Page 15 of Wrong Pucking Player

I lift my head to see the smiling coach with his prideful eyes.

“Or would you rather your aunt be first up?”

The idea of telling her makes me laugh, the sound only filled with broken sobs as tears run down my cheeks.

“She won’t believe me if I tell her,” I dare to whisper and watch how Coach Cyrus’ eyes soften at my disbelief.

“I told you that you’d get in,” he affirms as he takes a seat next to me.

“Y-You…” I never could understand why he always had hope in me. No matter all the shit I surely put him and his son through with being in their lives and even beyond our relationship when we broke things up, Coach Cyrus always believed in me.

Just like his son…

“You don’t even know what the letter says.”

“I’m pretty confident that it says Mackenzie Andrews got accepted to her internship and will soon know what she’s doing for the next six to nine months,” he summarizes as he reaches over to gently stroke my head.

I turn my head to look into his eyes as his smile further widens.

“Congratulations, Mackenzie. You did it.”

“I… did it,” I whisper back to him as new sets of tears fill my eyelids. “Even though everyone said I couldn’t do it. All the advisors… and the other guys at Education Centre. Heck… my aunt didn’t think I could do it unless I did more education. That three years wasn’t enough for someone with a learning disability.”

He frowns at my words, knowing well it’s probably true.

Despite my aunt doing her best to be the family member who hasn’t discarded my existence, she has a lot of toxic traits to her. Truthfully, I only think she put up with me for so long because of the government checks flowing into her bank account for being my “temporary” guardian.

Once those ended, our relationship began to dim to occasional check-ins.

“You don’t have a learning disability,” Coach Cyrus harshly mutters.

That little “tidbit” of information has always pissed him off since he’s known me.

So many said it would be good to say I had a learning disability on my file because it would benefit me in various ways—getting more time on tests, being able to bring notes, and doing examinations in a quiet room versus the massive auditoriums.

I couldn’t see how those benefits helped when the label was placed on my forehead for everyone to mock. In a small town like this, I might as well wear a t-shirt that says ‘retarded.’

That’s what the bully boys always encouraged me to do.

“We got that removed from your file years ago, Mackenzie,” Coach Cyrus emphasizes to remind me of the truth.

He’s right.

He was the one who forced me to take multiple learning tests and prove I not only didn’t have a learning disability, but I had an even higher level of intelligence than my school administration failed to acknowledge.

“I know,” I quietly admit. “I just forget a lot when my aunt brings it up so often.”

“Then I’ll gladly remind her,” he stresses before he’s pulling me into a side hug. “Now, bask in the fact you just got into the internship you always wanted and are opening the doors to the career you’ve dreamed of for years.”

“Thanks, Coach Cyrus,” I whisper and hug him back as my tears fall.

“Everett.”

“Same thing,” I tease, which makes us both chuckle.

I did it. I got in. I’m one step closer to becoming a team nurse!

All that’s left now is a sport and to be assigned to a team.

---