He understands me.
“Thank you again, Coach,” I say as he taps the table then pushes in his chair.
“Don’t let me down, Theo. And read that letter.”
I wait until he leaves before sitting down again. I flip open the letter and read the opening line.
To Whom It Concerns:
I am writing this letter to vouch for Theodore Rothschild and kindly request that you allow him to practice with our team immediately.
I chuckle a little and read the line again. I wonder what girl he conned into helping him make this sound . . . smart.
I check my phone for the time. I still have twenty minutes before my second hour, so I continue reading in private. The second I see Cameron he is going to pester me about this meeting and what went down. Two days ago, I would have shared this letter with him so we could make fun of it. Now, though? Maybe I see Raskin’s sincerity for what it’s worth.
I don’t expect special treatment because of this letter, though if you would like to reduce my punishment, I won’t argue with you. It would be magnanimous.
I laugh out loud at that line. He definitely got help with this.
It doesn’t seem fair that Theo’s punishment was more severe than mine simply because I bled. I’m not proud of this, but I gave Theo plenty of wounds, too. They just aren’t physically visible. I was cruel in embarrassing ways. Maybe it’s the fact he was able to step right in and get a starting spot on our team without going through the same summer camp conditioning the rest of us did. Or maybe the counsellor the headmaster brought in was right and I don’t know how to interact with people dealing with trauma. I’m not sure what either of those reasons says about me. I’m either petty and jealous or a cold-hearted narcissist. But the fact I’m willing to put that in writing should be worth something. I’m asking that you show some grace to Theo. Show more than I did. At least punish us the same. He gets what he did was wrong. I get what I did was wrong. And no, this isn’t going to make us instant friends. But maybe it will make us better men.
Sincerely,
Oliver Raskin, Jr.
I pop my jaw as my mouth hangs open and I revisit the most potent parts of his letter. Even if he got help crafting the narrative, his heart was behind the intent. His actions sit heavy in my soul. This should make me feel better, and in a way it does. It also makes me feel ashamed. I can’t read these words without taking a hard look at myself. And not only what I did to Raskin, though yeah, I seriously assaulted him with my helmet. I’m thinking about Lily, though. How I treated her. How I poured toxic acid on her invisible wounds.
Cameron called me out on it days ago.
“Imagine how she feels,” he said.
Even now, as far as we’ve come, I haven’t really gotten it. What Lily went through? She must have been terrified the entire time. And after, knowing she couldn’t do it all—that Anika didn’t make it.
I fold the letter back up and open my leather portfolio to slip it into the back pocket where it won’t fall out. I’m going to need to thank Raskin for this. He deserves praise for this kind of self-reflection. But first, there’s someone a lot more worthy—and a whole lot more attractive—who deserves some grace.
April, our headmaster’s secretary, has always had a soft spot for me. When I was younger, I charmed her with my class-clown ways, making her laugh. The older I got, the more I relied on my charm to get me out of trouble when I was maybe late for a morning meeting with my advisor or desperate to use the office printer for one of my papers. I may need to turn on the smolder for this ask, though.
“Hey, April,” I say, sliding up to her desk. I rest my arms by the visitor logbook and play with the pen. “I’m done in the conference room so you can lock up.”
“Okay, sugar.”
She loves me. It’s go time.
“Do you think you could do me a quick favor? Oh wow, is that a new color?” It’s a new color. She isn’t a redhead, but she is now.
She smirks and leans on her desk, weight on her palm while she waggles the keys for the conference room in the other as her finger points at me.
“I see what you’re doing. Don’t think you’re sly. I mean, I’ll take the compliment and thank you for noticing, but you don’t need to butter me up. What do you need, Theo?” April was born and raised in Georgia, and her accent is priceless. She could tell me off and it would sound sweet.
“Do you think you could call Lily Beachem out of first hour a few minutes early so I can apologize to her?”
Her head tilts to the side and her brow ticks up.
“What did you do?”
I know she means to scold me, but it still sounds sweet. That accent is magic.
April has been here for years, and as much as she loves me, Anika was possibly her favorite student of all time. April was also the person who coordinated the counselling services at Welles after the accident. She knows the details—the part Lily played in everything and how cold I was to start the semester.