famine when it came to insights into Coach’s personal life. The girls planned to verify this possible new relationship via a crowdsourced scrutiny of body language once school starts up, but Mel could know right now if she wanted.
She bites her tongue instead.
“I’m only saying I don’t blame you for having one foot out the door. But if you can’t step up the way I need you to as captain of this team, and be willing to do the tough stuff, then I have to take over. You didn’t really leave me with a choice. My reputation is on the line.”
“So what now?”
“I know I told you girls to be at the field by eleven o’clock tomorrow but I’m changing that to nine. We’ll have a team meeting in my classroom. Between then and now, I want you all to think long and hard how badly you want to be a Wildcat. Based on what you come up with, I’ll know if I still want to be your coach.”
“Okay,” Mel whispers. But the line is already dead.
Mel never knew when Coach would go cold. He did it like an ice bath, plunging her into it, a shock to her system, no time to brace herself. Though it stung, there was always an underlying reason. Some injured part of her that he was trying to heal.
Apparently, this part of her never has.
He must know how badly what he’s done has hurt her. But the one bright spot—because with Coach there’s always a bright spot—is that the door isn’t completely closed. He’s left it open for her. There’s still a chance. And if there’s one thing Mel has learned, you don’t quit when there’s still time left on the clock, especially not if you’re losing. You play hard until the final whistle. Until it’s truly game over.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 27
12:57 A.M.
KEARSON
Kearson watches the fiery tip of her sparkler travel the length of the rod, hissing and spitting shards of light. They fall, bright but brief, burning out just before they hit the turf. A perfect allegory for her time playing varsity last season.
To think that it was only last summer when Kearson went to Camp Kissawa for the first time, between eighth grade and her freshman year. She and two of her girlfriends quietly decided to sign up together, though they kept it a secret from their other classmates. The girls were hoping for a leg up during the freshman skills camp that would happen later, in August. They wanted to shine. Make JV at the very least, or perhaps even get sent straight up to varsity. Marissa told everyone she was going to the beach. Quinn pretended it was her grandma’s eightieth birthday. And Kearson said she had to go see her father.
Unlike the weeklong camp Kissawa ran for players who were already in high school, the one for rising freshmen was only a long weekend. Still, it would be the longest Kearson was away from home for the last few years, basically since Kearson’s father moved to London for work and essentially gave up sharing custody. Both Kearson and her mother pretended the time away was no big deal, but then they hugged too long on the front steps and their throats began to close up with emotion, while Marissa and Quinn snickered from the back seat of Marissa’s family minivan.
Camp Kissawa was four hours from West Essex, just over the state line, deep in the woods, named for the lake it abutted. Field hockey players from all over the world came to Kissawa for instruction. It had a reputation.
It was everything right away. Brittle pine needles blanketed the ground, making bare feet impossible. The food in the mess hall was mediocre but they licked their plates clean because they were burning through so many calories. Copious amounts of tick repellant were needed. On some nights, more stars than space filled the sky. There were four gorgeously kept fields equipped with nighttime lights and electronic scoreboards. A weight room made for girls, where someone from a long-ago summer had cheekily hung beefcake photos of young male movie stars who were now playing the fathers of a new generation of young male movie stars. Positive affirmations were scribbled on every mirror. Bunks were rustic wooden rectangles with screened doors on either end and eight bunk-bed cots. No place to charge your phones, but it didn’t much matter. Every night the three girls pledged to stay up until sunrise with each other but