Page 44 of Anatomy of a Player

Cars parted and then we were at the exit, which was pretty much like the heavens opening, so I took it as a sign and vowed to do whatever it took to resist Hudson Decker and his tempting anatomy.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Whitney

Avoiding Hudson for the rest of the week had been fairly easy. We didn’t have the same classes, and I spent a great deal of time at the newspaper office or the library, my research for my article blurring into my studies until I was living, breathing, and eating journalism in one way or another.

The survey had caught fire over the past few days, to the point where I could hardly keep up and the comments had become so scathing I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Athletes had come in droves to post their opinions. Big surprise—they thought they deserved special treatment.

Not surprising—the fact that 72 percent of the people who took the survey thought that athletes received special treatment. Only 34 percent thought they deserved it, and while I couldn’t prove it, I’d bet at least 90 percent of people who answered that way were athletes.

Lindsay had congratulated me on the success of the survey and told me she couldn’t wait for the full story. My overly dramatic thought about Professor Jessup being right about me got tossed to the curb, along with the news anchor haircut I’d feared was in my future.

It was what I’d always wanted—to feel like a hotshot investigative reporter. But every time I read or transcribed a barbed jab about the athletes, I’d experience a tiny twinge.

Which was why Saturday morning, before pulling up the survey, I steeled myself for what I’d find. I scrolled through the comments, to where I’d left off last night, and began reading the most recent responses.

Are you fucking kidding me? We work just as hard, hell, even harder than normal students. We have training and games to deal with that you don’t!

Gotta love how he calls us normal and makes it clear that he’s superior.

The next one—obviously from another athlete—said the rest of us were “lasy” in comparison, which I took to mean lazy. Funny enough, he also mentioned he maintained a 4.0.Something’s not quite adding up there, buddy.

In fact, the athletes’ three-to-six times higher educational price tag hadn’t prevented bad grammar and a lot of misspelled words. I’d give them a few for autocorrect and typos, but some I could hardly read—they sure did know how to swear, though. Sad when simply typing “STFU” seemed friendly in comparison.

To be fair, there were a handful of better-constructed comments—they were just far and few in between.

As for “you people,” the “normal” students, or whatever you wanted to call us, we weren’t much nicer. Many comments called out the university scandals I’d studied, and several even made good points in a non-confrontational way. But then there were comments similar to the new one that’d just popped up.

You STFU, you ignorant meathead! Stop crying about your free ride because you have to do some cardio and PLAY a game, like you have it real hard. If you actually go to your classes and you’re still that stupid, you’re doing it wrong. Why don’t you go to a third-world country and see how pointless your sport is in the grand scheme of things. It’s a FUCKING SPORT, not life or death in Uganda.

Twinge, twinge, twinge, until my chest burned with the spewed hatred. Rational arguments had long since been abandoned by both sides, turning it into a contest over who could say the harshest thing about the other group, and the division between the “normal” students and the athletes had gone from a wide valley to the Grand Canyon.

Seriously, how could people be so hateful? Earlier this week I’d been angry over the athletes’ air of superiority in their comments, too, but I’d never wanted it to turn into this. I’d wanted opinions, not for everyone to attack each other.

Maybe we felt a littletoosafe behind our screens.

By the time I stepped into the hockey arena for Saturday night’s game, my insides were knotted, and the twinges I’d felt reading angry comments had grown and seized my entire chest, eclipsing the desire for justice and equality I’d been overflowing with when I’d first started my assignment.

I’d been in the locker room with the hockey players a couple of times since then; we’d played drinking games together. A few of those mean comments might belong to the players on the ice, but they were more than the sum of those words. Hot topics tended to bring out the worst in everyone, athlete or not.

Ugh, how am I going to go into the locker room and act normal?I worried they’d take one look at me and somehow know I was responsible for the survey.

That should probably be my biggest worry, but Number Nineteen, who’d just scored our first goal, earned that top spot. Despite knowing it was for the best, shutting him out wasn’t going to be easy, not with his hulking presence taking up all the space and cutting off oxygen to my brain.

I smiled as the rest of the guys barreled into him. It seemed like more of a punishment than a celebration, but I could feel the happy vibes from here, and after a few days without any, I wanted to lean closer and soak them in.

Lyla glanced at me.

“I’m strong,” I said, even though it’d been a lot easier to feel that way with more space between Hudson and me. Considering there were still several rows of seats, a glass wall, and thirty to forty feet of ice separating us, I worried how I’d manage to be in the same room and remain resolute. “I’m going to break the cycle.”

“I was going to ask if you were okay.”

How did she always know when I was close to cracking? And why did my first response have to involve tears? I blinked them back, inwardly scolding them for trying to form in the first place.

Lyla shifted in her seat and placed her hand on my forearm. “I don’t want you to get hurt, but…I hope I didn’t give you bad advice.”

“You didn’t. I know this is for the best.” I sucked in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Nice nerdy guys deserve a chance, and I do, too.”

---