Page 22 of Walk the Line

“So I’m just being punished then?” I ask.

“Are you enjoying proving my point?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Do I have no self awareness?

“Coach—“ I begin, not knowing how I plan to finish.

“Not everything is about you,” he says resolutely. “Lead your team, yes, but get to know them as well. If they’re not comfortable with you, you’re not doing a good job and I’ll have a problem with that.”

I’m all out of arguments at this point. I need to process this shit out of here.

“Whatever,” is all I say.

“I’ll take that as an agreement.”

It’s hardly an agreement from me, but I leave his office anyway, with only one plan of action coming to mind for when I get home. The home I share with her right after just seeing her at Hockey.

Walking through the door, I don’t dwell on that too much and instead jump straight to my plan.

“How does that make any sense?” I say aloud to myself as I stare at my phone screen in my hand.

The briefest mention of Kaylah being a Hockey player at her old university looks back at me, but that comes without a picture to accompany her accolades or…anything else about her. It looks out of place compared to everything else on the website.

This isn’t anything new because it’s what I found when I did my first brief search of her. But now she’s suddenly in my life in different ways, it’s time to look into her more thoroughly and I don’t know what I was expecting to find exactly, but I thought it would be more than just a mention of her.

It’s really just a list of names for the Women’s Team they had Yanton University, but beyond the mention of her being Captain from September to December, there’s nothing else. It wouldn’t be so strange if every other player that’s listed doesn’t have a picture and short biography by their name.

I exit out of the website in the hopes of finding something else on the Internet that can tell me more about her, but it’s all just shit that has been derived from her name but has nothing to do with her.

Everyone’s different, but for a sportsperson as good as her, there’s usually some type of story or article that lives on the Internet about us. I’ve seen it for and about m myself, people would have shit to say about that, especially when I know you don’t get that good unless you’ve been doing this forever.

There’s something really not making sense about the fact she’s looking like a ghost on the internet.

Who the fuck is this woman? Seriously. From what I can gather she’s in her second year like me, at Wildern, but why did she leave her other university? She must have been getting comfortable there if she was on the Hockey team and the Captain, no less. Transferring seems like a process you only do if you have to.

But even just the way she claimed her room before anyone else and stayed here for what I’m assuming was the whole summer, it’s got questions rising in my mind that I need to just put to rest. I mean, I came here early too and that’s because there’s something I’m avoiding. So what’s her excuse?

I sigh and get my phone out of my sight because this is pointless. Anything I find out about her isn’t going to solve the problem I have of not wanting her to be Captain with me.

Or worse, take over as Captain from me.

I can’t even sit still right now, and suddenly I’m grabbing my phone again. But this time I’m reading the new email that has just come through from Coach Campbell, sent to everyone on the new team.

Some names I recognise, most I don’t. Seeing Nathan and Daniel’s names reminds me I need to go make some food, preferably without them joining me in the kitchen for any type of conversation.

Yeah, that’s not a good way to prove Coach wrong.

Fuck.

The sigh out of my mouth comes naturally, before I put my ear against the wall for any noise.

Walking into the empty kitchen, the thought crosses my mind that I could do with some wings right now so I pull the pack out of the fridge and get everything else I need out.

It’s not even two minutes of me appreciating the silence in the kitchen before I hear, “Captain!”

Oh, yeah, because Coach included in his email the announcement of the co-captains.