Page 24 of The Longest Shot
Something that made my chest tight.
A feeling Ihate, especiallyhere.
As usual, my apartment is silent except for the mechanical hum of my laptop fan. I've cultivated this silence, built it brick by brick. There are no roommates with their messy emotional spillover and no decorations that might invite questions. Just me, my equipment bag in the corner, and the discipline that keeps me sharp.
But tonight the silence feels viscous, pressing against my eardrums.
I force myself to focus on the screen. The last few days of cohabitation play out in my mind, and Monday's cologne warfare deserves its own special commendation. Because apparently the men's team discovered a warehouse sale on Axe body spray and decided to mark their territory through chemical warfare.
Then there's the systematic pilfering. Three rolls of athletic tape gone like a magic trick, except the only thing disappearing is our budget. Mills had shown me the empty supply cabinet with this tight, controlled fury that reminded me why I made her my lieutenant.
"Twenty-seven dollars a roll," she'd said, jabbing at her phone's calculator hard enough to crack the screen. "They get ten times our budget and steal our shit."
And their music… bleeding through the walls… thumping bass lines about bitches and bottles that make my molars ache. We've tried playing our music louder, but it just becomes this sonic arms race that leaves everyone with migraines.
Yet all this is bearable.
Annoying, infuriating, but bearable.
But what actually broke me was watching Mills almost get badly hurt.
Fucking Kellerman with his puppy enthusiasm and the spatial awareness of a concussed goldfish. He'd missed it by just a split-second, then panicked and overcompensated, but physics doesn't forgive. I can still see it, the bar sliding left, Mills's eyes going wide.
I was moving, but too slow, my hands reaching for a bar already falling.
Then comes James, out of nowhere, his hands catching the bar six inches from Mills's throat. Mills had scrambled off the bench, hand to her throat, breathing in shallow, bird-like gasps.And James had looked at Kellerman with an expression I'd never seen on his perpetually goofy face.
Cold. Focused. Terrifying.
Kellerman had actually whimpered.
Then James had turned to me, and for one second our eyes met. His hands were bleeding, and there was something in his expression that looked like?—
No. Not doing this.
I start typing.
At 15:42 hours, PBU women's hockey athlete Amelia Ramirez was engaged in supervised strength training when gross negligence?—
Delete.
Too clinical, like I'm filing a report for a fender-bender.
New attempt:
The systematic harassment we've endured culminated today in an incident that required James Fitzgerald's intervention to prevent a tragedy his own team?—
Delete.
Now I sound hysterical. Exactly what Galloway expects, another emotional woman who can't handle the pressure.
My political science brain kicks in, mapping the scenario and how it will play out. If I send this email, Galloway will read it with that patronizing half-smile that makes his already leering eyes look even more predatory. He'll schedule a meeting, play big-swinging-dick, and it'll be over for me and my girls.
Morgan,he'd say, using my first name like we're friends, like he hasn't spent weeks addressing my chest whenever we speak.I understand you're struggling with the integration, but we need team players here, and complaints and publicity help nobody. She wasn't hurt, and the boys are sorry, so let's just drop it?
Then would come the knife wrapped in concern:
Maybe we need to reconsider if this arrangement is working. I'd hate to see the women's program suffer because of… personality conflicts.
