into his plan tonight. All the traps he set for her. The missing varsity jerseys. A secret spy. Why? What had he been trying to prove? Why would he go out of his way like this to undermine her?
“Does he know about Phoebe’s knee?”
“Just that something happened. The last time I texted him was before we went to Waffle House. He sent me like a million in a row and”—she shrugs—“I pretended my battery died.”
Mel, in spite of everything, smiles. “Clever.”
“It was too much.” Luci shakes her head, clearly uncomfortable, and sets her phone down on Mel’s nightstand. “I’ll leave this here in case you want to read them. I might be leaving something out.” Luci stands up, takes a deep, cleansing breath.
“Why did you tell me?”
“Because you’re our captain. And I wanted you to have the full picture when you decide what it is we should do tomorrow.”
Luci closes the door quietly. Mel listents as Luci’s footsteps grow fainter.
It was such a simple, honest declaration of support for Mel, said with no hesitations, no second-guessing if Mel even deserves to be the leader of this team. Luci believes that Mel will come up with something. And it terrifies her.
Mel always believed she was special to Coach. That he texted her because they shared a deep and meaningful connection. But her senior year hadn’t even started and he’d already marked her replacement. Mel 2.0.
Phoebe insisted tonight that Luci was a little Mel. Mel’s enormous ego wouldn’t even let her pretend to entertain the comparison. But in less than twenty-four hours of being on this team, Luci had the courage to do what Mel couldn’t, wouldn’t, which is to turn down Coach’s volume inside her head and listen instead to the voice in her heart. She smelled the house burning and ran out while Mel took the batteries out of the alarms.
Thank God Coach underestimated his newest asset. He thinks Luci gave him the full picture about what the girls were up to tonight. But he doesn’t know that she flipped and outted him to Mel. He doesn’t know about the stories they’ve been sharing with one another. He doesn’t know that Phoebe stole his laptop.
Phoebe.
She was driven to do something desperate tonight. She, too, had a sense that the things Coach had been telling her didn’t add up. Phoebe laid all the pieces out for Mel, hoping Mel would help her solve the puzzle. But as soon as Mel started to see how one piece—this weird supposed Truman scout appearance at the state championship game—might link with another—throwing Phoebe under the bus to the Trident scout, where Coach just so happened to be job hunting—she shut her eyes before anything else came together.
Fighting the drag of her deep shame, Mel forces herself to stand up. After locking her bedroom door once more, Mel picks up Coach’s laptop from her vanity and carries it back to her bed.
She owes it to herself, to her team, and most of all to Phoebe, to have the full picture of just how terrible Coach is before they face him tomorrow.
Unfortunately, tomorrow is already here.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
8:00 A.M.
MEL
Mel’s phone buzzes next to her. Not a text. Not a call. The alarm she set at Coach’s instruction.
Mel bolts upright, knocking Coach’s laptop off the bed in the process. Her chest heaves like she’s hyperventilating.
She doesn’t remember falling asleep. Or how long she was out cold. There was never much time. Whatever she’s accidentally wasted was precious.
Coach is expecting the girls in his classroom in one hour, even though their scrimmage with Oak Knolls isn’t until noon. He’ll need that extra time to decide whether or not they have lived up to his expectations. He will make sure each of them truly understands what being a Wildcat entails. He will decide if they’ve sufficiently proven their loyalty, their commitment, their heart. And, should he deem them deserving of the honor, he will bestow upon them their varsity jerseys.
Coach’s presentation of the varsity jerseys couldn’t be more different from the traditions guiding Mel. Hers was to be a celebration, a way to unite them, reinforce them.
All Coach wanted was to break them.
He’s in for a rude awakening. This team meeting will not go the way he’s expecting.
But beyond that declaration, Mel has no handle on what she should do. She so desperately wants to fire off a shot at him, but it is as if Mel is standing in the middle of a prism, a ball on her