Page 13 of The Game Plan

“Good night.”

Chapter six

Miles

“Sincewhenareyouhooking up with Sam Burke?” Greg says the instant I close the door.

My roommates are sprawled across the living room, a superhero movie on the big screen. Amir pauses the movie to get the good gossip.

Bitterly, I laugh. “I’m not.”

“That’s not what everyone is saying.”

“We literally had dinner together less than half an hour ago. How is the news out already?”

“O’Rourke,” he says, at the same time I do.

“He’s such an asshole,” Tucker says. “Do you know he called mefatsolast week? Like that’s supposed to be an insult.”

“I hate him.” My blood boils all over again. “He can’t ever fucking leave us alone. I don’t get it.”

“He likes to feel powerful,” Wes says, turning a page in his ever present book. “It’s because he has weak moral character.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a pretty great volleyball player, so the school isn’t going to do anything but slap him on the wrist,” I remind him. There’s no use in complaining to administration. Technically he isn’t breaking the code of conduct, just skirting the line of what’s allowed. He’s slimy, but he’ll get away with it.

“Sam Burke is stupid hot,” Amir tells me, as if I’m not well aware. “What’s your game plan there?”

“We’re in the same statistics class. We were studying.”

The guys nod, accepting this. They know I care about my grades. They know I’m not the idiot everyone else on campus seems to think I am. I’m not sure why everyone thinks I can barely tie my own shoes. I didn’t get into college purely because of my athletic capabilities. I am a perfectly functional human being. I can balance my checking account and drive a car and sort my laundry like a real grown up.

Still, when I go up to my room and collapse onto my bed, that interaction replays in my head over and over again.Tubby. It’s nothing new. People have been finding new and creative ways to call me fat for years. I’ve heard it all before.

I just wish it didn’t bother me as much as it does.

I don’t fit in. Even with the football team, I’m bigger and stronger than half the guys on the field. That’s my job. I need to be big. It’s a shame that what gets me revered on the football field gets me reviled everywhere else. I’m too big, too tall, too wide. I can’t sit in the front of the classroom because then the people behind me can’t see the whiteboard. I can’t sit in the middle seat on an airplane because then my limbs touch the people on either side of me. I can’t fit in the backseat of a cab. Bicycles aren’t built for people my height and weight. Even the special order treadmills in the football gym groan beneath my weight.

I have to make myself small in order for other people to accept me. Nothing about me is small, not my personality and not my heart and not my brain. I can’t control my physical size and shape. Most of the time, I don’t even want to.

When guys like O’Rourke start in on me… I just want to be invisible. Maybe then they will go away. Maybe then it will all stop. I don’t ever want to be the center of attention. Nothing good ever happens to me, only bad.

Like the masochist I am, I pull up my social media profile. My name has already been tagged in vicious rumors involving me and Sam doing nefarious things. Or rather, me existing and she doing nefarious things to me. There’s a photo of us leaving the study room upstairs at the ASC, my face red and hers satisfied. There’s a series of pictures of us eating in the dining hall. From the angle of the photo, it looks like… it almost looks like it’s coming from where the volleyball players were sitting.

Except the profile that tagged us is anonymous.

I don’t wish this on anyone. The comments are spewing hateful, hurting things. Degrading me, fine, I can deal with that. Degrading her?

Rolling over, I clutch my favorite pillow to my chest and force back my emotions. They will not control me. They will not define me.

Once I have everything under control, I pick up my phone again. The comments are downright nasty. Speculative and malicious lies. Why are people so interested in this? Is it because I’m that terrible of a person? I know Sam is popular, but I didn’t think she was so much so that people take pictures of her everywhere she goes.

She’s a fucking catch. She’s an eleven out of ten, hot and nice and smart and a good athlete if the stats in her bio are anything to go off of. She was perfectly kind to me, and even if we got off on the wrong foot, since then, it’s been smooth sailing. As a person, I like her.

As a woman… yeah, I can’t deny that Ilikeher, too. She’s gorgeous. More than that, she has a beautiful soul. She’s smart and funny and confident. She knows what she wants and goes after it. Look at how deftly she pursued me—she got me to tutor her with a purple Gatorade and a pretty smile.

And, yeah, the sob story contributed to it. I would hate to be the reason another athlete was kicked off their team. I would hate to see another athlete prevented from playing their sport because of academic ineligibility. Especially when it’s because of statistics. Math is easy. Statistics are a piece of cake. Nothing should stand in the way between Sam and playing softball. If I can help her pass this class… yeah, that will feel good. That will almost be as good as getting another A+ myself.

She’s not interested in me as anything other than a study partner, so I’m going to be the best damn study buddy she’s ever had. I’ll make sure she knows the principles behind probability so damn well, she can recite them backwards and forwards.

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