Page 78 of The Longest Shot
I read it three times, my brain refusing to process. Pearson told me a month ago that me and the other guys needed to reach the old standard: 2.0—"just don't fail". That’s been the deal since they invented college sports, and what's been enforced for the other programs at PBU forever.
But there it is in black-and-white: 2.5 GPA or no second semester hockey.
I frantically Google and do some calculations.
Even if I somehow got an A or a high B on the paper I just submitted, I’d need an excellent score on the sociology final, or that exam will tank my average below the new threshold. And no 2.5 GPA now means no second semester hockey, which in my senior year basically means no future.
The goalposts haven’t just moved. They’ve been launched into orbit.
And right there in the CC: line: Galloway.
I stare at the screen until my eyes burn. The paper submission confirmation sits in the tab next to it, mocking me with its timestamp. I've just been royally fucked by the athletic director, meaning all that work and all those late nights with Morgan might not even matter.
Morgan, who’s gone.
Morgan, who ran.
The weight of it all—her rejection, Galloway’s trap, the impossible academic mountain I have to climb—crashes down at once. My chest gets tight, each breath shorter than the last, and for the first time since freshman year, I genuinely don’t know if I can handle this.
I don't know if all my noise and chaos can fill this much empty space.
The realization sits cold and heavy: Morgan looked scared when she ran—not angry, not disappointed, not even regretful—actuallyscared. Of me, of us, of what we’d just done. Because fear is the one thing I’ve spent my whole life trying to prevent, the emotion I’d do anything to chase away.
And now I’m the cause of it in the one person whose walls I desperately wanted to scale, not to conquer but just to sit beside her and tell her it’s OK. But she ran before I could, and now I’malone with Galloway’s trap and the memory of Morgan’s face in that last second—terrified and beautiful and gone.
I don’t have a joke for this.
I don’t have noise loud enough to drown it out.
All I have is the terrible certainty that I’ve lost something special.
And I'll do anything—anything—to get it back.
twenty-nine
MORGAN
The water streamingout of my apartment's old showerhead burns hot enough to blister, and I’ve decided if I stand here long enough, I can scald away what just happened. What I just let happen, if I'm being honest, and what my body is currently staging a full biological revolt to repeat.
I scrub with the loofah, ignoring the fact that red welts have bloomed across my arms, my chest, and the insides of my thighs where his fingers left their calling cards. But physical evidence I can deal with—I'm a hockey player with more bruises than limbs on any given day—but it's theotherevidence that's a worry.
The evidence currently making its leisurely, obscene descent down my thigh.
His DNA that's literally dripping out of me.
The thought should trigger my gag reflex. That’s the goal here, disgust and revulsion, or anything but this hollow ache that my neurons keep misidentifying as want. But as his seed mixes with shower spray, I'm left with a cocktail of poor decisions.
The rational, sensible part of my brain scolds me hotter than the water."This is what five minutes of weakness costs you.Your biggest mistake reacquainted himself with your cervix, and somehow you were the one saying please…"
I pour some more body wash on the loofah, the label promising to “purify and restore balance.” But when I squeeze half the bottle directly onto my skin, lathering until foam thick enough to hide evidence builds up, I feel as impure and unbalanced as before.
This isn't working.
I crank the water to arctic, punishing my body like I do after I fuck up on the ice. The shock steals oxygen from my lungs, but my nipples just tighten to painful points, sending signals straight to where I’m—fuck—still slick despite the punishing shower.
My body has gone rogue, running on some primitive setting that overrides twenty-one years of careful conditioning, every neuron lighting up like a Christmas tree and sending orders to my body to respond accordingly at the merethoughtof him.
My phone lights up through shower glass:
