Chapter Twenty

Fourteen Years Old.

Dawn breaks across the sky in brilliant pinks and blues.

Coach Locken and I are the only people in Castle Rock reservoir.

“Thought you’d work on your times without the other harriers. I’ve been weeding out the good track and field camps for you for the summer,” he says.

I feel myself turn a brilliant shade of pink, at least five times darker than the dawn above our heads.

Coach Locken looks particularly good this morning. Clean-shaven with gray sweatpants that highlight his strong legs and a blue hoodie that clings to his muscles. I saw that creepy geography teacher on TV, and I’m sorry, but you just can’t compare them. I can think of at least fifty girls at school who would disappear with Coach Locken in the wrestling room and open their legs for him. That other teacher was old and gross.

“Not gonna let you down, Coach.”

Then I’m off.

Running in the woods is my favorite. I like the cool temperature, the fresh air. The unfamiliar sounds.

I run a two-thousand-meter loop. Three rounds. Coach starts his stopwatch. He is standing on the edge of the loop, and when I look back before I disappear into the thick blanket of trees, I notice his eyes linger on my legs.

I’m not going to lie, I’m wearing super short shorts. It’s not accidental. Lately, my daydreams about kissing Coach Locken leak into the nights. I always wake up sweaty and damp between my legs. I try calming myself down with cold showers and watching movies with other hot guys, but it’s not working. He’s the only boy (well, man, really), I truly like.

All my other friends are already kissing and making out. I’m the only one who hasn’t yet. But even if I did want to get a boyfriend to kiss, I know it’s not going to feel as nice, as good as Coach’s fingers on my knees and thighs, so what’s the point?

It’s just a fixation, I tell myself as I round the first loop and see him in the distance. Once you kiss him, you’re not going to be obsessed anymore.

And then I start making excuses for myself again. So what if he’s married? That his wife is pregnant? What she doesn’t know won’t be able to hurt her.

One kiss is not going to mean anything. He is probably going to do me a favor and never think about it again. And I’ll be able to move on and meet someone my age.

But then I think about what my dad said about that geography teacher, and my stomach knots so many times over it becomes heavy with dread. I think about Dad kissing another woman who is not Mom, and I want to throw up. It’s wrong.

I don’t want to be that person, the person who makes someone’s life … wrong.

But if Coach Locken decides to cheat on his wife, then things between them are not that good. You can’t destroy a good relationship, can you?

The second loop is a breeze. I’m so deep inside my head, on autopilot, my legs carry me at the speed of light. I don’t even have to regulate my breathing. It’s on the third loop that my knee starts giving in. It’s more than a dull, persistent pain. This time there’s a sharp zing in my foot too. The cramp is unbearable. I limp the rest of the way to him.

“What happened?” I hear Coach Locken before I see him as I descend the hilly loop. “You were about to break your record before that last loop.”

“My foot is cramping,” I shout back.

“All right. Let’s see.”

He offers me his arm when I get to him, and I lean against it as we scurry toward his car. It’s the only car parked on the edge of the reservoir. Dad drops me off for practice before he goes to work—not before making sure other kids and Coach are there—and I normally get a ride back to school with one of the harrier’s parents.

It’s a big, silver Suburban. He pops the trunk open and it’s the size of my room. There’s sports equipment strewn everywhere.

“Hop in.” He jerks his chin. But I can’t. My foot is down for the count. With an understanding smile, Coach Locken reaches for me. “May I?”

I nod. He hoists me up by the back of my thighs to sit on the edge of his open trunk. He takes my injured foot, slips my running shoe and sock off, and starts massaging, really digging his thumbs as he arches my foot, rotating it here and there.

“Holy crappers,” I moan, plastering myself horizontally across his trunk, so I’m lying down. “This feels like giving birth.”

It also makes me think about his pregnant wife and douses the excitement of being touched by him.

“Watch that language, young lady.” But he sounds more like a friend than a teacher.

“Sorry, but it hurts like a mofo.”

Does he even know what this slang means?

“Perfection costs.”

“I better get that scholarship.”

“Chances are good. Would you wanna stay local or go somewhere else for college?” he asks.

“West Coast, maybe.” I blink back at the ceiling of his SUV. “California.”

Golden beaches and blistering sun sound like my vibe. I bet Santa Barbara and I are going to get along swimmingly.

“Really? Growing up, I lived in Fresno for a while. If you move, I’ll give you my aunt’s number. You know, so you wouldn’t feel so alone. What does your boyfriend think about it?” he hums. “You wanting to move all the way to the other side of the country.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I supply, a little too breathlessly, a little too fast.

“Ross Kendrick is not your boyfriend?” Locken asks innocently, rolling up his sleeves.

Oh. Come on. Ross Kendrick doesn’t like girls, and isn’t shy about it either. Coach is in no risk of winning any Oscar prizes for his acting.

“How’s your wife?” I change the subject. It’s one thing skating over the forbidden and another walking right into it. “Are you having a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.” He doesn’t sound too hot about answering the question, his tone turning sour. “She went to live with her mom. It’s complicated.”

“Okay.”

We hear a pop a few seconds later, coming from my foot.

“Ahh. You broke me,” I laugh.

“Not yet,” he mutters under his breath, but I hear it. I hear it, and suddenly I’m filled with fresh desperation to be touched by him.

“Roll your ankle. Stretch your heel.”

I bring my knee to my chest and do as I’m told. I know what view he’s getting now, when I’m in this position. My running shorts ride up and he can see my panties. White cotton.

“Feels much better. Thank you.”

“A massage for those short muscles?” he offers, his voice comically thick now. “We still have twenty minutes before school starts.”

“Sure.”

This time, he gathers my heels together, pulling my knees as far apart as he can. I’m wide open in front of him as his fingers start traveling my inner thighs. It’s a brutal stretch, but I need it.

Even so, I know he is not supposed to touch me that way at all, and that we’ve crossed a line. The invisible, red string that separates us from casually inappropriate to doing something that could land him in jail and me in therapy for a lifetime.

“Thanks,” I groan. It feels so good. The stretch. His hands. Everything.

I’m going to hell.

“Yup.”

His thumbs touch the hem of my shorts as he draws circles on my skin. One time. Two times. On the third, I know it’s not accidental. I know we’re on the brink of something. I know this is not supposed to happen.

He picks up my foot and stretches my hamstring, pinning my foot next to my head. When he leans into me, I feel his penis pressed against my groin through our clothes. It feels like it’s pulsating. My mouth goes dry.

“So your wife lives with her mom now?” I ask loudly. I don’t know why. Maybe to distract him. Maybe to distract myself. Maybe to remind both of us that she exists.

“Yeah. We’re not on the best of terms. It’s not … we’re not really together.”

He releases me from the hamstring stretch. The tips of his thumbs are touching the hem of my panties under my shorts now. He stills. I swallow hard. Close my eyes.

“Emmabelle.”

It’s the first time he doesn’t call me Penrose. I don’t answer. I don’t breathe. I hate that a part of me wants this. I hate that my panties are damp again.

“I can make this really good for you, sweetie. But you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

My words are gone. Shriveled inside my throat. I know I should say no. I want to say no. But somehow I hear myself saying yes. I want to please him.

“I’ll get into a lot of trouble if people find out. But I know you want to. And … well, I’ve been wanting to for a while.”

A beat passes without either of us saying or doing anything. His thumbs on the sides of my panties feel weird. Foreign. But also … thrilling.

Just when I think he is going to pull my shorts down and remove my panties and enter me—the way I saw in a porn movie once—he tugs both to the side. A cool breeze passes over my vagina, letting me know that it is completely exposed to him.

I pop one eye open and watch him watching me, licking his lips.

“Fuck,” he says.

“I … I’m a virgin.”

But what I’m really trying to say is that I want to keep it that way. I’m not like Persy. I don’t wanna wait until marriage before I lose my virginity, but I want it to mean something. Not to think back in a few years and remember I gave it to someone who was expecting a child with someone else.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll never hurt you, sweetie.”

And then before I know it, he is crouched down, in front of his open truck, sucking my vagina into his mouth. I’m mortified. It feels so awkward. I want to push him away, but I also don’t want to look like a crybaby, especially after how good he’s been to me. How he always pays me extra attention, massages my legs, works on my knee.

I squeeze my eyes shut and remind myself that no one is going to know.

Not Persy. Not my parents. Not Ross and Sailor, my best friends. Definitely not the other harriers. If a tree falls in the middle of the woods and no one hears it … did it actually happen?

This will be our little secret.

The thing I take with me to the grave.

Everything feels wet between my legs. I don’t know if I like it or not. I mean, I like the attention, but … I don’t know. Not necessarily everything else.

After what feels like forever but is probably only ten minutes, he stops, turns around from me, and I see his arms flexing through his hoodie. He is rubbing one out. He finishes. I don’t see any of it, as his back is to me. He cleans himself off with baby wipes then returns to the trunk. By then, I’m sitting down on the edge again, legs dangling from it, like nothing happened.

We’re cool. Everything’s fine. He is not really with his wife, and this is consensual. It’s not like that news article at all. Besides, if it’s so bad, why does it feel so good?

“Hey.” He grins.

“Hi.”

Then he kisses me, tongue and all, and I taste the muskiness and earthiness of myself and his saliva—a mixture of things I’ve never tasted before.

That’s when I decide sin doesn’t taste so bad.