He didn’t even look at me when he replied that I’d go in when he was good and ready.
I swallowed my pride and apologized, promising I wouldn’t be late again.
His voice was clipped when he told me that we were not going to have this conversation now.
So I waited. Coach resumed acting like I wasn’t there.
When practice was half over, I walked up to Coach again and asked if he was going to make me stand there the whole practice.
He finally turned to me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his shiny aviator sunglasses. I’d disrespected everyone else’s time, he sneered, so why did I suddenly think mine was so important?
I’d already apologized. I wasn’t going to do it again, not to him. Besides, it wasn’t like a football play where no one could practice if I wasn’t on the field.
I repeated that I’d only been five minutes late.
Then Coach said I’d had two warnings, and today was my third.
He was bald-faced lying. He’d never given me a single warning. When I tried to say that, he held up his palm again and turned his back on me.
Anger flashed into me.
Before I even knew what I was saying, I blurted out something I shouldn’t have. I said I’d appreciate it if he could let me know when I’d be able to join practice—or maybe he needed Brittany and Mrs. Davis to tell him how long my punishment should be.
That was a mistake. Something shifted in his body language.
Coach had been a guy with big dreams once. Those rock star T-shirts, the Eric Clapton guitar behind glass in his office. He probably imagined girls screaming his name while he stood in the spotlight. Maybe he thought he still had power and prestige, even if it was only over a dozen high school girls. My words—loud enough for the whole team to hear—had just torn it away from him.
He shouted that practice was over and ordered me into his office.
Then Coach turned and strode off the field, throwing his clipboard to the grass.
When he was safely out of earshot, Brittany hooted and clapped her hands together. I shot her the finger and followed Coach.
Coach’s office was a tiny room off the indoor basketball court. It was windowless and barely big enough to hold a desk, a file cabinet, and two chairs. Next door was the football coach’s office, which was four times the size. That probably stung, too.
As I stepped inside, Coach ordered me to close the door.
I obeyed.
Coach took off his Ray-Bans and put them down on his desk. I stood there waiting for my lecture on respect and responsibility.
He moved even closer to me, so near I could smell the mint gum he was chewing. Then he said that I must think pretty highly of myself.
I knew better than to reply. Anything I said would only inflame him. Turns out, not answering didn’t help either.
The next thing that happened shocked me to my core. His voice was almost a whisper when he told me he’d seen me strutting around school like I was hot shit.
I flinched because I’d never heard a teacher swear before.
What he did after that was so strange. Coach began to walk in a slow circle around me as my skin prickled.
It felt unnaturally quiet down here. No one was dribbling a basketball on the court. That season wouldn’t start for another few months. The football players and coaches were all on the main field. Most of the teachers in the building had left for the day, and the only ones remaining were a floor or two above us.
Coach was behind me now. I couldn’t see him at all.
I didn’t move. There was nowhere to go in the tiny office. Plus, I knew if I walked out or spoke up, Coach would use it as an excuse to increase whatever punishment he had in mind.
But there was something else holding me in place. Fear.
It made no sense. I was in a public building with a teacher I’d known for years. Why did I feel as vulnerable and exposed as I did when I was a kid and my mother tore into my bedroom at night and yanked off my covers and began screaming at me for some infraction I wasn’t aware I’d committed?
Coach’s breath tickled my ear as he told me he’d seen me grinding against my boyfriend like I couldn’t get enough of him.
The building was air-conditioned, and down in the basement, it felt especially cold. I wanted to wrap my arms around myself, but I felt strangely immobilized.
Coach kept walking until I could see him in my peripheral vision. He kept talking in that low, creepy voice, telling me he knew I was a hungry girl, that I was hungry for lots of things.
He slid a hand across my abdomen and I instinctively sucked in. He smiled, and I hated giving him the satisfaction of a reaction.
He let his hand linger around my belly button and told me I was getting a little thick around my middle.
Coach touched all of us girls sometimes. He stretched hamstrings and high-fived us and rubbed out charley horses.
This touch felt different.
Coach’s hand moved higher, until it was directly beneath my left breast.
Then he said I was getting a little thick there, too. That I’d been bouncing all over the place at practice.
He skimmed his hand over my breast so quickly it was over before I even knew what was happening. My breasts had felt tender the last few days, and his touch seemed amplified. Like his hand was still there, his palm brushing my nipple, even after he withdrew it.
Tears pricked my eyes.
His voice snaked into my ear as he told me that ten years from now, I was going to be a fat cow, living in a double-wide with a bunch of snotty kids while my husband jacked off to porn because he can’t stand looking at me.
I couldn’t hold back my tears. They dripped silently down my cheeks. Coach was stripping me raw, just like he’d done the night he made Brittany captain, but this was so much worse.
Then I felt the trail of his fingers sliding down below the elastic waistband of my athletic shorts and underpants and touching between my legs.
I stopped breathing. I couldn’t process what was happening.
Coach pulled out his hand and stood in front of me. It felt like he was feasting on my tears.
He reached out in a gesture that might’ve seemed sympathetic if I hadn’t seen the gleam in his eyes. He pulled me close to him, as close as I’d been to James only an hour ago.
He asked if he was being too hard on me.
His arms tightened around me, trapping me, as he rocked his hips forward. He meant the double entendre.
The worst part was, I didn’t fight back. I didn’t even try to pull away. I just stood there and took it as he ground his pelvis against me, as his breath started coming faster.
It felt like I left my body, but unlike the other night when I’d fought with my mother and went to a place so dark it blinded me, this time I floated up to the ceiling, where I could see everything. I knew what was happening—Coach was getting his rocks off through the thin layers of our clothing–but it didn’t feel like it was happening to me.
It was over in what could’ve been sixty seconds, or ten minutes.
Coach quickly walked around behind his desk and sat down. His face was flushed.
Suddenly his tone was businesslike again. He told me that since I’d refused to give him a formal apology when he’d requested one, he had no choice but to kick me off the team.
I couldn’t process his words. It felt like they were coming at me from all directions, as if I was in an echo chamber.
Coach rustled a few papers on his desk, not looking at me, as he said he’d move up someone from JV to take my place, and that he’d email the principal and Mrs. Davis and the team to let them know.