Page 81 of Say Yes to the Nemesis

Exactly.

I pause. How do I dodge her accusation?

I’m going to eliminate someone. Someone other than Wren, obviously. Pray for me.

The reply comes fast.

Do you remember how weird it was when you first moved into the dorms at Emory and had to make friends with Jay? You survived that. You thrived. You’ll be all right.

The difference is that no one was going to cry on national television.

You heartbreaker.

I’ve certainly been called worse.

I remember how stiff Wren was the first night we were on set. She bristled when anyone so much as looked her way. Now she’s laughing and wearing my shirt to set. And it’s wrecking me in ways I can’t admit.

Checking my watch, I see that I don’t have to be on set for several hours, later tonight.

There’s a group date and then an elimination. I should go to the gym and then rest.

Instead, I text Coach T.

Skate?

We meet at the ice rink. It smells like chilly air, sweat, and hard work. I walk down the stands and see Coach T sitting and watching young hockey players skate before him. His arms are crossed. He’s outwardly emotionless, but his eyes dart back and forth, carefully monitoring the activity on the rink.

When I sit down, Coach hands me a brown paper lunch bag.

“Evelyn made you a sandwich,” he says gruffly.

That’s how you know Coach cares. He doesn’t ask questions. He sends food. He shows up.

Emotion wells in my chest. I don’t know whether I’m going to laugh or cry, but I accept the paper bag with reverence.

“Tell her she’s still my favorite woman.”

He eyes me for a moment and then gives me the tiniest smile.

“She knows.”

I sit beside him and unwrap the sandwich. I’m not starving, but when Mrs. T offers me food, there’s no way I’m going to skip that. I unwrap the sandwich and find it’s turkey, cheddar, and mustard. Same thing I used to eat in Coach’s kitchen after school.

I used to inhale these while Ellie sat beside me, swinging her feet and trying to copy my stick tape job. The familiarity and comfort the first bite brings me are an anchor, fixing me in time.

I watch the kids skate on the ice before me. They’re little messes with oversized helmets and untied laces. I can’t stop the flood of memories. Begging Coach to take us in. Promising I’d work, clean, run drills, tape sticks, do anything if it meant keeping Ellie close. We had been split up by CPS. I didn’t know where she was sleeping. I didn’t know how to protect her.

When Coach and his wife Evelyn finally agreed to take us both in, Ellie was quiet and shell-shocked for weeks afterward. I was afraid I’d taken too long. That some kind of fracture had already formed in her personality. She eventually warmed up and returned to her usual easygoing self, but I still wake up in the dead of night sweating and shaking, afraid she isn’t safe.

I’m a grown man now. I’ve got twenty-five million in the bank and a trophy case with my name on it. But that fear? It never left. It just got quieter.

Coach T is the best. Mrs. T is second only to him in my book, but she’s the only woman who has that designation. Every other woman in my life has been a flicker. Gone before I could even get warm.

Women often leave and say they’re coming back, but they never do. They always leave.

I stop eating my sandwich and put it down because it suddenly seems like I’m eating ashes.

They always leave.