Page 18 of Walk the Line

I try to work with what I’ve got, though, signalling when I’m open, intercepting the puck as much as I can and being there for the other members of my team when they need it. Frustration sits within me throughout the whole game, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for it to end when it does.

“Good game, everyone,” Coach Campbell says when we’re all done. “Go get yourself changed. I’m sure you have lectures or whatever people do at university. You…You, stay behind right here please.”

He points to Julius and I.

I can’t bear to think where this might be going.

“You been practicing, Julius?” he says, getting straight to it.

“Every day, Coach.”

“Hm.” There’s a hint of…something in his tone, but I don’t know what it is. “Kaylah, is it?” He says to me.

“Yep.”

“You’re good.”

“I’m more than good.”

“You’re great.”

“I know, but thank you.”

If men can be this cocky, why can’t I?

Julius scoffs.

I watch him. “You have something up your nose?”

“Yeah, the smell of bullshit.”

“You better go deal with that elsewhere, then.”

“You two know each other?”

“No.”

“No.”

It would probably be more believable if we didn’t say it before the question has even marinated in the air, and at the same time no less. I’m not surprised that Coach is looking at us like we have two heads.

“Okay…anyway, Kaylah, were you aware that Julius was the Captain of the team last year?” he asks.

“Yes.”

I feel his eyes blazing in on me at that. Did he really not expect me to look into him?

“Julius, were you aware that Kaylah was the Captain of her Women’s team at her old university?”

“Yeah.”

My breaths get a little shaky at the mention of my old university, but I definitely don’t feel comfortable showing that to anyone in this room. I find it even more difficult to compose myself after Julius’s admission. I wasn’t aware he knew this particular thing about me.

It’s one of the few remnants of me that still remain on the website, so I’m guessing that’s where he got it from. I already know that Coach is familiar with this piece of information because I told him and he fact checked with my old Hockey coach. She was nice enough that she would happily verify it.

“Still as chatty as you were last year, I see,” he says. “So I’ll let you guys be the first to know that we’re trialling out something new this year. I think from the match you just played you can figure out what it is.”

Silence cuts through the air.