Page 73 of Every Move You Make

Isaiah

After the game, I tried to take Dell’s advice and get to know my players better at the social, but they weren’t having it. They all seemed wary of me, and I guess I don’t blame them. I have been asshole-ish. I’ve never felt the need to be friendly with a coach before, so this is new territory. I think once everyone comes back from break, I’ll set up a team bonding night. Maybe Robyn can help me figure out the best way to do that.

For now, I put Robyn and the team out of my mind to focus on what’s right in front of me: my last personal training session with Dell. But when I open the door to his gym, there stands Robyn herself, with confusion painted all over her face. We both look at Dell.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Dell steps behind me and locks the door with asnickso loud I flinch. “No one is leaving here until we figure this out,” he says definitively.

“Are we not doing my training session today?”

“Consider today a mental training. Now,” he claps, “first thing’s first: You can go ahead and check your ego at the door when you coach, Zay. Women don’t respond well to it. They can smell it from a mile away.”

“I don’t have an ego.”

“You’re right,” Robyn nods. “You don’t. At least I’ve never known you to have one. Not until you became my coach. Iknowthe real you, Isaiah, and even if I didn’t, I wouldknowthe way you coach isn’t you. You’re putting on a front, and you don’t come across like the authority figure you’re trying to be. It just makes you look like an asshole.”

“I’m not fucking… Ted Lasso, or whatever.”

“No one is asking you to be,” she sighs. “But I know there’s a silly rugger inside you. I’ve seen you blissfully sing your heart out to your team song. I’ve watched you pummel rookies with joy at their first tries. You’re capable of lifting players up. It’s natural to you. At our last game, you did better, but you reverted back into asshole mode.”

She’s right. Of course she’s right. I don’t know what I was thinking pretending to be someone I’m not. Coaching the way I have has felt so fucking unnatural this whole time, but I thought it was me working through imposter syndrome. I just needed time to settle into my new role and figure out how to be Coach Porter 2.0.

Have I been wrong in my approach this whole time?

“You need to treat us like we’re your teammates, not your subjects,” Robyn says with a wan smile. “Treat us like we’re your family. If Angie played, would you talk to her the way you do to us?”

“Never.”

“Exactly. Zay, talk to me like you used to! We used to be the best of friends, remember?”

Dell crosses his arms and looks between us. “Yeah, whatever happened with you two?”

I sigh. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”

Chapter 33

You're Robyn to Me

Isaiah

Spring. Senior Year.

Ending my collegiate rugby career on a win should have my spirits soaring. Instead, thoughts of Robyn consume me. In one week, I’m graduating college and moving five time zones away to play in the Premier League for the London Hornets, and this may be the very last time I see her.

Everyone has been congratulating me since I found out a month ago, but it still hasn't sunk in yet that I’ll be playing professional rugby. Me. Someone wants topayme to play the sport I live and breathe, in a land where rugby is adored as much as soccer and cricket.

How is this my life?

And how is it that the day I found out I was going to be a professional rugby player and move across an ocean, Robyn Cassidy became single?Thatis some Shakespearean bullshit.

She still has another year left in school, but she’s working to make the USA Valor women’s team. She’s been attending training camps wherever she can and making herself known, really making a name for herself.

There’s no way I could ask her to be mine now. It’s too late. Though both centered on rugby, our lives are goingin different directions. Maybe we were only meant to be friends. Maybe the sound of her laughter will someday fade away and her smile, once a burning obsession in my mind, will be long forgotten. Maybe.

“Don’t look so glum,” she says, pushing my shoulder. Her hit catches me off guard and I fall over into a bush. “Oh no!” she giggles, and as she tries to catch me, she falls too. It’s late and we’ve left the social, like we always seem to do when we’re together, to find a quieter place to talk.

Awards were given out tonight for senior players, and the team sprang for having the social at a local bar instead of a rank house. It was as classy as college club rugby can be, which is to say, barely.

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