Page 83 of Fair Catch
Zeke looked at me, his eyes wide as he shook his head. “I didn’t, I swear. I mean… I read yours, yes. And I… I might have taken inspiration from some of the points you made but—”
“Inspiration?” Coach asked, and then he unclipped Zeke’s paper, followed by mine, reading a paragraph on one and then the other that were worded differently, but said practically the same thing.
I squeezed my eyes shut, sinking down in my chair in disbelief as Coach stared back at us and waited.
“Sir, Riley had nothing to do with this,” Zeke said. “She’s been tutoring me all season and has done nothing but try to help me. It was me who procrastinated on the paper, and she tried to help by—”
“By letting you copy hers?”
“No!” I defended, tears springing to my eyes. I hated that they were there, hated that emotion was getting the best of me in a situation where tears would only make me look worse. “Coach, I swear, I only let him see mine so he could get some ideas on how to craft his. I… I never thought…”
Those words were cut off by my erratic breathing, by my throat closing in around that very cold truth.
I never thought Zeke would do this.
I never thought he would copy my paper, that he’d put both our spots on the team and our scholarships in jeopardy.
I never thought he’d betray me.
My silence lingered as I digested it all, as I tried to wrap my brain around the truth all while it argued with me that it couldn’t possibly be.
Zeke wouldn’t do this.
His words surfaced so loud in my mind it was like I was back on that night of my birthday, my hands in his on our couch as he poured his heart out to me about the night of the accident.
I would never intentionally hurt you.
And I believed him — I think I knew even when I hated him that he would never…
But…
He did.
I shook my head, still not able to grasp it as Zeke took over.
“Sir, I promise you, this was never my intention,” he said, his voice smooth and calm. “I read her essay, yes, but I didn’t intentionally copy it. I wrote my own. There might have been an area toward the end that I…”
His voice faded, and I remembered how I’d teased him, how I’d told him to get his essay done so he could join me in the shower that morning.
He rushed through the end because he wanted…
I closed my eyes, unable to finish the thought as I held back the tears threatening to fall.
“I’ll rewrite it,” Zeke said. “I’ll start over. I’ll—”
“Do you not understand how serious this is?” Coach asked, leaning over his desk and looking at Zeke like he had a leg growing out of his forehead. “You’re both lucky sonofabitches that Professor Marks is a good friend of mine and came to me with this information instead of the Dean. You should be kicked off the team. You should have your scholarships revoked. You should be expelled.”
I choked on a sob, covering my mouth as my eyes welled with tears against my will. Coach glanced at me with not even an ounce of pity before he shook his head and sat back in his chair, folding his hands across his stomach as another spell of silence washed over us.
“You will rewrite the essay. By Friday,” he added, eyes hard on Zeke. “And Novo, you will be assigned to a new roommate immediately.”
I sniffed, unable to look at him or Zeke, unable to believe this was even happening. “Yes, sir.”
Coach sighed. “You’re also both suspended for the last two games of the regular season.”
Everything inside me begged for me to cry out, to scream and protest and remind him that the outcome of those two games would determine whether we played in a bowl game or one of the bowl games — the two that served as the semi-finals before the national championship.
But I bit my tongue, because I knew he already knew that, knew that it pissed him off as much as it killed us to take two of his best players out of those games.
“I expect both of you to still show up and practice as if you were playing, and to support your team through this. If you think I’m upset, I hope you’re prepared to face their wrath when you tell them why you won’t be playing alongside them at tomorrow morning’s practice.”
I just stared at my thighs, hands numb underneath me, a silent tear staining my cheek.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be…
It was like being flipped upside down on a rickety rollercoaster, how just moments ago I was flying high and smiling and my biggest worry was how my twin brother would react to the news that I was dating his best friend.
