Coach Me

by Shanora Williams

  I’m going to cut that bullshit right now. I had to break Thomas down before building him back up. His coaches before were astonished by his skill, but I knew he could do better. Be better.

  Before, there was no real competition for Thomas, same as there wasn’t for Amber. Then I took Thomas under my wing, signed him up for an elite track and field club I volunteered for outside of school (but not without his mother’s permission, of course), and he improved.

  But right now, seeing as Amber is a part of the Bennett University women’s track and field team, she’s all for the betterment of the team, and she’s about to have a big wake up call.

  I don’t even know why I’m letting her words get to me so much. Howard is more of a headache than any of the athletes, but there’s something about the way Amber is, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s something.

  The way she holds her head up and keeps her back straight, like she’s been trained to never look down, no matter what. She’s all prim and proper, but her hair is curly and unruly and all over the place. It doesn’t match her personality…yet it does all the same. And her eyes. I’ve never seen eyes like that. Big, bright, honey-colored eyes.

  I think it’s because she’s not arrogant that she gets to me. She’s sure of herself and knows she deserves the place she’s in—being a part of an Ivy League track and field team. She’s so grateful and that bugs me, only because I know a school like this one can suck the joy right out of you and she is not the least bit prepared.

  Someone, and I’m assuming it was her father, taught her to only strive for greatness. He taught her to never settle, and most likely told her that she is worthy of whatever comes her way, so long as she works hard for it.

  She holds that close to her heart, I can tell…and that gets to me.

  Runners like her, who are great and know they are, aren’t usually so well-mannered and polite and innocent. They always have an ugly, cocky side that rears its head at the wrong time.

  But Amber is polite and innocent, and I can tell she’s fiercely devoted…and I’m drawn to that shit. Drawn to it like a moth to a flame. My only hope is that she holds onto that devotion for as long as she can.

  “Head up your ass again, Torres?” Mills stops in front of my open office door.

  I throw my middle finger up at him and he steps inside. This is not an invitation for him to talk to me. Most people take note of the middle finger and, oh, I don’t know, fuck off, maybe? But not Mills. Mills is too damn talkative for that.

  “What do you think of the new recruits?” he asks, leaning against the frame of my door, and folding his arms.

  His question makes me think of wild hair. Golden-brown skin. Bright, amber eyes. Is that why her name is Amber? Because of her eyes? How unoriginal. “Recruits seem good.”

  “Yeah. We’ll get to see who we can work with after the relay. My money is on Ramirez and Lakes.”

  “Ramirez? I scouted her, right?”

  “Believe so. She was good. You said she had a good stride, hurdles like a champ.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She was at the restaurant with Lakes. I look down at the balled-up sandwich wrapper on my desk and the smoothie in the plastic cup that I’m sure is watery slush at this point.

  “I think we’ll do great this year. Got a lot of passionate ones. I read over some of their answers while I was in my office. A lot of them are focused on teamwork, which is good. Even Melanie is, though she worded it in a cocky-as-hell way.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  Mills pushes off the door and drops his arms, taking a hard sweep of my cluttered office before focusing on me again. “I’m going to my mom’s place for dinner. You want to join us?”

  I shake my head. “No.” He always does this. Mills thinks I’m lonely because I don’t have many friends and because I don’t date as much as someone as good-looking as me should date. His words, not mine.

  What he doesn’t realize is that I like being alone. And it’s not like I’ve always denied Mills when he offered dinner.

  He invited me to his place for spaghetti made by his mom once. The tomato sauce was watered down, and the garlic bread was too burnt for my liking, but I still ate it, and she was pleased, so he should be grateful I paid that one visit.

  “Okay, well, I’ll see ya next week then.” Mills looks over his shoulder at me, hesitating.

  “I’m fine, Ben. Go enjoy your time alone with your mom.”

  At that, he smiles. He loves his mom—a straight up Mama’s boy—and I’m glad the mere mention of her makes him forget about how lonely he thinks I am.

  I am fine. That’s what I tell myself and that’s what I tell the people around me.

  I’m fine. This is my life. I’ll deal with it.

  SEVEN

  After my former teammate’s brother was stabbed to death while leaving his security guard job one night, I always wondered why such tragic things happened to good, innocent people.

  Leanna, the former teammate, didn’t show up to practice for two weeks. She was grieving over what happened and she was my friend, so I saw how much it hurt her that something so bad happened.

  Mama always tells me I have too much empathy. When someone I don’t even know is in pain, I manage to feel for them, and when it’s someone I do know, I literally feel everything.

  When Daddy died, I was weighed down by a lot of grief, but Mama took it so much harder than I did. I remember cuddling with her in the bed she shared with Daddy. She hated sleeping alone that first year, and after eighteen years of sharing a bed with someone she loved, I didn’t blame her. Having one side of the bed empty and cold was foreign to her.

  When I first visited Leanna’s house after the stabbing, I could feel the sadness in that home. The house felt gray, which is a weird thing to say since feelings can’t exactly be colors, but it’s the only way I can describe it. Gray.

  I’d been in Leanna’s home many times before and the curtains would be open, and it always smelled like cupcakes and buttercream frosting because Leanna’s mom ran her own cupcake company from home.

  But this time when I visited, I didn’t smell cupcakes, and the curtains were closed. Leanna’s aunt answered the door and gave me a kind smile, and after giving Leanna’s mom a comforting hug, I went straight to Leanna’s bedroom.

  She was lying in the fetal position on her bed, her hair thick and matted. Her eyes were puffy too. She sat up when she saw me, and she instantly smiled.

  She said no one from school had come to visit her, but that the coaches had called to check on her and sent their condolences. She was glad to see me, and I could tell she really needed a friend. I knew what it was like to lose a loved one. It’s an indescribable pain and one I wouldn’t wish on any person in this world.

  I was there for her and I absorbed as much of her pain as I could. Leanna went on to tell me the details of how her brother was killed. A man had broken out of jail and needed a car. Apparently, the man was hiding out around the parking lot where her brother had been parked, waiting for someone to come out to one of the cars.

  The murderer attacked him, stabbed him three times, took his keys, left his body in the parking lot, and drove off. Her brother wasn’t found until a third-shift security guard pulled up an hour later and saw him, but it was too late. He’d bled out.

  Fortunately, the police caught the man, and from what Leanna’s mother was saying, he wasn’t going to be out of prison for a long, long time, despite having mental issues.

  The story is scary, right? I mean, her brother died because of this man and I felt awful about it. But all I could think about was why that man decided to physically attack Leanna’s brother like that in the first place. Why murder someone to get away instead of running, or catching a bus, or stealing a bike at least? Why kill just to get away? Why cause a scene? An investigation? To me, it was like the murderer wanted to be caught, which also didn’t make any sense. The cops figured out Leanna’s brother’s license plate number. They set up ro
ad blocks and tracked the car down. It was all too easy.

  That always got to me. Like some part of that murderer was good and wanted to be punished, but his demons had won.

  Not only that, but not too long after my father passed, Mama started seeing a therapist. She had pills on her nightstand. Some days she was fine—humming and flipping pancakes—and others she was sad and moping and laid up in her bed.

  Her depression was understandable, but to me, it was like she couldn’t cope with losing my dad. These were things I questioned and things I could never wrap my head around. With loss, comes healing. With breaking out of prison, normally you do whatever you can to stay out of sight, not go and kill someone. But that man did everything wrong, and was caught, and he wasn’t apologetic either.

  And that is why, on the first day of classes, I’m sitting on the second row in my first class of the morning, History of Psychology. The professor is an older, balding man. Short, with a big nose. Professor Glaspy. I can see the pores on his nose from here. He has a kind voice and he adds pizazz to the way he teaches. I like that.

  I feel so eager to write down so many notes while my peers just sit and listen, since psychology has always intrigued me. Other than running, the thought processes of others has always been something I never stopped wondering about.

  I watched lots of documentaries with my dad, and even to this day I’m clicking through Netflix for the next mind-bending documentary.

  When class is over, I pack up my bag, and hear giggling behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I spot a girl with olive skin and blond hair giggling with her books hugged to her chest. A guy in front of her is smiling and talking. He’s tall, auburn-haired, broad-shouldered, with a strong jawline and lips that are full and pink.

  As if he feels someone looking at him, his eyes swing my way, but I snatch my gaze away, sliding the last book into my bag, standing, and then slinging the pink strap of the bag over my shoulder.

  I leave the classroom, passing the giggling girl and the tall, chiseled-face guy. I feel eyes on me as I leave. I don’t bother looking back.

  I don’t have another class for another hour and a half, so I decide to go to the nearest café on campus and do a little more studying. It’s the first day of classes, and we’ve already been assigned some work from Professor Glaspy. He wants us to find articles about mental illnesses, and figure out which sort of stories stand out to us the most, and then write a short essay on why we’re drawn to that specific illness.

  As I sit and unpack my laptop, I already know what topic I’m going for. The link between homicide and mental illness. My professor will think I’m a bit crazy. Or maybe he’ll dig it. I guess we’ll see.

  The door of the café swings open, and the only reason I know is because I have a table by the door, and I feel the air hit the back of my neck. I don’t look, too focused on the screen of my laptop, but I do hear the familiar voice as a hazelnut coffee with almond milk is ordered.

  I glance over, and it’s that same guy from class. Ivory skin. Auburn bed hair. His shirt is green and creaseless, jeans low on his hips. He takes his coffee and then turns, looking right at me.

  I avoid his gaze, putting my focus on my laptop again. My heart bangs against my ribcage as I feel him approaching.

  “Amber Lakes, right?” he asks, standing behind the metal chair across the table.

  I lift my gaze. “Depends on who’s asking?”

  He smirks. A dimple appears. “Stephen Hunt.” He stretches his arm, offering a hand. “Quarterback for the BU Pirates.”

  I almost chuckle at the word pirates. It’s always been such a silly mascot to me, but the colors work.

  I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. But how do you know my name?”

  He flashes an all-knowing grin. “Heard Coach Mills talking about new recruits last season. He comes to all the home games. He told us to lookout for women’s track this year because they now have one of the fastest runners on the east coast.”

  “Is that so?” I purse my lips. I can’t tell If he’s flirting or holding a casual conversation. My heart is still beating, and I’m fighting smiles. What he’s saying feels like compliments, but I keep my cool.

  “Oh, for sure. Track normally practices when we do. Looking forward to seeing what all the hype is about.” He sips his coffee, swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down and then he presses his pink lips together. “See you around, Lakes.”

  Yeah, he will see me around. In my psychology class and on the track. That’s it. He winks at me as he casually strides away, and when he’s out of the café, I look around to see if anyone else noticed that encounter. Two girls with their laptops in front of them are looking at me, eyes round like saucers. They duck their heads to whisper.

  I lower my head, focusing on the article in front of me, pretending that the Quarterback of Bennett University talking to me is way less important than homicide and mental illness research.

  EIGHT

  “Hell no! You better watch out for that kid!” Kendall is jamming dishes into the dishwasher, her head shaking. Her hair is braided into one single braid behind her back. Apparently, Janine braided it for her this morning because Janine couldn’t deal with Kendall’s boring ponytails any longer.

  “I’m a freshman, and I’ve already heard so much shit about Stephen Hunt,” Kendall says. “I mean, he dated that Melanie chick on our team. If he stooped that low, there’s no coming back for him.”

  “He seemed nice,” I say, shrugging. I pick up the biology book on the counter. “He said Mills talked about me a lot last season.”

  “Bullshit. It was probably one of the girls from Triple Threat talking about you and he got intrigued. And honestly, it’s not hard to figure out who you are, Amber. You’re the only black girl on the track team. All people need to say is, ‘Amber Lakes? The black girl that runs track? Oh yeah, I know who she is!’” She rolls her eyes.

  It is true. I am the only black girl on the women’s track and field team and Mama wasn’t happy about that. When she’d looked online and saw that Bennett University was a predominately white school, she was not pleased.

  “Are you sure you want to pick this school, Amby?” Mama asked while looking over my shoulder as I scanned the page dedicated to the BU track team. “I know it’s close to home, but…I mean, do you think you’ll fit in there?”

  Bennett University had given me a full-ride scholarship. They didn’t care about the color of my skin. They cared about my skill, same as Harvard and Princeton…at least, I think so.

  “Harvard just sounds better.” Mama was always thinking about what was best for her, which was typical of Mrs. Paula Lakes.

  “Well, it’s not like I’m that into him,” I say to Kendall. “He just seemed nice, is all.”

  There’s a knock at the door and I head over to get it, knowing it’s Janine. I swing it open and she trots right in with a notebook and textbook, a black pen tucked behind her right ear.

  “Rose, tell Amber all about the quarterback,” Kendall demands.

  Janine’s notebook makes a slapping noise on the coffee table as she looks between us. “You mean Stephen Hunt or Joshua Bigly?”

  “Joshua doesn’t even get to play! I’m talking about Hunt!”

  “Oh…yeah, don’t even bother. Last thing I heard was he took Claire from band out to dinner and didn’t even pay.”

  Kendall snorts. “And Amber thinks he’s soooo nice.”

  “He’s hot and all, but he’s super cocky, Amber. Don’t waste your time. Did he flirt with you?”

  “He’s in my psychology class and I saw him at the café. He talked to me, said he knew who I was and couldn’t wait to see me on the track.”

  Janine sits in the recliner. “And let me guess. He shook your hand and then winked at you when he left?”

  I hesitate. How does she know that?

  “He does that to every girl he finds out a fact about. If you’re attractive, that’s just a bonus. He’s full of shit. Don�
�t take the bait.”

  I sit on the loveseat. “I wasn’t going to talk to him, guys. I just thought he was cute and wanted to mention it.”

  “Good. Track and the books. Boys—especially the athletic ones—are just assholes here.” Janine pops a piece of gum into her mouth, then turns the pack toward me. I take a piece and unwrap it, tossing it into my mouth.

  “So…you ready for the relay?” she asks.

  The relay is in two hours. “It’ll be pretty easy.”

  “Well, that all depends on who you get assigned to relay with. Last year I had to team up with Christa and Katie. They’re the slowest bitches on the team! I’m convinced at this point that their parents paid a good penny to get them on the team. Christa’s dad is a mayor of some shitty city close by and Katie’s dad partly owns a knock-off cereal company. I think it’s supposed to be similar to Honey Combs or Honey Bunches of Oats…one of those. Anyway, their parents know people.”

  “We don’t get to choose who we want to run with?” Suddenly, I’m hating the idea of this race.

  “No…that’s why I think Torres is the one who sets this whole relay thing up. It’s a way to test your skills, your patience, and so you can figure out where your teams weaknesses and strengths are. It’s almost embarrassing for Katie and Christa, honestly. Just you wait.”

  NINE

  And, oh my goodness. Janine was not kidding about Katie and Christa.

  The relay race was horrible. I was on a losing team and I had Katie, Christa, and a girl named Blaire on my team. Blaire was pretty quick. Katie and Blaire started the race. Blaire ended up being able to catch up. But then she handed the baton to Christa and Christa was like a snail in comparison to everyone else.

  I was trying to stay patient and cheer Christa on. Get her to hurry, get her motivated. But she was just so damn slow, and I had to stay on my line and bounce on my toes with my hand stuck out, waving it frantically, while everyone else grabbed their batons and took off.