Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

Emory

Nine Years Ago

“Why are you quitting?”

I stood there, avoiding my coach’s eyes as I gripped the strap of my bookbag that hung across my chest.

“I don’t have time,” I told her. “I’m sorry.”

I risked a glance, seeing her gaze hard on me under the short blonde hair hanging just over her eyes. “You made a commitment,” she argued. “We need you.”

I shifted on my feet, a curtain of self-loathing covering every inch of me.

This was shitty. I knew that.

I was good at swimming. I could help the team, and she put a lot of work into training me over the last year. I didn’t want to quit.

But she’d just have to deal with it. I couldn’t explain, even if not explaining meant that she’d misunderstand my silence as being irresponsible and selfish.

The voices of all the girls outside the office filled the locker room as they got ready for practice, and I felt her eyes on me, waiting for a response.

It was useless, though. I wasn’t going to change my mind.

“Is there something else going on?” she asked.

I squeezed the strap across my chest, the fabric cutting into my hand.

But I drew a deep breath and pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, straightening my spine. “No one’s giving me a scholarship for swimming,” I spat out. “I need to spend my time doing things that will get me into college. This was a waste.”

Before she could fire back, or the look on her face made this hurt worse, I spun around and pulled open her door, leaving her office.

Tears lodged in my throat, but I pushed them down.

This sucked. I was going to pay for this. It wasn’t over. I knew that.

But I had no choice.

The ache in my back fired up as I stalked through the locker room, and I slammed my hand into the door, feeling the pain in my wrist shoot up my arm before stepping into the hallway.

But I pushed through it, ignoring the discomfort as I headed down the nearly empty corridor.

I was glad I got out of there before she asked why I wasn’t quitting band, too. Band wouldn’t get me into college, either. I wasn’t that good.

It was just all I had left now that got me out of the house, and I didn’t have to wear a swimsuit to do it.

I chewed on my lip, a ten-ton truck sitting on my shoulders as I stared at the floor. I headed for my locker without looking where I was going, because I’d walked this path a million times. Just keep it together. Time would pass. Life would move on. I was heading in the right direction.

Just keep going.

A few students milled around the halls, here early because of clubs or other sports, and I reached my locker, dialing in the combination. It was still a bit before the first class started, but I could go hide in the library to kill time. It was better than being home.

Emptying my bag of my math and physics that I’d finished last night, I pulled my binder, my lit book, my copy of Lolita, and my Spanish text from my locker, holding everything in one arm as I dug on the top shelf for my pencil bag.

He was going to find out I’d quit. Maybe I had a few days’ peace before that happened, but a knot tightened in my stomach, and I could still taste the coppery cut in my mouth from two days ago.

He was going to find out. He wouldn’t want me to quit swimming, and pointing out why I had to would only make him angrier.

I blinked a few times, no longer really searching for my pens or pencils as the searing pain under my hair from the other night raced across my scalp again.