fingerprints left on my arms, I knew that I had to do something more than passively erase voice mails. As much as I didn’t want to see him, I knew I had to look him in the eye, hand him those diamond earrings, and tell him never to contact me again. I hated the idea of burning bridges, terminating a long-standing friendship, but I didn’t see any other way.
Deep down, though, I found myself wondering if I would be so unwavering without Coach as my safety net. What if he hadn’t come over last night and confided his feelings? Would I still be deleting Ryan’s messages? Or would I be slowly caving, rationalizing, paving the way to give him one more chance, and maybe one after that? Would I be telling myself that we were still on that slippery slope? That everyone makes mistakes and deserves forgiveness? Would I be anointing myself as his savior, telling myself I could do what Blakeslee could not?
My phone rang again. I felt a wave of anger as I reached for it on the bed next to me, relieved to see that it was only Lucy. I wasn’t ready to talk to her, but I answered, knowing that she deserved an update.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said. Her voice was so warm and nurturing that I went from not wanting to talk to feeling desperate to tell her everything. Almost everything.
“Where are you?” I said.
“In the car with Neil and Caroline. Where are you?”
“In bed.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, of course alone … Can you come over?” I said, before I lost my resolve to confide in her—at least all the parts about Ryan.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll just drop them off first … Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just need to talk …”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
We hung up, and I took a deep breath. Then I called Coach, who answered on the first ring.
“Good morning,” I said, fleetingly worried that I had overblown the best parts of last night.
But then he said, “Yes, it is a good morning,” and, instantly, I felt better.
“Undefeated regular season,” I said.
“Yep. But it won’t mean anything without one more win,” he said, as I realized that he had already turned the page, gone from celebration to preparation.
“Did you go to church?” I asked.
“Nope. Slept in. I think I dreamed about you … And I never dream. At least I never remember my dreams.”
“Oh?” I said. “And what happened in your dream?”
“We sat on your sofa … I held your hand in mine … We talked.”
I smiled my first smile of the day. “Did we kiss?”
He laughed and said, “Almost. We came very close.”
I hugged my knees, curling up into a tighter ball under my blanket, listening to the silence crackle on the line. Then he cleared his throat and asked if I’d heard from Ryan.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I haven’t talked to him. He’s just left a bunch of messages.”
“And what’s he have to say for himself?” Coach said.
“About what you’d expect. That he’s sorry … That it won’t happen again.” I hesitated, then added, “Oh. And that you grossly overreacted.”
“Ha. Right. He’s lucky I’m so old.”
“I told you. You’re not old,” I said as firmly as I could. We had our obstacles, but I was determined not to let age be among them.
“I’m a lot older than Ryan. And you.”
“I don’t care about that,” I stated clearly for the record. “And neither should you …”
“I don’t really care about it,” he said. “But we do need to talk about that … There are some long-term concerns there …”
I had a feeling he was referring to babies and motherhood, things I wasn’t worried about, but I let it go for now. Instead, I addressed a far more pressing problem, and told him Lucy was on her way over.
“Oh, yeah?” he said.
“Yeah. I’m going to tell her about last night. I mean … Ryan coming over and everything … But I’m not going to tell her that you were here …”
He was so quiet that I thought we’d lost our connection.
“Are you there?” I said, feeling guilty for scheming, preparing to lie to Lucy.
“Yeah, I’m here … I heard you … and I think that’s a good idea.”
“I feel bad. Keeping something so big from her, but …”
“Don’t feel bad. It’s just not the right time to tell her about us.”
I felt a burst of affection and excitement and hope. A thrill that there was an us to talk about. “Right,” I said.