Page 27 of Knot Mine

“Oh, darling! I forgot, I’ve also asked that you be allowed to submit that economics paper again. I think if you applied yourself, you could turn that 92% into a 97.”

I blink slowly as I try to process my papa’s words. He had been in touch with my tutor. Gone behind my back to ask if I could resubmit. How many palms had he greased this time?How much money have they thrown at this little problem, as if 92% was a failure? Another chain. Tighter this time. It feels like I can’t breathe.

Finally reaching my limit, I open my mouth to protest, when he lifts a hand to silence me. “You promised a 4.0 GPA if we allowed you to keep playing football.”

It’s like he’s sucked all of the air from my lungs. Sitting back in my chair, I keep my mouth firmly shut as my shoulders hunch from the invisible weight I'm carrying.

I know I’m privileged. That I have options and opportunities others don’t. If those who said that Zake Blackwood had it all could see me now would they understand?

Everything has a price.

Foolishly, I had promised my parents a 4.0 GPA and on average I was achieving that but as my papa pointed out, my economics paper was only 92%. It was a single paper, not responsible for my final grade and yet it wasn’t good enough.Never good enough.

They hold football over my head because they know it’s my weakness. My passion has become nothing more than a bargaining chip in a rigged game.

I’m glad they don’t know about the volunteering because if they try to take that away from me too, if they even hinted at it, then I’m not sure what I would do. It wouldn’t be pretty.

Using some of the grounding techniques I picked up over the years in therapy, I try to focus on things around me. I let my breathing calm and I tell myself that this isn’t my whole life, it’s only a moment. A grain of sand on the beach of my life.

Closing my eyes, I tried to find solace in my thoughts.

Shades of mossy green calms me.

When I look at my parents, they have returned to their meals as if they aren’t playing some narcissistic tug of war over veal and fondant potatoes. Just your usual weekly dinner.

Convincing my friends to head to Crest Haven without me had been almost disappointingly easy. Evans and Hunter had been the most difficult as they couldn’t seem to understand I might have something else going on outside of our friendship group. Blake knew that I was planning on spending my day supporting the community center, so he understood.

The plan for Millie and the others, was to get on Evans' private plane, and spend lots of their parents' money shopping, before enjoying the nightlife and rubbing shoulders with the elite. We were supposed to be dancing, drinking and celebrating Millie turning twenty-one.

The last time we were in Crest Haven, Hunter had to be fished out of a fountain by the police, stark naked and clutching a rooster. We still have no idea where he’d gotten it from. The time before that, Evans almost married an omega showgirl in a dingy little chapel by someone dressed as a zombie cheerleader. I wouldn’t be missing much, and besides, it was only one part of her birthday celebrations.

I know that makes me sound like a shit boyfriend, but Millie was a social butterfly–her birthday celebrations were going to be almost a week long between the Crest Haven trip, a few days at her family’s cabin and then a spa trip next weekend. She also wanted us to go for a romantic dinner, just her and I.

Before we even became a couple back in September, I’d already agreed to help Riverview Community Centre. They were holding a day of district matches for the under-fifteen’s division, in the hope of forming a team to enter into a league. The community center was already shorthanded recently, with barely enough volunteers to support the weekly sessions, letalone an event like this. But it had been in my calendar for months, and it would also get the community center a funding grant from the Riverview council, so it was important. It didn’t seem right to pull out just to go and get drunk at Crest Haven. I made a promise, I wanted to keep it.

Millie didn’t seem overly upset that I wouldn't be partying with them. Sometimes I felt like she let me have my way so that it wouldn’t cause tension between us. Was it wrong to want a fight with my girlfriend occasionally? She hadn’t even questioned me when I said it was a football thing, obviously not wanting to pry and risk me shutting down on her.

When she said that she would arrange it so that I could still attend the cabin portion of the weekend, I wished I’d dug a little deeper, asked a few more questions. Instead, she fluttered those eyelashes at me and told me she’d handle it all. Maybe if I’d know that I would be spending four hours in the car with her brother, I would have refused. Made my own way there.

Four long hours with the man who had watched me come almost a month ago. The beta I had been avoiding actively, unable to deal with my guilt. I thought that if I’d spoken to him, then I'd be forced to face some very uncomfortable truths about myself and the kind of boyfriend I was. I don’t know who I’m trying to kid. I was thinking about those things anyway.

The fact that Millie didn’t even care whether or not I was at her birthday celebrations in fear of rocking the boat made me realize that actually maybe her feelings for me weren’t that deep either. Maybe it was better to end this now before we got any deeper in. Before I hurt her any further.

Every time I looked at Shiloh, I had thoughts I couldn’t explain. An impulse that was getting harder and harder to ignore. The urge to Claim him, own him, pin him down beneath me and kiss him until I’d sucked out all the sting of his bitter words.

That wasn’t normal.

He was a beta. I didn’t even have biological reasoning to back up these insane compulsions. Some part of me wanted him and that tiny part was growing the more time I spent with him. It was like a tumor, I needed to cut it out before it grew and spread to my vital organs. And Millie deserves better than that. She deserves more than my hesitation and whatever the heck this conflicted back and forth was.

A yelled goodbye drags me out of my muddied thoughts. Even though I haven’t actually been playing all day, I somehow still worked up a sweat. It was clearly hard work keeping these teens in line.

The day had been fun, watching the kids give it their all made me really proud of how far they’d come in the last couple of months. Some of them played for fun, others took it a little more seriously, looking for a way to train and improve themselves outside of school. We ran some drills and exercises when they weren’t playing matches.

The mix of genders and abilities meant that the day had been fun, and an eye opener about not judging someone. Especially when one little spitfire omega managed to bag an unexpected touchdown. This was what I loved about the game, the passion from the players. The energy on the field. I wouldn’t get to experience any of this if I was stuck in a corporate office, heading up Blackwood Tech.

Clearing away cones and picking up discarded water cups, I wait until all of the kids are collected by their parents and it’s only the coaching team left. I wasn’t due to meet Shiloh at his apartment for another hour or so.

Jason, the community projects coordinator in charge of the event claps a hand on my shoulder. “Good job Blackwood. You’re a natural.”

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