it?”
“Yes. Of course I did. Right after Tish left, I called him into my office and asked him what had happened. He told me a story that made more sense than hers. A story that I could … wrap my head around.”
“What did he tell you?” I said, knowing how convincing, downright slick, he could be.
“He told me that he’d broken up with her and that she was very hurt. Very angry … He said she came after him pretty hard, and he just defended himself. Like this.” Coach held up his arms, blocking his face. “He said he did push her out of his apartment, but only after she refused to leave. And he swore to me that he didn’t hurt her … And that was it …”
Coach threw his hands up in the air and shook his head. “It was a classic he-said, she-said, and, bottom line, I just didn’t believe that girl. In my mind, she wasn’t credible. He was. So yeah. I took his word over hers. A few days later, I did follow up with her.”
“And?”
“And she changed her tune … She changed her story. At least part of it. She maintained that he had roughed her up but said that the sex was ‘a little bit consensual’ …”
“A little bit?”
“Exactly. It either was or it wasn’t. Right?”
“Maybe she was scared. Maybe she knew you didn’t believe her.”
“And maybe she had made that part up.”
“Maybe,” I said, acknowledging that this was definitely a possibility. “So that was it?”
Coach nodded, avoiding my gaze.
“You didn’t do anything else?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“You have to remember, Shea … There are rules now about this sort of thing. Rules that say coaches have to report all incidents to the university president or athletic director or police. Or all three. But back then … there was nothing in place. I had never dealt with anything like that before …”
“Did you tell Connie?” I asked, unsure of why this mattered to me.
“No.”
I stared at him, frozen, out of questions.
“Does this … change things?” he asked softly.
I started to say no, because I wanted it to be the truth. But then I thought of Tish. It had changed everything for Tish. It had also changed everything for Ryan. Maybe even for Blakeslee and me. Hell, it had changed the course of history. If Coach had believed Tish’s story, at least enough to report it, the trajectory of Ryan’s entire career would have been different. Even if ultimately cleared of the charges, he likely wouldn’t have won the Heisman the following year, or gone nearly as high in the draft. It would have hurt Walker, too. Without Ryan on the field, we certainly wouldn’t have won the Cotton Bowl; and, without that win, we might not have had the recruiting classes in the years that followed, success begetting success. Walker might not be on the brink of a championship this season, and Coach and I might not be sitting here tonight, in his kitchen.
Coach said my name, looking far more worried than he’d been in Lucy’s living room.
“Yeah?” I said.
“If I could go back, I would change how I handled everything. I would have done more. I really thought I was doing the right thing, but now I can see that I let that girl down.” He paused for a long beat, then cleared his throat. “The other night, when I walked into your room and saw Ryan there on top of you … It was almost as if I were standing up for both of you …”
I nodded, as if I accepted this explanation, but couldn’t help feeling that throwing a couple of punches in my living room couldn’t fix the past, and I felt myself withdraw from him in a way that scared me.
“Talk to me, Shea,” he said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “This is a lot to digest …”
“Are you angry?”
“No,” I said, wishing that it were that simple, knowing that anger has a way of subsiding and passing more quickly than this brand of disappointment.
“Then what?” he said.
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find the words to describe the disoriented, disillusioned feeling I had. The feeling of questioning everything I had ever believed in. The NCAA investigation was one thing. But this was another matter, one I couldn’t so easily dismiss or explain away.
“I’m really sorry, Shea,” he said.
“I know you are,” I said, thinking of Lucy, then Ryan, wondering if sometimes apologies