“I know I’m not allowed to call. Not until I earn the privilege by showing up to classes and completing my homework assignments on time. I know the rules, Sarah.”
She scoffs. “If you know the rules, then what’s your excuse for being stupid and breaking them this time?”
I clench my teeth. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About…” Arrow. “Your boyfriend.”
She doesn’t respond to that but I don’t get deterred. This is my only chance of finding out what the hell is going on.
“I know about the breakup, Sarah,” I say with a slight tremble in my voice. “I know you’re not together anymore. I –”
“How do you know?”
He told me.
And I still can’t believe it.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, clearing my throat. “I… What happened? Gosh. I’m sorry, Sarah. Are you okay?”
Another stretch of silence and I know I’ve said the wrong thing.
“Is that why you called me? To find out if I’m okay?” She sighs sharply. “You’re… impossible. You steal money from Leah. The woman who was there for us. She doesn’t press charges but takes pity on you and sends you to a school that might fix you, and you’re breaking the rules again.”
“I –”
“I’m fine, all right? It’s a breakup. No one died. Anything else you want from me before I hang up?”
And I know she’ll do it.
She’ll hang up so I blurt out the rest of it. “Is it because of his injury?”
“What?”
“Your breakup.”
I grimace after I say it but I’ve thought about it.
It can’t be a coincidence, right?
I mean, he was fine up until a week ago. He was on track to win the MLS cup even though he’d lost a game. He was on track to propose to my sister even.
And then all of a sudden, he’s injured and he’s here without her.
They have to be connected.
Something happened there and I have to find out what.
I sigh. “Look, I saw the press conference, okay? I know he’s sitting out the season. And I also know that you think I’m stupid and a bother and a hundred different things. But I know these two things are connected somehow. His injury and your breakup. I know it. So just tell me. Please. For once.”
Even then, she doesn’t say anything.
So I go for even more drastic measures. “If you don’t tell me, then I’ll have to break the rules and call you again. And I’ll keep doing it until you cave and tell me.”
A sharp exhale of breath. “You’re such a…”
“Please, Sarah.”
“He’s not injured,” she says finally.
“What?”
“What I’m about to tell you is very confidential. If you open your big mouth and tell this to someone else, I could lose my job, okay? And I’m not losing my job because my sister is a freaking psycho and a loser.”
I’m used to her words by now, her derogatory, insulting words. But still they hit me in the chest and sting my eyes.
Even so, I force out, “I’m not going to tell anyone. Just tell me.”
“It’s a lie they made up, or my team made up. Something to tell the media.”
“B-but why would they lie?”
“Because he got suspended. That’s why.”
“He got suspended?”
“Yeah, he beat someone up.”
“Excuse me?”
She takes in another breath and lets it out. A long, deep sigh. “It was one of the assistant coaches. But they wanted to keep it out of the press so we decided to lie. He isn’t taking time off to recover. He’s kicked off the team. For the time being at least. Until he does his anger management therapy and the doctor clears him.”
I punched a door…
I knew right away that he was lying when he said that. But… Why would he beat someone up?
Why would he beat an assistant coach up?
I ask the same question of my sister. “Why would he do that?”
When she doesn’t reply fast enough, I almost scream into the phone, “Sarah? Why would he beat someone up? He isn’t like that. Tell me what happened.”
“We broke up, that’s why,” she says, snaps actually. “We broke up. We had an ugly argument about it. He was upset. The next day, he went into practice drunk and got into a fight with the first person he saw, which turned out to be Ben. That’s what happened.”
“He was u-upset?”
That’s the first thing I ask. Again, it’s lame and useless.
Of course he was upset.
He is upset.
He broke up with the love of his life, didn’t he?
“I can’t believe he beat someone up. He broke his nose, his jaw, four of his ribs. It took three men, three big muscular men, to pull A off Ben. I saw it all on the tape. I’ve never seen A like that, so furious. Ben was threatening to press charges.”
Sarah has always called him A and I’ve always wondered why she’d choose to do that when she has every right to call him by his beautiful, unique name.