Possessive Coach

“Coach put this in a couple years ago, I guess,” Erik says. “Some incident a lot like this, actually, except some rival team. I don’t know the story or whatever, it happened before I joined up. But it’s kind of funny, right? He put this in to catch some other team, but instead, well… he caught you, right?”

I watch as three figures come into frame. The first figure throws a roll at a tree, and the other two join in. I catch a clear shot of David’s face, grinning like a kid and laughing. I’m wearing my mask and so is Sara, so at least she won’t get in trouble and we can protect her a little bit if we have to. But it’s so obvious that’s David, and Erik clearly figured out who the other two girls are.

“Turn it off,” I whisper.

“Why?” he asks. “This is the good part. Watch.”

I watch as Sara tosses her roll through the bushes then takes a can of spray paint from her bag.

“Can’t see her actually write it,” he says. “But I think that’s proof enough, right? Is that you with the can?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Figured.” He snorts. “Stupid prank. Although kind of good. The spray paint was overboard though. The paper was hard to get out, but fortunately, I didn’t have to do it. Just got some stupid freshmen to climb up there and pull it out.”

I look up, heart beating fast. “What do you want from me?” I ask. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Oh, I thought that was obvious. I want you to go to Coach Hardy and tell him what you did. I want you to make sure you mention Coach Fyall’s involvement. I want you to get David fired.”

He pulls his phone back and puts it back into his pocket as I stare at him, my whole body still and stiff. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, but he just smirks and doesn’t move.

“What… I can’t do that,” I say. “You can’t make me do that.”

“Oh, I definitely can and I’m going to. I could go to Coach myself, but I don’t know, I think the idea of you doing it would be better. If you don’t go to him yourself, I’m going to figure out who the third person is in this video, and then I’m going to take it to the police. I think this is vandalism? Something like that. I’m pretty sure you guys can get in some serious trouble.”

“No,” I say.

“Oh, yes. And David will go down either way. If you go do it, at least you’ll all avoid any sort of trouble with the law. David can get fired on the downlow and move on from this campus, and you can… well, I guess I don’t give a fuck what you do.” He leans toward me, a sparkle in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have fucked with me.”

It takes all my willpower not to spit in his face.

“Anyways, think about it,” he says, turning away. “I guess I can give you, like, a couple days or whatever. Just think it over and decide how you want to play this. Either way works for me, I don’t much care. I’ll get what I want no matter what.”

“Erik.”

He pauses at the door and turns around. “Yeah?”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“Oh, I know.” He laughs and leaves the room.

I stand there for a long moment before grabbing a chair and sinking down into it. I stare at the table, my heart racing, my mind working overtime. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do, but Erik has us. There’s no turning back from this. Erik has a video of David, and he’s going to use it to ruin him.

I can’t let it happen. I can’t let David go down for this, not when he didn’t even want to be involved in the first place. I had to convince him to come with us, and even then he thought it was a bad idea. David never would’ve done something like that if I hadn’t convinced him.

It was childish and stupid. It felt good at the time, but it doesn’t feel good now. We got caught, and now Erik has that video to hang over our heads.

I hate him. I don’t know what I did that was so bad, but clearly he’s on a mission to destroy me. He wants to ruin me, wreck me, leave me nothing but a dried-out husk of a person. And he’s going to use everything he can against me to get his way.

I need to protect David. And I need to protect Sara. I just don’t know how I can possibly do that, not with Erik pressuring me like this. On the one hand, if I do go along with Erik’s plan and tell Coach Hardy myself, at least David will likely avoid the worst consequences. He’ll be let go, of course, and he’ll lose out on his dream job, but at least he won’t get charged with vandalism or destruction of property or whatever.