Chương 5
“She was thinking about it.”
“She came out sarcastic.”
“I’m in the room.”
Beth ignored her.
The business phone rang.
Denise answered.
For the next three hours, life attempted to become normal.
A customer argued about a deductible.
A parts supplier delivered the wrong headlamp.
Maya spent forty minutes removing adhesive from the side of a minivan and another twenty looking for a ten-millimeter socket that was eventually discovered in her own back pocket.
At noon she ate half a granola bar.
At twelve-fifteen Denise placed a sandwich directly on Maya’s toolbox without comment.
Maya ate it.
At one, Ryan’s message arrived.
She saw his name while standing under a Subaru with a flashlight in her mouth.
She finished checking the exhaust shield before opening it.
Hi. This is Ryan from yesterday. I know you know who I am. That sounded stupid. I’m sorry for what I said and what I did. You didn’t do anything to me. I was showing off and I made you the target of it. I also knew Noah was filming even though I didn’t tell him to post it. I’m not asking you to take anything down because it isn’t your video. I just wanted to apologize to you directly. I’m sorry.
Maya read it again.
The line That sounded stupid made it feel less edited than the rest.
She put the phone away.
At two, another message came.
You don’t have to answer.
She did not.
That afternoon, Ryan sat in a conference room at Briar State University with his coach, an associate athletic director, and a woman from student conduct.
Nobody yelled.
That made it worse.
Coach Harlan had known Ryan since recruiting him out of high school. He was fifty-seven, narrow-faced, chronically unimpressed, and famous among players for taking five seconds to answer questions that required one.
He watched the clip on a laptop.
When it ended, he closed the screen.
“What do you want me to say?” Ryan asked.
Harlan folded his hands.
“I’d prefer you say something without asking me what I want first.”
Ryan shifted.
The associate athletic director, Marcy Bell, took notes.
Ryan looked at the table.
“I acted like an asshole.”
Harlan’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
Marcy stopped writing.
Ryan rubbed his palms against his jeans.
“Sorry.”
“Language is not the biggest problem in this room,” Harlan said.
Ryan nodded.
“I was showing off. Noah was filming. We’d just come from training and we were waiting for a friend. We saw the car. She walked up. I assumed she was…” He stopped.
Marcy looked at him.
“Was what?”
Ryan breathed out.
“That she wasn’t the owner.”
“Why?”
He knew there was no acceptable answer.
That did not mean there was no true one.
“Because of how she was dressed.”
Coach Harlan looked toward the window.
Ryan continued before anybody could help him.
“And because she looked young. And because I’m an idiot.”
“Those may all be true,” Marcy said. “Only two are explanations.”
Ryan nodded.
The meeting lasted fifty-two minutes.
He was not expelled.
He was not stripped of his scholarship.
No one announced the destruction of his future.
Real consequences were less cinematic and therefore harder to complain about.
He was removed from Saturday’s starting roster pending further review.
He lost his role as one of the team’s community outreach representatives.
He was required to meet with student conduct again the following week.
The athletic department would issue a short statement saying it was aware of the video and was addressing the matter internally.
He was told not to contact Maya again unless she responded.
Coach Harlan asked him to stay after everyone else left.
Ryan sat.
Harlan walked to the coffee machine in the corner and made something that smelled burned.
“You know what irritates me most?”
Ryan stared at the closed laptop.
“That I embarrassed the program.”
“No.”
Ryan looked up.
“You’re good at being watched.”
Ryan did not understand.
Harlan stirred his coffee.
“On the field, you know exactly who’s watching. Coaches. Scouts. Teammates. Opponents. You know how to perform under attention. You’ve trained for it.”
Ryan waited.
“What you apparently don’t know is who you are when you think the person watching doesn’t matter.”
Ryan’s face heated.
Harlan drank the coffee and immediately frowned at it.
“That’s terrible.”
Ryan almost laughed.
He stopped himself.
Harlan set the cup down.
“You apologized?”
“I messaged her.”
“Did she answer?”
“No.”
“Then leave her alone.”
Ryan nodded.
“You’re not being punished because the internet is mad,” Harlan said. “The internet will be mad about something else by Thursday. You’re dealing with me because I saw you treat a stranger like furniture.”
Ryan looked down.
Harlan picked up the coffee again despite having already declared it terrible.
“Go to class.”
Ryan stood.
At the door, Harlan said, “Mercer.”
Ryan turned.
“This does not become growth because you feel bad for forty-eight hours.”
Ryan nodded once.
Outside the building, Noah was waiting.
He leaned against a concrete planter with a baseball cap pulled low.
Ryan nearly kept walking.
Noah stepped into his path.
“Dude.”
Ryan stopped.
“What?”
“You ignoring me?”
“Yes.”
Noah glanced around.
“You know I didn’t think it would blow up like that.”
Ryan stared at him.
Noah lowered his voice.
“I posted it to my story.”
“You have three thousand followers.”
“I had three thousand followers.”
“That sentence is why I don’t want to talk to you.”
Noah’s face tightened.
“I deleted it.”
“After eight hours.”
“I didn’t know people screen-recorded it.”
“You didn’t know people screen-record videos?”
“Okay, fine. I screwed up.”
Ryan started walking.
Noah followed.
“But you were there too.”
Ryan stopped again.
“I know.”
“You’re acting like I did this to you.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then why are you pissed at me?”
“Because you’re still talking like the bad part is that the video escaped your control.”
Noah stared.
Ryan heard his father in the sentence and hated that.
May you like
Noah laughed once, without humor.
“So what, you’re morally superior now?”
