Page 40 of Play Fake
Neither of us hangs up right away. I hear her shifting, probably adjusting her bag, the faint murmur of voices in the background where she is.
“You know we can hang up now, right?” I say, a little amused.
There’s a sharp exhale on her end, like I caught her. “Right. Of course. See you in a few.”
The line clicks off, and I slide the phone back into my pocket, shaking my head.
Still smiling. Which surprises me more than it should.
Sophie shifts her notebook toward me, like she’s letting me into her system. The pages are neat, color-coded with tiny notes in the margins.
“These are good,” I tell her honestly.
She blinks at me, like she doesn’t quite believe it. “They’re…organized. Doesn’t mean they’ll actually help me remember anything when it counts.”
I lean back in my chair, folding my arms loosely. “You’re selling yourself short. Half the battle is already done—you’ve got the info down. You just need someone to run it with you until it sticks.”
Her lips press together, and for a second, she looks almost embarrassed. “That’s the part I hate. I always feel stupid when I mess up.”
“Then don’t call it messing up,” I say, calm and even. “Call it practice. No one gets it perfect on the first try. Not in football, not in class.”
Her pen stills against the page. Slowly, her eyes lift to mine.
I mean it as reassurance, nothing more. But something about the way she looks at me makes the moment heavier than I expected.
So I clear my throat, flip my own notebook open, and push it toward her. “Here. Let’s trade. You quiz me first, then I’ll quiz you. Fair?”
She hesitates, then nods. “Fair.”
For the next half hour, we fall into a rhythm. She reads, I answer. I keep my tone easy, never making a big deal when she trips up or second-guesses herself. When her voice falters, I lean in just enough to remind her, “You know this. Take your time.”
Each time, she breathes through it. Each time, she gets closer.
Just then, a group of students walks by our table, talking among themselves not so quietly.
“Wow, how original. The cheerleader tutoring a struggling jock,” one of them says, causing the rest of the group to laugh.
I raise my hand to rub the back of my neck, not enjoying being looped into such an overrated stigma. Just because some athletes choose to not focus on school, doesn’t mean that others don’t want to excel and make a difference beyond the field.
Trying to refocus on helping Sophie, I shift my book closer to hers, about to ask her the next question when she speaks.
“Actually, he’s helping me. I’m the one struggling in Abnormal Psych with Professor Nelson. You know, one of the hardest grading professors in the school and the one who absolutelyloathesthe fact that athletes sometimes do get special treatment,” she says, leaning back in her chair, arms crossing over her chest as she lifts her eyes to look straight at the group of students. “So, I think you owe Beck here an apology.”
I stare at Sophie, absolutely stunned and honestly speechless. I don’t think anyone has ever really stood up for me in such a blatant way. The group of students mutters among themselves, and I barely hear anything, but I assume they apologize, because the way Sophie is looking at them would have me ready to do just about anything she said.
Without another word to them, Sophie looks back at me. Her eyes a little brighter shade of blue than they were a few minutes ago.
“I’m really sorry about them and sorry for overstepping, if you feel I did. I’m just so tired of the whole ‘athletes can’t be smart’ charade and…yeah. You stood up for me when you didn’t even know me, and I thought I’d return the favor.”
Still stunned speechless, I just nod my head, and we get back to work.
Sophie works through each question I give her, and each time, I catch myself noticing little things I shouldn’t—the wayshe chews her lip when she’s thinking, the faint crease between her brows when she’s trying to remember.
I shake it off. Focus. Because this isn’t about me. It’s about making sure she feels like she can handle this class.
When she finally nails a string of answers in a row, I give a single nod. “See? Told you.”
The smile she gives me then—bright, relieved, proud of herself—sticks somewhere I can’t quite shake.
