random woman he met on the road. Or, most sickening of all, a ripe, bubbly coed. Maybe it was someone I knew, someone I had gone to school with. I couldn’t bear the thought of any of these possibilities, but told myself it wouldn’t change my feelings. Nothing could change the way I felt about him.
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Back when you and Ryan were in school.” He took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “Do you remember that gal Ryan dated in college? Before the one he married? Tish Termini?”
“Yes,” I said, my thoughts racing. Surely Coach hadn’t been involved with Tish.
“Well … the night before we left town for the Cotton Bowl, I was in my office, doing some work, when she came to see me.”
I waited, bracing myself for the worst.
“She said she had to tell me something important and was very emotional. I told her to have a seat. So she sat down and told me this story … about the big blowout breakup fight she’d had with Ryan the night before … I think we can both picture that now.”
“Yes,” I said, my insides clenched as I mentally switched gears.
“Then she told me that Ryan had attacked her. I asked what she meant by attacked, and she spelled it out pretty clearly. She said that he pushed and shoved her … And then … Then she said he forced her to have sex.”
“He raped her?” I said, the word leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Well, she didn’t say that exactly. But yeah … That’s what she alleged. That he had sex with her against her will. So yeah. That would be rape.”
I stared back at him, everything inside me deflating as I remembered how I’d felt on my bed the other night. How scared I had been even as I tried to tell myself that it was only Ryan. My boyfriend who would never really hurt me. Even with my own awful memories, I found it impossible to grasp what Coach was telling me now.
“So then what?” I said, feeling frantic. “What did you say?”
“I said it was a really serious charge and she’d better be very sure about what she was saying.”
“And?”
“And she said she was sure.”
“Then what?” I pressed.
“I asked her why she hadn’t gone to the police. She said she was scared and in shock and that she wanted to come to me first. She asked if I believed her, and I told her it really didn’t matter what I believed. I told her that if she had been raped she needed to go down to the station. Or at least to the campus police.”
“Did you think she was lying?”
Coach stared at me for several seconds before answering. “I didn’t see any marks on her … There was no sign at all of a physical struggle …”
“But there doesn’t have to be,” I said. “Sometimes there aren’t marks.”
“I know that,” he said. “But I also knew that she had quite the reputation. My assistant coaches had been telling me for months that she was bad news. Bad for Ryan. Always out at the clubs. Drinking and smoking and carrying on … And I’d even heard she was up before the honor council for cheating on an exam … So she wasn’t the most reliable girl … And Ryan was … well, he was Ryan. The golden boy. Heisman candidate. Good student. Squeaky-clean reputation.”
“So you didn’t believe her?” I said, boiling it down to its essence. “Did you?”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t believe her.”
“So you didn’t do anything?” I said, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Shea … You have to understand … I didn’t know what I now know … I only had the facts that I had at the time. And, based on those facts, it just didn’t add up. I really thought she was manufacturing the whole thing … exacting some kind of revenge because Ryan had broken up with her. I thought she wanted me to bench him for the bowl game. Get even. Hurt him the worst way you can hurt a ballplayer … And, beyond that, beyond destroying a football career, I was aware that this type of accusation could ruin a young man’s life. It’s serious if it’s true, of course, but it’s serious if it’s not true, too … And I didn’t think it was true. Not a shred of me believed that girl.”
“Did you at least talk to Ryan?” I asked. “Ask him about