both know that’s not going to happen. Grace is too good of a player. He might hate her blue hair, but not as much as he hates losing.”
Phoebe lifts her chin. “You mean like Becks?”
This again? “I don’t remember that the way you do, Phoebe. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but—”
“But you’ll do whatever mental gymnastics it takes to defend Coach.”
Mel rolls her eyes at Phoebe’s sarcasm, but inside, her heart is racing. It’s exactly like she told Phoebe: it’s too late for these kinds of heated conversations. Nothing good is going to come from this. Only terrible things. Mel is certain of it.
“Look. It might be hard to see it right now, but I really do think tonight was a success. Coach led us to this moment. He was spot-on when he told us we had cracks we were hiding from each other. But none of us are hiding anymore. And guess what? We are stronger for it.”
Phoebe blinks. “You’re forgetting that Coach caused the cracks.”
“That’s not fair, Phoebe.” Not to mention completely unhelpful.
“Please don’t talk to me about fair.” Phoebe gingerly lowers herself onto the basement stairs and stretches out her injured leg. It’s clear she’s in a lot of pain.
“Let me get you some ice.” Because Phoebe needs it and also because it’s an escape hatch from this conversation.
“Ice isn’t going to help. I tore my ACL again, Mel. I’m out for the season. Maybe for good. I mean, it’s not like I’m getting a scholarship now. I’m totally and completely fucked.”
Suddenly light-headed, Mel reaches for the banister to steady herself. This can’t be happening. “You don’t know that for sure, Phoebs. Don’t make any decisions tonight that you might regret tomorrow.”
Phoebe smirks. “You’re about to regret saying that to me.”
“Why?”
“You know what I decided tonight? To take one for the team. I came back here to tell the girls that I quit and hand you Coach’s laptop. I was fully prepared to give myself amnesia about what I found on it because I thought I was the only one Coach had screwed over. But it’s clear that’s not the case. Not even close.”
Goose bumps prick on Mel’s arms. The stairway, suddenly too dark and narrow, the door to the kitchen a million steps away.
Phoebe says, “Aren’t you going to ask me what I found?”
She wants to say no. She knows she should say yes. But seeing as either answer would drag Mel more deeply into this terrible night, she says nothing.
“I had a conversation with Coach tonight. I told him that I had reached out to a scout from Trident to see if they might still be interested in me, and I was kind of freaking out that he never wrote me back. Coach told me to forget them. Put them out of my mind. I was too good for Trident.”
“That sounds like a pep talk to me. You are too good for Trident!”
“Except what Coach conveniently left out of our conversation was that he’d already told the Trident scout to pass on me. He told them not to even bother coming to see me play.”
“Okay. Well.” Mel holds up her palms. “I’m sure Coach had a reason for that. He must have another plan for you.” A plan which Mel hopes Phoebe hasn’t completely screwed up for herself.
Phoebe points her finger at Mel. “Then why did he write such terrible things about me? Making it out like I tricked him into letting me play in the championship.”
“I don’t know, Phoebe. But … I mean … isn’t that kind of what happened?”
Mel is careful to say this differently than she had earlier, when they were fighting in Coach’s classroom. Softer. Gentler. Way less accusatory. Zero percent confrontational. She’s trading on the fact that they are best friends, and therefore know and accept the best and worst of each other. But the change in Mel’s delivery makes no difference to Phoebe. If anything, it slices into Phoebe even more deeply now, because of how Mel’s already scored her.
“No, Mel. That’s not what happened.” Her chin quivers. “I planned on never telling you this. But Coach told me that Truman was sending a scout to the championship game. He said he’d been trying all season to get them to see us, but that they’d been focused on recruiting defenders.” She pulls her hands inside her sleeves and wipes her tears. “And before you say Coach doesn’t tell us about scouts, trust me, this time he did.”
With Phoebe’s lead-in,