Page 53 of The Change Up
Ew what’s @jacobs_cody doing with that weirdo @pastel_princess? I promise I’m more fun than she is.
@pastel_princess trying hard enough?
@pastel_princess why not just show up naked?
After the fifth comment I read where some mean girl is making it a point to mention how bad I look, how trashy my outfit is, or how much better Cody could do all while propositioning him, I close out of the app and power off my phone.
The insecurity I’ve been working so hard to keep locked away starts to rear its nasty head. It’s one thing to wake up every morning and hear those negative thoughts as I stare at myself in the mirror, but it’s entirely different to read them from a stranger. A stranger who doesn’t know me, doesn’t know my story, or hasn’t even been in the same room as me. They just view me as a threat, someone between them and Cody, and choose to tear me down to make themselves feel better.
Not only am I reading the hateful words, but so are others who feel the need to chip in with more hurtful comments.
Realizing that I’m sitting in a room full of people, I glance around and find eyes bouncing away from me.
“Do you have anything that needs editing?” Deciding I’m not leaving this room anytime soon, I ask Abby for some work that will keep me occupied for the next few hours. There’s no way I can walk across campus, not with this post everywhere. Thankfully, Ty is in my last class of the day, and I’ll get notes from him.
Shuffling through papers, Abby hands me a small stack of notes. “I can always use some help. Do you mind reading through these notes and comparing them to my article? I want to make sure I have the story portrayed accurately.”
“Of course. I’ll email you with any notes.”
Popping my AirPods in, I find an open desk and log into the system with my school information.
And this is where I stay for the next five hours before I call a rideshare to take me home.
When I woke up this morning I had no intention of seeing Chloe.
Not because I didn’t want to because after waking up Sunday morning with her in my bed, I want to say fuck it all and spend every waking moment with her. She looked like she belonged in my bed. The way her honey-colored hair sprawled across my pillow as she slept soundly had me resisting the urge to wake her. Soft snores came from her slightly parted, kissed swollen pink lips. Chloe looked like a dream. But life doesn’t work that way. And the idea of wanting to say fuck it all made me realize I need to keep my eyes on the goal ahead of me.
Baseball comes first. It has to. I’ve got to make it into the major league to prove my dad wrong. He doesn’t think I have the willpower to play at the next level. Too bad for him because I have more determination than he ever did. And each time he sends me a text message trying to tear me down, it only adds fuel to the fire.
I was storming as I walked through the quad heading to grab a water since I left mine at the stadium. As I reached the Union, piercing blue eyes caught my attention. Even from a distance, I knew it was Chloe. I watched her put her hands on her head as she took long deep breaths. Her chest rose and fell, and my gaze tracked her movement, lower and lower, until her shirt ended and her perfect stomach was on full display. I saw red as I looked around the quad and noticed all the guys eyeing her.
My feet took off after her before I even knew what was happening. I’m all for girls wearing whatever they want, but my immediate caveman behavior was to make sure she was safe in a sea of douchebag college guys.
To add on to the list of things I didn’t plan on doing this morning, kissing Chloe in the middle of the Union was not one of them.
Of course, every time I’m near her, I want to kiss her, to touch her, to feel her near me. But I didn’t plan on acting on that temptation. I’m going to blame Coach Weber for my lapse in judgment. When I told Chloe practice wasn’t too bad, I might have been telling a white lie. Practice was excruciating, my brain was fried, and it was all my fault. After our disastrous loss Friday night, Coach made sure to punish us big time this morning.
And he promised to make tomorrow’s practice just as difficult since we don’t have a game until the weekend.
It was like hell week all over again as he made us go through conditioning drills. Practice was inside the indoor facility where he had cones set up for running drills. All of us were lined up for burpees which led to sprints which turned into ab workouts. The punishment was hard and this type of workout isn’t something we do during the season, but we deserved the pain.
After leaving Chloe outside the newsroom, I went home to shower. The shower ended with me crashing on my bed. Clearly, my body was exhausted.
“Dude!” Ty shouts as he bursts through my closed door. “Have you checked your phone?”
Groaning, I roll over and find Ty standing inside my room. “No, I crashed after practice.”
“You created a shit storm on campus today.”
I quickly rack my thoughts about what happened earlier. My nap knocked me out so hard that I woke up a little disoriented. Like getting hit in the face, flashes of this morning came rushing back to me. Seeing Chloe. Kissing Chloe. Chloe in a sports bra. Us in the middle of the Union.
Reaching for my phone, I flip the ‘sleep mode’ off and watch as the notifications pour in. Mentions on Instagram and X. Missed calls and a couple of voicemails, which means something must really be wrong because who leaves a voicemail, let alone calls? Text message after text message pour in.
Holy shit. Who died?
“What the hell happened?” Running my hand through my messy bedhead, I swipe left to clear out all of the social media notifications.
Ty lets out an exasperated chuckle. “Someone caught you and Chloe at the Union and sent it into CTU Gossip Gazette.”
