It stung to hear the words. It stung to say them out loud. To admit that I was less than I wanted to be. Not good enough. I hung my head.
“Sorry,” Keaton muttered. “Um. What are the conditions of your scholarship?”
I raised my head again. “Obviously, I have to play,” I said. “Plus minimum grade requirements and credits each year.”
Keaton nodded maniacally. He was starting to look like one of those puppets people put on their dashboards. Why was he nodding so much?
He made a windmilling gesture with his hand in the air. I tilted my head.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
Keaton sighed. “I was just wondering if you had anything else you could add to that. Like, more details of the exact requirements they ask of you.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t memorize it.” I’d just worked out what classes I needed to take and that was that. So long as I didn’t fail, I knew I would be good.
Although that in itself was easier said than done.
“Do you have any concerns about being able to meet those requirements?” Keaton asked. He had a different voice than how he normally spoke. Like he was in interviewer mode. It made him sound professional.
“Yes,” I said. I clenched my jaw and hung my head a little. “I’m worried I’ll fail.”
“Are you struggling with the time requirement?” Keaton asked. “I know you have to train a lot. Outside of practice, I’ve noticed that you spend a lot of time in the gym.”
I shrugged. “The gym’s free here. I like going there.” I wasn’t going to answer the question he wanted me to. Not even for a school project. I knew how much trouble I could get in if I started saying to anyone who would listen that we had too much practice. They wouldn’t let me play. We hadn’t even made it to the first game yet. I would be screwed before we even started.
“What’s the main difficulty you face with the whole college experience right now?” Keaton asked. He was trying to rephrase the question to get me to let it slip.
I looked right into the camera and then down. “I’m too stupid for the classes and I’m going to fail.”
It was the truth. Pure and unadulterated. It didn’t matter how much time I had to study. I was never going to get any smarter than I was now.
“You’re not stupid,” Keaton said softly. It was in his own voice. Not his interview voice. I looked up at him, ignoring the camera. “You’re not stupid, Olly. You have a learning disability that’s been holding you back because it was never diagnosed. That doesn’t make you stupid. Not even close.”
I sighed heavily. “It won’t make a difference what the reason is if I flunk out.”
“You’re not going to flunk out,” Keaton said fiercely. He shifted and leaned forward until he could touch my arm. “You’re not flunking out. I’m not going to let you. We’re going to study for as long as we need to until you get there. Got it?”
I nodded slowly. A warm feeling spread from my chest outwards. I looked down at his hand on my arm. “Got it,” I said.
And for a moment I actually really felt like he might be right. Like maybe Keaton’s belief in me could be strong enough to make what he was saying come true.
Keaton
I looked at my notes, chewing the end of my pen and thinking. This documentary project was shaping up to actually be pretty interesting.
Olly had suggested I film something about being part of a college team, but I was really more interested in the other side of team life. How they all had to keep up with their academics. I was sure Olly wasn’t the only one that was struggling – though getting the others to admit it might have been a difficult task. Maybe if I could work on gaining their trust through Olly…
And there was something cathartic about the idea, too. Maybe something a little bit mean, even though I didn’t intend it that way. The thought of filming football players as they struggled to cope with the perils of growing up. How they would suffer.
Like I had suffered.
It wasn’t the same, of course – not even nearly. But seeing a whole team of football players baring their woes to me and admitting that they were having a hard time – that would be pretty sweet.
I wondered if I was doing this project for the wrong reasons. But then again, I’d never get another chance for this. This was a way to heal myself, to let go of the pain and anger I’d been carrying around. It had never really been something that I allowed to get me down completely – I wasn’t that type of person. Plus, I had too much of my own inner turmoil to deal with, figuring out my sexuality.
But I wasn’t a robot. I felt what they had done. I felt it every day. I knew I was lucky I hadn’t come away with permanent injuries or scars. The kind of beating they gave me could even have killed me if the wrong blow landed in the wrong place. Until now, I’d chosen to view myself as lucky for surviving, not the other way around.
Now I was thinking about getting just a little tiny piece of revenge, and whether that would make me as bad a person as they were.
