Chapter Twenty-Three

Fourteen Years Old.

Winter comes and goes. There’s a bit of a buzz around me. I win a few local competitions and even have a small article written about me in the local paper for breaking the county record, which Dad hangs on our fridge because apparently, being embarrassing is his main side hustle.

In March, Coach Locken’s wife, Brenda, gives birth to a healthy baby boy. By then, we’re doing the whole woods routine twice a week. He eats me out, then we kiss, then he jerks off before giving me a ride to school. One time, on his birthday, he convinced me to lick the sticky white juice from his fingers like they were lollipops. He took three pictures. I cried all night after he’d taken them. I still think about the fact they’re somewhere on his phone, and I want to throw up every time I remember it.

When we do it at his office—rarely—I take note that the photo of Brenda, which has been there before, is missing from his desk. He also takes off his wedding ring, but only when we practice alone in the woods.

Coach tells me that they split a few months ago. Brenda didn’t want him to touch her anymore after getting pregnant and said mean things about his job. Like how he doesn’t make enough money and stuff.

Coach says he wishes I were his girlfriend. That he could take me out to the movies, or to a nice restaurant, or just to hang out.

Honestly, I’m starting to think maybe this Brenda chick doesn’t deserve Steve (I’m not allowed to call him that when we’re not alone). Anyway, it makes me feel a lot less bad about our affair.

But then Brenda gives birth and everything changes.

Coach misses three days in a row. The third day he is MIA. In the cafeteria, two lunch duty teachers gush about how Brenda gave birth at a local hospital—which why would she, if she went back to living with her momma all the way down in New Jersey?

“Did you see the baby? So sweet. He looks exactly like his daddy,” Miss Warski coos, stabbing her yogurt with a plastic spoon.

“Yeah, Steve sent the pictures to everyone in the group, remember? And get this. He got his wife the best push present—a brand-new car.”

“A Kia Rio, right?”

“Yes. I’m looking into buying one too …”

His wife?

Push present?

I thought they weren’t together anymore.

On the brink of divorce.

I spend the rest of the day in a haze, forcing myself not to text him.

Ross sneaks out and buys me a bottle of Gatorade. He doesn’t ask why I’m upset. Why my eyes are red and my face is ashen.

More than heartbroken, though, I feel great shame.

I’ve been made a fool by this man, whom I put my trust in.

Something breaks in me that day.

Something I don’t know if I can ever fix.