Page 10 of Choosing Her
saylor
What didit feel like to have your life falling apart in front of your eyes? As I stepped into the office of the hockey coach and spotted the boy sitting directly across from him, I thought I might be experiencing it.
“No,” I said, before either of them had the chance to even say hello. “Not happening.”
The coach raised his eyebrows but stood up and extended a hand for me to shake. “Rebecca Saylor, I presume? I’m Coach Anderson. Why don’t you take a seat?”
I shook his hand so he didn’t think I was too rude, but remained standing. I wouldn’t be here for much longer.
“I’m not tutoring him,” I said, darting my eyes over towards Crossy, who was lounging in the seat across the desk from his coach. His legs were stretched out and his arms were crossed, looking entirely at ease if it wasn't for the tightness around his eyes. It was a superpower of his to seem perfectly relaxed and comfortable in any situation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hate him a little for it.
Coach Anderson frowned. “Mrs. Gao said that she had spoken to you and?—”
“Mrs. Gao was mistaken,” I interrupted. Not to mention that I had been forced into this position against my will, but I didn't explain that part to him. “We did speak about me becoming a math tutor, but we didn’t talk about who I would be tutoring.” My eyes darted toward Crossy again. “And I won’t tutor him.”
Coach Anderson sighed and looked at Crossy. “What did you do to the poor girl?”
I felt a bit of vindication at him taking my side immediately. I’d been a little worried that he would defend his athlete before taking my feelings into account. Not that anybody could really force me into doing this if I said I didn’t want to. Tutoring was entirely voluntary and I had every right to back out, especially since I hadn’t actually agreed to it in the first place, no matter what Mrs. Gao said. I’d been dealing with my parents’ ridiculous expectations of me for my whole life—if I had to fight them on this, I would. I was sure I could find some other way to make them happy. Either that, or ride out their annoyance until they forgot I existed again. It was only a matter of weeks before it happened.
“Nothing!” Crossy said adamantly. Any happiness I’d felt at his coach listening to me drifted away at the words. Crossy and I both knew exactly what he’d done to me, and I couldn’t believe that he could just sit there and pretend it hadn’t happened. I wondered if he had somehow convinced himself after all these months that it didn’t matter. That people lost touch and what he’d done to me hadn’t been much worse. I’d thought it enough times, hadn’t I? In the weeks following New Year’s Eve, I’d gone over it from every possible angle. Maybe I’d missed the facts that he was drunk and he didn’t remember me because of that. Maybe he had a girlfriend and was just using me as entertainment for one evening before going back to her. Maybe he’d never been interested in me and he was laughing at mewhen I suggested we could see each other again. Maybe I’d just imagined it all.
And when he pulled me aside in the summer and told me that he was with Naomi now, so we should forget anything ever happened between us, I couldn’t decide whether I should punch him in the face or laugh at my own stupidity.
“She wouldn’t refuse to tutor you for no reason,” Coach Anderson said. “You must have done something.”
Crossy looked at me for the first time, his eyes wide and pleading. “But you’re notreallyrefusing, are you, Saylor? You were surprised it was me, but you’re not actually saying no, right?”
I crossed my arms and forced myself to hold his gaze, pushing down the part of me that was ready to just give in to save myself the trouble. That was what I always did—with my sister, with my parents, with teachers like Mrs. Gao. I learned that it was usually just a waste of my breath to argue with them, so I gave in immediately, always trying to keep the peace. And Crossy looked so desperate that I wondered if I was being mean by saying no to this. So, he’d ghosted me—who hadn’t done that to someone at least once? Maybe it was my fault for having such high expectations after the time we’d spent together. Maybe none of it had been that amazing. And sure, I hated him for dating Naomi after, but did he know who she was when he started dating her? I dug back in my memories from New Year’s Eve to try to remember if I’d told him about her, but the only memories that filled my mind from that night were of his hands on my hips, his lips on mine, the promises he’d made…
I swallowed thickly. So, he’d said some stuff in the heat of the moment. Was it fair of me to hold him to it ten months later? And what had I been expecting him to do when he found out I was Naomi’s sister—break up with her to get with me? No, the moment that he touched her, he became off-limits. I justwished all of my lingering feelings had disappeared along with his availability.
“I am refusing,” I said. I was impressed by how level the words sounded coming out of my mouth, when I felt like I was having to force myself to say them. It was hard to say no to him when he looked so pleading. “I didn’t even agree to be a tutor in the first place.”
Coach Anderson looked understandably confused. “Mrs. Gao said you’d be happy to do it.”
Of course she had. I wondered if she’d somehow convinced herself I actually said yes after she emailed my parents to tell them the wonderful news. Or maybe she thought the lack of an outright no was close enough to a yes—and that once there was a student who needed help, with me as their only shot to pass, that I wouldn’t have the heart to refuse.
“She asked me to think about it. I didn’t say yes and she didn’t tell me there was a student lined up until I was walking out of the room.” Unable to help myself, I added, “And she definitely did not tell me it was Crossy.”
That was mostly what it came down to. If this was some poor freshman hockey player that I’d never met and had no personal vendetta against, I probably would have said yes. I wouldn’t have been happy about it, mind you, but I wasn’t heartless. But was I so wrong to not want to spend my evenings with the boy I’d been unsuccessfully trying to avoid since school started? Already, he was everywhere—sitting beside me in class, hanging out with my friends, always in the exact path I happened to be walking, even when I changed all my routes to avoid him. It was like there was something tying me to him, not letting me get more than a hundred feet away from him at any given time. The only chance I had at freedom from him was outside of classes since there was no avoiding him during the day, and now they wanted to take that ability away from me, too?
“Crossy?” Coach Anderson said curiously, though his eyes were still on me. It took me a second to realize what he was getting at—that I called him Crossy, instead of Caleb. Since he’d introduced himself to me as Crossy, I tended to forget everyone but his close friends called him Caleb or just by his last name, Cross. Calling him Crossy was a sure sign that we were connected in some way. Coach Anderson looked at Crossy, who avoided his gaze. “What did you do to her?”
If I’d had any doubts about whether he’d told the hockey team the story about me, him, and Naomi, it was clear from this that he hadn’t. Or if he had, then he didn’t say our names.
“Well, I guess, we…” Crossy cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I used to date her sister. And there’s some… history there.”
I almost snorted at the pathetic explanation. If I had a problem with all the boys my sister had dated, I wouldn’t be able to speak to three-quarters of Hartwell’s senior class. My problems with him ran much deeper and he knew it, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it. It was a little grating to hear him give such a weak excuse, actually, like I was some jealous little sister who couldn’t stand that he’d dated Naomi instead of me. Like I’d been pining after him so much that the idea of having to tutor him was unbearable. As if he hadn’t been the one to lead me on then drop me in the gutter when he didn’t want me anymore.
Naomi had been in the right when she broke his heart before he could break hers. She did that with every boy she dated—kept them at arm’s length, didn’t let them in, and then cut them free as soon as she was bored of them. And, unlikesomeone, she never made any promises of the future. She didn’t tell them she was obsessed with them, only to disappear from their life without a trace.
I wished I was more like her. I wished that I didn't care. But I did care, and every time Crossy looked at me, I remembered theboy I was stupid enough to trust. The one who I’d spent all of New Year’s Eve with, the one who kissed me as if he’d known me forever. The one who promised to come back.
It was my own fault, I could realize now, for building up all those hopes and expectations. But I couldn't undo the pain that I felt in the following weeks when he didn’t come back, and I definitely couldn’t take away the shock and pain of him showing up at my door and saying he was looking for Naomi. Even now, every time I looked at him, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kiss him or kill him.
“It’s complicated,” I told his coach. “But the point is that I can’t work with him, so you're just going to have to find another math tutor.”
Coach Anderson sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples, looking like he was aging about ten years right in front of my eyes. I felt a little bad for making his life more difficult when he had nothing to do with the Cold War going on between Crossy and I, but unfortunately, he was just collateral damage here.
