Page 75 of The Game Plan

There is merit to wearing dresses and high heels, just like there is merit to wearing oversized overalls and combat boots. Liking one or both or neither isn’t wrong or right. I’m “not like other girls” in that I’m me, not because of how feminine or tomboyish I am. I’m exactly like other girls in that I am, in fact, a girl.

The good thing about being in a sorority is that I’m surrounded by women: women who are like me, women who are different than me. I’m exposed to a variety of people and I’ve been forced to expand my horizons beyond the limits of the softball team. I’ve stretched my wings and made friends, especially with people I never thought in a million years I’d be friends with. The best thing I’ve done since coming to Newton is join the Kappas.

Okay, second best thing. The best would probably be joining the softball team and getting a scholarship. That can’t be discounted.

Between the team and the sorority, I’ve met so many interesting people. Beyond the confines of the athletic department, I’ve met people in my majors and people in the Greek system, and I’ve made friends—real, true friends. I’ve found a community of people. I’ve made Newton my home. I have a life beyond the team, beyond the sorority, beyond the day to day monotony of school work. I’ve made myself a home.

My phone vibrates on the nightstand where it’s plugged into the charger. I don’t have the energy to roll over and check it. It’s been buzzing all afternoon.

Fitfully, I doze on and off. Everything hurts. I might be dying. My back seizes up with spasms every time I so much as think of moving. My stomach feels like it’s being stabbed by a thousand dull rusty knives. I’m just going to lay here on my side with a heating pad and slowly die.

There’s a knock on my door. I moan weakly.

“Leave me alone. I’m dying.”

“Sam?”

It’s Miles.

“Hey,” I croak out. I try to roll over and my back lights up with fireworks. I might groan out loud.

“You okay, baby? I didn’t see you in class today.”

“You can come in. I’m not contagious.”

I crane my neck as he cracks the door open. He’s fresh from football practice, his hair damp and his cheeks flushed from being outside in the cold. His backpack is slung over his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He doesn’t make any attempt to cross the threshold.

“I think I’m dying.”

He frowns, his eyes softening. “You weren’t sick yesterday at breakfast.”

“It came on in the afternoon. I spent the morning at the student health center.” A skeptical nurse and an ultrasound confirmed what I knew to be true: an ovarian cyst ruptured. Not my first. Most likely won’t be my last. That’s the fun of polycystic ovary syndrome. There’s always another cyst just waiting to go kaput and rupture. “You can’t catch it.”

He sets a bagged container on my dresser. “Lex said you weren’t feeling well. I brought you soup.”

“Thank you. That’s so nice of you.”

Miles sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. He looks tired. Haggard.

“I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“I don’t like feeling like this, either.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

I moan pitifully. “Can you hold me?”

He lets out a ragged breath. “Yeah, baby, I can do that.”

He toes off his shoes and lifts the blankets. Sliding in behind me, he molds his front to my back, his arm coming up to wrap around me. He makes a puzzled noise at the discovery of the heating pad practically glued to my stomach. I need all the help I can get.

“Bad cramps?”

“Cyst ruptured.” I feel more than hear his sudden intake of breath. I grab his hand, bringing it up to my chest, over my heart. “Everything hurts.”

He doesn’t try to feel me up. I’m almost a little disappointed by that. Maybe he can tell how not into it I am. He’s not weirded out by the idea that I have a working uterus. Well, semi-functional at best. His hand strokes over my hip and IT band, rubbing at the tense muscles there.

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