by Nancy N. Rue
“Who was it?” I said.
He gave me a look as blank as paste and shoved open his office door. Okay, it had to be somebody important. Selena?
I stopped breathing. M.J.? Hilary?
My Kara?
Coach went behind his desk and shuffled papers like he was searching for something and then abandoned them to look at me. I was still standing, crutches up in my armpits. Evidently this wasn’t going to be the kind of conversation you sat down for.
“Is there anything you want to tell me, Cassidy?” he said.
The fact that he was calling me Cassidy went straight through me. I shook my head. “I don’t know who it is, Coach, I swear I don’t. If I did, I would’ve told you, no matter who, even if—”
He put up both hands, eyes closed as if I were spitting instead of speaking.
“I swear, Coach—”
“You tested positive for juice, Cassidy.”
“Juice”
“AAS.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Anabolic androgenic steroids.”
“Steroids!”
My voice went higher than Kara’s had ever gone, and I could feel my eyes swelling in their sockets.
“Performance-enhancing drugs,” Coach said. “What in the world were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t—I mean, I’m not—taking steroids …”
I let the words trail off as another voice whispered, They’re supplements—experimental, perfectly safe—
“Don’t even try to take me there.” Coach’s mouth was trembling, as if only sheer force of will was keeping him from opening it and screaming at me.
The way I’d been screaming at everybody else for days.
“They’re steroids? I thought they were just—to take the swelling down and strengthen the muscles—”
“What do you think steroids do? While they’re pumping you full of testosterone, making you go off on people—”
“I didn’t know they were steroids, Coach. Honest!”
I stopped, because every syllable sounded desperate and defensive and false.
And because he wasn’t believing any of it. In place of the trust I’d always seen in his eyes was a look I never thought would be directed at me. It was the purest form of disappointment.
He sank into his chair and jerked a finger in the direction of mine. I would have crawled across the floor if he’d told me to.
“Where did you get it?” he said. He wasn’t using any name at all for me now.
“A doctor—sort of,” I said.
He threw his head back, hand skimming across his bare scalp.
“Is she going to get in trouble?”
“If I have anything to do with it. But I think you need to be worrying about the trouble you’re in.” He rapped the papers on his desk with his knuckles. “I have to report the results to Mr. LaSalle.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t know!”
“Do your parents know you’re taking it?”
I shook my head.
“Why haven’t you told them?”
“Because—for a lot of reasons.” None of which even made sense to me right now.
“You thought they were okay, but not okay enough to tell your parents.” He lurched back in the chair. “I never thought I’d be having this conversation with one of my players—but especially not you. Especially not you.”
His voice was thick, his eyes red-rimmed. If he cried, I was done. Somebody really would die, right here in my chair.
“It was stupid!” I said. “I just wanted to be able to help the team—”
“Help the team?” He came forward, almost across the desk. “By screwing with your body? By cheating?”
“I would never do that!”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I didn’t think—”
“No. You didn’t. And now we’ve got a mess on our hands. A big mess.”
I nodded and stared at my knees until they disappeared in a blur of miserable tears. There were so many guilty, self-hating quills firing into me, it was all I could do not to hurl myself from the room. But what good would that do? I couldn’t get away from me.
“What do we do?” I said.
“I have no idea what you’re going to do. An hour ago, I thought I knew you. Now—” He picked up a paper and tossed it away from him. “I do know you, Brewster,” he said without looking at me. “I’ve seen you do the beautiful things that don’t show up on the scoreboard. I couldn’t be that wrong.”
“You’re not,” I said. “I am that person. I’ll prove it to you.”
His eyebrows went up.
“I’ll just tell the truth,” I said. “Which is what I should have done in the first place. Please—just let me tell my parents first, and they’ll …” I closed my eyes. “They’ll look at me the same way you’re looking at me and I won’t be able to stand it.”
“They can’t get you out of this,” Coach said. “I have to report it to Mr. LaSalle. But you’re right—you’re going to need their support.”
Our eyes locked, and for the first time since the office door had closed behind us, I knew we were thinking the same thing. Just exactly how much “support” was I going to get from my father?
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours,” Coach said. “I want to hear from one of them by this time tomorrow.”
I tried to say thank you but the sobs in my throat blocked the way. I flung out my hand and knocked my crutches to the floor.
“I should have known it,” Coach said. “You were showing all the classic signs.”
“She said I’d just be a little cranky and restless,” I said.
He hissed. “No, Brewster, that was ‘roid rage. Somebody sold you a bill of goods. I’d like to get my hands on her, and sooner or later somebody’s going to have to.”
I nodded into the palms I was now smothering my face with. I couldn’t go there yet.
“It’s almost time for the bell,” Coach said.
“I can’t go to class like this.”
He didn’t offer me a pass to get out of Art. Of course not. You didn’t bail out students you could no longer trust. I retrieved my crutches and struggled to attach myself to them again. Coach was already at the door, hand on the knob.
“Are you going to get in trouble for this too?” I said.
“I don’t know. Like I said, I should have suspected.” His eyes settled sadly on me. “But, then, why would I?”
I pushed my way out. I couldn’t look at him anymore.
*
Somehow I got myself to the art room and asked Mrs. Petrocelli-Ward for a pass to the nurse. Anybody who knew P-W would have told me I was insane, but I was beyond caring. She looked at me, droopy-eyed, and pulled out her hall-pass pad.
“Are they going to do surgery?” she said as she scribbled.
I squeezed out a yes.
“I’ve heard it gets worse before it gets better,” she said. “But before you know it, it will all be behind you.”
With a nod I headed for the door and got out into the hall before the sobs choked out of me again. I had a feeling—a deep-down digging feeling—that this was never going to be behind me.
The nurse didn’t even ask me why I was there. She just nodded her bad-perm head and patted my shoulder and offered me a bed in the room behind her office. Nobody else was puking or bleeding or faking that hour, so as soon as she shut the door and disappeared, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and texted Gretchen.
They’re saying those pills you gave me are steroids. Were they?
Then I spent the rest of fifth period imagining her sitting down with me when I talked to Mom and Dad, explaining the situation until they got it. She was the only one who could convince them that I didn’t know what I was taking. And the more I saw it play out in my mind, the surer I was that she could make Mr. LaSalle see it too. And Coach Deetz. All I wanted was to see that trust in his eyes again.
B
ut I knew I wasn’t going to see it sixth period, because Gretchen didn’t text me back before the bell rang. I dragged myself out into the hall, where Kara was waiting for me, my bag over her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she said.
Her blue eyes were two huge pools of concern. I was surprised I could even see them, as tear-swollen as mine were. It was pointless to do anything but shake my head.
“Somebody was using, huh?” she said. “Ohmigosh. Oh-my-gosh.”
I stopped her at the corner and put my mouth close to her ear. “It was me, Kara.”
Her face went ashen. I propped myself on my crutches and took her face in both hands.
“Just listen to me,” I whispered. “Listen really hard.”
She whimpered, but she somehow nodded.
I told her everything, in a voice that sounded even to me like it was on fast-forward. I knew my tone was fierce, but I had to get it out before she had a chance to doubt any of it. I might live if Coach Deetz never trusted me again, but not Kara. Without her beside me on this, I couldn’t do it.
The bell rang, but neither of us moved until I was done. By then, she was trembling so hard I almost gave her one of my crutches to hold her up.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said. “I swear to you—as soon as Gretchen finds out, she’s going to make this all right.”
“I hope so,” Kara said. I could hardly hear her, even though there was barely a paper’s width between us.
“Promise me that you won’t tell anybody,” I said.
“Okay.”
“I mean it, Kar—not M.J. or Hilary—nobody.”
“I promise.”
“Swear.”
“Cassidy—” ‘ Kara’s voice snagged against a cry in her throat. “Why don’t you believe me? I said I promise.”
She looked down at her arm. My hand was clenched around it like the claw of a predatory bird. We both stared as I let go.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just freaked out. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, at least four times, before a door opened in the hall and Coach Deetz scowled out at us.
“You planning to join us?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
But he shook his head. “I was talking to Kara.”
She fled, and I waited. I must be dying, I thought, because my life was suddenly standing still.
“What do you want me to do?” I said.
“You can sit in my office,” Coach said.
What he didn’t say was that he didn’t want me around the team. My team.
I wouldn’t have wanted me around them either.
I started down the hall, already caving to sobs again, but he stopped me with his voice.
“I want to believe you didn’t know what you were doing, Brewster,” he said. “But I can’t bend the rules—not even for you.”
I just nodded and kept on going.
*
I didn’t hear from Gretchen all period, and I didn’t dare text her again. I was never going to do another sneaky thing as long as I lived. The minute I got in the car with Kara to go home, I dialed Gretchen’s number.
“Gretchen Holden,” she said breathlessly.
“Did you get my text?” I said.
There was a silence so long I thought she’d hung up. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I didn’t see this was you.”
“Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
Another stiff silence. The Frenemy attacked me head on.
“I was going to call you—later—when we have time to talk this out,” she said. “Right now—”
“Right now you need to tell me you’re going to tell my parents I didn’t know I was taking steroids!”
“We really need to be face-to-face to do this, Cassidy—”
“No we don’t! Just say it, Gretchen. Say you’ll tell them you told me they were only supplements.”
I could see that Kara was white-knuckling the steering wheel. I motioned for her to pull over so we didn’t add vehicular homicide to my growing list of offenses.
“Cassidy,” Gretchen said, “we both said we weren’t going to tell anybody.”
“I didn’t! They did a drug test!”
“They don’t randomly test for steroid use in high schools. You must have told somebody.”
“I didn’t—and who cares now? I’m in trouble.”
“Not in as much trouble as I would be if you turned me in.”
I plastered both hands to the sides of my head so it wouldn’t blow off. Kara had her own hands over her mouth. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d thrown up.
“You’ll get a slap on the hand,” Gretchen said. “But my whole career would come to an end. Not to mention my relationship with Aaron.”
I stared at the phone. Was this the same person who told me she wanted me as a sister? The one who said she knew exactly how I felt?
“Here’s what you do,” she said. “Tell them you don’t know the name of the person who gave them to you. Say it was some guy at a party.”
“I don’t go to parties!”
“And then I’ll sit down with you and your mom and dad and convince them you couldn’t have possibly known what you were doing.”
“Oh—so you’ll tell them somebody lied to me and said they were just supplements and that they would just make me a little crabby … not that they would turn me into a raving lunatic!”
“Would you have taken them if I’d said they were steroids?” Gretchen’s voice was icy.
“No!”
“And then you’d still be waiting for your swelling to go down. You wouldn’t be scheduled for surgery. You wouldn’t have a head start on muscle strength—”
“What good does that do me now? My coach can’t even talk to me, my team’s gonna think I’m a druggie—”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
The air went dead again.
“So you’re just going to let me go down for it?” I said. “All by myself?”
“I said I’d—”
“No. I don’t want you to lie—again! I want you to tell the truth!”
“I have a lot more to lose than you,” said the woman who wanted a bond with me. “I can’t. And it won’t do any good for you to do it either, because I’ll deny it. At this point, who are they going to believe?”
She threw in an “I’m sorry,” in a voice tinged in tears. I hit END CALL so I wouldn’t be the one to throw up.
“Oh—my—gosh, Cassidy,” Kara whispered. “What are you going to do?”
I shook my head, but I did know. I was going to do the only thing I could do.
“I need Coach Deetz to stick up for me with Mr. LaSalle.”
“What about your parents?”
“I’m not telling them yet. I’ll go to Coach first thing in the morning.” I twisted to face her straight on, knee protesting in pain. “Will you pick me up early—like six thirty?”
“Okay. Anything.”
“And will you tell him that the day you took me to meet Gretchen I had no idea what it was about?”
She nodded. Slowly. “That’s what you told me—yeah.”
I went stiff. “What? Now you don’t believe me either?”
“Don’t yell at me, Cassidy, okay? I’m already so stressed out over this I can’t even think.”
I let out a hunk of air. “I’m sorry. Take your stress and multiply it by a thousand and you’ve got mine. What did I say to you that day?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. A tear escaped from the corner of one of them. “You said you couldn’t tell me everything right then, but just to trust you—that it was all gonna be cool.”
“I couldn’t tell you everything because I didn’t know. Did I say anything about steroids?”
She shook her head and wiped at the tears with the pads of her fingers.
“That’s all you have to say.”
“To who?”
“To Coach Deetz, Mr. LaSalle
. Whoever.”
“Why can’t I just say it to your parents?”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “I’m not telling my parents. Why is this so hard to understand?”
“You got in trouble for keeping stuff from them already,” Kara said to the steering wheel. “I don’t get why you’re doing it again.”
“Have you met my father? Okay, look—if you don’t want to help—”
“I do. It’s just—who am I helping?”
“Huh?” I said.
“Am I helping the old Cassidy or the new one?” She started the engine. “‘Cause the new one—I don’t even think I like her.”
We rode home in a silence that screamed that I really was dead. Really.
*
I got through the evening by claiming that I was hurting and needed to do homework. Dad offered me pizza, which I took to my room and tossed in the trash can. Mom came in late, like she always did, and found me pretending to be asleep. She brushed my cheek with cold fingers and said, “It’ll be over soon, Cass.”
Yeah. That was what I was afraid of. I made another vow to myself that after this, I wasn’t ever doing anything I couldn’t tell the entire world about. I’d already flushed all the pills down the toilet and drunk enough water to sink the Titanic so I could flush them out of me.
I slept a total of about three hours and woke up in a near panic. When I thought about how I was going to have to keep that under control while I talked to Coach Deetz, I panicked even more. I was shaking so hard that when Kara called at 6:15, I could barely open my phone.
“I overslept,” she said. “I can’t pick you up until—”
“That’s okay,” I said. It wasn’t, but I had to start the self-control now or I wasn’t going to make it ‘til six twenty. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I keep having to say I’m sorry to you.”
“I’ll just be glad when this is all done and I have you back,” she said. “That’s gonna happen, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Those drugs are evil.”
“No doubt,” she said, and hung up crying.
I had a feeling she hadn’t slept a whole lot more than I had.
Now I had to find a way to get to school before anybody else. There was no way I was asking Dad. Could I call a cab?
