The door opens and Assad appears, rain-soaked but beaming from ear to ear. He holds a bag from the small campus grocery store up in the air.
‘Pissing it down out there,’ he says as he unloads the contents on the table. ‘I brought supplies in case you don’t feel like going down to dinner later.’
Two six-packs of beer, two party-size bags of chips and four of those damn ramen noodle pots. How this guy stays in any kind of shape, I do not know. Assad peels off his raincoat as I pop the tab on one of the beers. Awesome. Room temp lager. ‘How you feeling?’ he asks, a contender for the dumbest question of all time. ‘Aside from shit?’
‘That covers it.’ I chug the beer and wince, clamping my mouth shut to keep it down. ‘Thanks for this.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ He hops onto his bed and opens one of the bags of chips. The sharp scent of salt and vinegar cuts through the air, adding a new, interesting note to eau de Assad. ‘Don’t go too hard either. I want to be up early for extra practice. As much as I respect your existential crisis, I’m not going to let you balls up the game on Saturday. You’ve got a real fucking chance of getting into Harchester, don’t let this mess with your head.’
I splutter out a laugh, spraying beer across the room.
‘Harchester? Are you serious?’
‘Deadly,’ he replies. ‘And you should be as well.’
‘There’s no way they’ll sign me now.’ I take another swig to finish off the can and crush it in my hand. ‘If Mia knows, everyone will find out soon enough. There’s only one personwho could’ve told her and that’s my ex. If she’s decided to share, I’m screwed.’
Assad bounces along his bed until he reaches the end and leans forward, hitting me with his stupid big brown eyes.
‘I know you said you can’t talk about it but if you want to, I’m here,’ he says. ‘I can keep things to myself.’
‘No, you can’t,’ I remind him. ‘You tell the guys everything. You couldn’t take a shit without posting about it on the bulletin board.’
‘I mean when something is important.’ He slaps the empty beer can out of my hand and it bounces to the floor, joining the pile of its fallen brethren. ‘I’m a good listener. How else do you think I manage to pull so often?’
‘Because you bring guys back to this palatial splendour and they can’t keep their pants on?’
‘And here I am, trying to help you. It doesn’t take a genius to see this is a bad situation, but I don’t see how it can be as bad as you think. You said it was an accident? Accidents happen. They don’t mean your life is over.’
I wish I could believe him but I’ve already looked it up. Harchester has a morality clause. The slightest hint of scandal and they will walk away from a player. I’m not worth the hassle. Even keeping my spot on the Hemden team feels like too much to hope for. This is not the kind of shit Clive wants from his players, let alone his captain. Maybe I’ll get kicked out of the school altogether, end up back in South Carolina. But where? Not home. Not Marshall. I stare at the single dirty shin guard underneath Assad’s bed and feel my future fall apart.
‘If I can’t play soccer, I don’t have anything,’ I say. ‘And if I don’t have Mia, none of it matters anyway.’
‘You could talk to her,’ Assad suggests. ‘Ask her not to say anything.’
‘I won’t ask her to lie.’
Ironic because asking my ex-girlfriend to lie is how I got here in the first place.
‘Not saying anything isn’t the same as lying.’
I can’t help cackling at his statement because if I’ve figured out one thing today it’s that he’s dead wrong about that.
‘Another beer?’
He holds up a can and I nod.
‘That’s your last one,’ he says as I catch it with one hand. ‘You’re still coming to practice in the morning. Even if you’ve given up, I need you to make me look good. You wouldn’t want to let your team down, would you?’
‘No,’ I reply, popping the tab on the beer. ‘I wouldn’t.’
I’ve already let enough people down to last a lifetime.
50
Mia
If Alice wasn’t downstairs, guarding the door to the medical centre, I would’ve already ditched my first counselling session before it could begin. The main waiting room was packed with sorry-looking students waiting to see the on-call doctor, but upstairs it’s just me, tapping my fingers against the edge of a wooden chair with a leather-covered seat. The last time I was here was with Ethan, when I cut my hand. We weren’t here long, it wasn’t such a bad injury once a nurse cleaned it up, but I can still see the look on his face when he brought me in, washed out and pale under the fluorescent lights.
