’d never raised his voice to any of his players. Until now. “What in the hell did you take? And where in the fuck did you get it?”
“HGH mostly. But I stopped taking it before Thanksgiving. It shouldn’t have…” My head dropped into my hands. God, I never wanted to admit to taking anything, and here I was spilling my guts. My chest heaved like a baby. “I swear to God, Coach, I only did it to heal faster, not to—”
“It doesn’t fucking matter why. It only matters that you did it.” His anger filled the air until it exploded, and everything on his desk flew off with one sweep of his arm. “Fuck. You’ve ruined this team. This school. Your fucking chances. Jesus H. Christ, get the fuck out of my office.”
“Coach—”
“I ain’t your coach anymore.” Hummel sat in his chair and glared at me.
“What about the appeals process?” I grasped for anything to keep my head above water. But I was drowning in my own shit.
“There ain’t going to be an appeals process, kid. I won’t lie for you.” His voice dropped to normal level, but with an added layer of exhaustion. “You made your bed.” He rubbed his face again. “You’ve got two days until I tell Ross.”
This couldn’t be it. I couldn’t be over. Everything I fought for, the very reason I took the damn injections, was baseball. “What about the draft? My future? You’re going to ruin—”
“I ain’t ruining shit, Betts.” He shook his head. “You did this. All of it. Quit school. Just drop out, and this can all be swept under the rug. If you don’t…”
He didn’t need to finish. If I dropped out, he could keep the real reason quiet. If I stayed and fought, everyone would know what I had done. If I stayed and fought, I’d lose. I nodded and stood. After taking in every bit of his office, I moved toward the door.
“I…I just wanted to play.”
“Yeah, greed will do that to you.” He shook his head. “And if any scouts come sniffing around here asking questions, I ain’t lying for you. Get out of here.”
Greed. The word ate at me. Was that why I shot up? As I headed toward my locker, I tried to keep my face expressionless. Coach calling me into his office was weird enough, but if I let even one little hint of trouble show on my face, the guys would be all over me. Most of them just stared. I smirked and flexed my arms. They smiled and went back to whatever bullshit they were doing. I dropped my gaze to the tile floor with gray grout, knowing I’d fooled them.
A hand clamped hard on my shoulder, squeezing the fingerprints of my assailant into my skin. I didn’t even have to look to know it was Chuck.
“What’s going on?” He kept his voice low enough nobody could hear a bit of our conversation. Not that I planned on giving him a conversation.
I shrugged him off my shoulder. “Nothing.”
The voices died down, and I chanced a glance around. The locker room emptied out. Rosenthal laughed, and I couldn’t help but think all of this shit I’d stepped in started with him. If he hadn’t fucking tripped me during that soccer game, I never would’ve torn my ACL. I never would’ve needed surgery. I never would’ve taken the steroids.
And I never would’ve met Mallory.
Just the thought of her crumbled my facade. I fell back into the door of my locker. The metal bit at my back, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt as bad as the expression I imagined on Mallory’s face when I told her the truth.
The hand clamped on my shoulder again. “What the fuck’s going on, Betts? You’re paler than a vampire in sunlight.”
I almost laughed. Almost.
Chuck guided me to the nearest bench and pushed me down. “Spill.”
The second to last person I wanted to tell the truth to was Chuck. I didn’t have to tell him a damn thing, but I needed to. Mallory wasn’t going to listen. Once I opened my mouth, she’d be gone. This was going to destroy her more than it would me. What was I losing? A baseball scholarship? Big fucking deal. Respect? Oh, yeah, that was gone. My degree? I’d get it somewhere else. A chance to go pro? There was a possibility I’d still get drafted, and I could always work to score a non-roster invite. But Mallory was going to lose something she’d only just gotten back. The ability to trust another person. I’d gotten her to trust me and I was going to rip it away.
My head fell in my hands, and I fucking started crying.
“Whoa,” Chuck said beside me.
“Whoa is a fucking understatement,” I said after I managed to grow my balls back. The bottom of my shirt became a snot rag, which was gross but necessary. “I screwed everything up, man.”
“Come on. It can’t be that bad.” The concern in Chuck’s voice was nice, but there was an underlying quiver. Like he knew it was indeed that bad.
“Bad enough that I’m leaving.” I gulped the guilt welling inside my throat and glanced at my friend. We met during our first team meeting freshman year. Chuck challenged me to a hitting contest. He lost, but not by much. I was going to miss him.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving? You’re quitting school?” He flexed his jaw as if trying to work out a particularly hard calculus problem. “You better start explaining yourself, Aaron, because this shit ain’t funny.”
“No, it’s not.” I paused, dropping my head to my chest and breathing deeply to build courage, but it didn’t work. My fingers wrung together, twisting and turning until the dry skin burned. Finally, I told myself this was a trial run for when I tell Mallory. Just rip the Band-Aid off. “I took something I shouldn’t have. If I drop out, Coach said he’ll sweep it under the rug. If I stay, Ross’ll let it ruin the team.”
Chuck didn’t say anything. The tension rolled off him, building to the point I almost had to get up. He beat me to it, though. His rapid stance shook the bench. I couldn’t face him. How could I? Chuck loved the team more than he loved his girlfriend. We had been in this together.
A locker slammed, open or closed, I had no clue. My eyes stayed fixed on my hands. Grunts and the occasional sound of clothes rustling were the only indicators he hadn’t left yet. A short silence ended when my duffel dropped at my feet, like a line in the sand with Chuck’s cleats on the other side.
“Go.” That one little word held a lifetime of disappointment.
I nodded, watching as his feet left my sight. The soft clack of the metal on cheap tile stopped.
“You know, Betts, everyone was right about you.” He paused, and I hoped he was done. “Do you know how many times I defended you when people called you a selfish ass? Stupid me. They were right all along.”
My head shot up, and I met his stare. “You don’t—”
Any calm Chuck had disappeared. “I don’t understand? You sit there and have the balls to pull that bullshit with me? Fuck you, Aaron.” He rushed toward me, pointing his finger like I was a button that wouldn’t work. “I don’t give a rat’s ass why you did it. And I don’t need to understand. The fact is you were willing to fuck everyone else’s lives up without giving a damn about the consequences.”
Each vein in his neck popped against the angry tint of his skin. I’d never seen Chuck this pissed. His hands balled into fists, the veins growing blue under the thin skin of his arms. The anger exploded, and he pulled back his fist and crushed it against my jaw. The pain that shot into my eye and down my neck was nothing compared to the boulder sitting in my chest.
“Get out of here.” Chuck clenched and unclenched his fist. “Get the fuck out of here before I do something worse.”
I grabbed my duffel and stood. It took all my self-control not to rub my jaw as I stood toe-to-toe with my friend. “If I could change things, I would.”
“Yeah, hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Chuck crossed his arms, and I was fairly certain it was only to prevent himself from breaking my nose.
“I really didn’t think…” The words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t explain exactly what I was thinking when I’d started taking the PEDs. It was irrelevant anyway. It was over.
“You didn’t think about anybody but yourself.” Chuck freed a hand and jammed it into my chest. “That’s the fucking problem.”
He turned and walked out the door toward the team. I took my last look at the clubhouse and glanced inside my own locker. My jerseys hung inside. The home white with Westland in cursive across the chest and the blue away with a golden hawk on the upper left were ready for a new season. They were the only things Chuck hadn’t tossed into my bag. I traced my fingers over each blue letter of my name and along the gold stitching of the four. Then I left them behind as I headed out the door.
All evidence of my PED use had been pitched from my room, but the memory of taking the pills and the injections hung in the air. They had since Mallory confessed her past.
The guilt over what I’d done overwhelmed me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I dropped my duffel and sat on the bed, wishing I could cry again like the wuss I was. I knew better. Coach was right. Greed ruled every action I’d taken. No matter what I’d told myself, it wasn’t about the game. It was about me being better than my father, doing what he’d failed at. It was about my plan, my goals. It was about me and nobody else. After about ten minutes of pity-party time, I stood and opened my trunk, throwing clothes inside. It took about two hours to pack up. There wasn’t any careful touch in it. I tossed shit in without looking at what was in my hand.
I pulled out the last drawer of my desk and dumped the contents on the bed. A white bottle with B-12 on the label stood out on the mattress. I picked it up and shook it. There were still pills inside. I opened the bottle and tapped a few into my hand. The oblong pills looked like any other vitamin I’d ever taken. But there was something carved into them. I pulled it closer to my eyes.
Why hadn’t I seen this before? That son-of-a-bitch.
The hall outside my room filled with the noise of my teammates. I pressed my ear to the door.
“Betts got sick?” someone asked.
“Yeah,” the distinct timbre of Chuck’s voice answered. To anyone else, it would’ve been Chuck being Chuck, but I heard the underlying tension vibrating that one word.
“Weird. He seemed fine before we hit the weights.” It sounded like that fuckwad Rosenthal. I wanted to open my door and beat the living shit out of him.
“Yep.”
I closed my eyes. It wasn’t Rosenthal’s fault. As much as I wanted to blame him, he didn’t stick the needle in my thigh. He didn’t hand me the pills.
But someone else had.
“Yo, Chuckie.” Seth’s voice rang in my ears like he stood just outside my door.
This time I didn’t hold back. I threw the door open and charged him. My fist felt the satisfying crunch of his jaw. His gaze met mine, and he knew. That fucker knew. In my gut, it hit me harder than a bowling ball to the head. That son of a bitch sold me out. I pulled back to hit him again, but somebody grabbed my arm. It took two other guys to pull me off Seth.
“What the fu—”
“Shut up, Seth!” I shrugged the guys off and jammed my finger in his chest. “It’s over.”
Seth rubbed his jaw. The bruise started forming instantly. “I don’t know what your problem is, Betts, but back the fuck off.”
I laughed, my voice cracking on the jumbled sound. “The hell you don’t.” I stepped back and held out my arm. “Tell them.”
He shook his head like he had no clue what I was talking about, but I saw the fear in his eyes. Fuck the baseball program. Fuck the school. It was then and there I decided the team needed to know. If it got out to everyone, it got out. I was done. And I was taking Seth down with me.
Closing my eyes, I cut open the vein. “Chuck’s covering for me. For the rest of you.” I glanced around at my teammates, guys who’d had my back when I hurt my knee, guys who’d helped me out while I recovered from my surgery. “I didn’t leave practice because I was sick. I left because I…” I swallowed hard. “I left because I failed a drug screen.”
First came the pale white faces of disbelief, then the red rush of anger.
“For what?” Devin Miller pushed in by Chuck.
“PEDs.”
Devin held my gaze while he let it sink in. “You cheated? I never thought—”
“I never thought I would, either. But it happened, and I’m gone.” I held up a hand to stop them from screaming at me. Then I held up the other with the bottle. “But Seth’s not. And he should be.” I met his glare. “He’s the one who sold me the PEDs.” I threw the bottle at him. It bounced off his chest. Barry picked it up and stared at the label. “And when I stopped buying, he gave me those ‘supplements’ to help out.”
The silence that descended equaled the sound of night in the middle of the field during winter. Not a peep from anyone or anything.
“Fuck you, Betts.” Seth snarled. Rage contorted his face and elevated his voice so the entire floor heard him. He had tunnel vision: me against him. Like it had been all along. I was just too stupid to believe it. “You never were better than me, just fucking luckier. Coach Hummel made a huge mistake thinking you were the savior leading us to the championship. I sacrificed everything for this team. And you got all the glory.”
“You’re supposed to be our friend. Our teammate. What the hell?” Barry asked, slamming into the group surrounding Seth. “How many people did you poison, Seth? How many lives did you decide to fuck with?”
Seth’s face fell, then the panic set in. He tried to push through the guys to get to his room, but they pushed him back. Chuck clasped my shoulder and stepped around me toward Seth.
I didn’t stay. It wouldn’t give me any satisfaction. It wouldn’t change the fact that I had to leave, that my college baseball career was over. Worse, it wouldn’t change what I had to do next.
My door was still open. I reached inside and grabbed the keys off my dresser.
Chuck blocked Seth’s door. Barry held Seth against the wall. A few of the other guys stood around with their arms crossed, looking every bit the intimidating nightclub bouncers they could become.
None of them noticed me or even glanced my way.
I turned toward the doors at the end of the hall and didn’t look back.