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Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather.  This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded 
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to 
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as 
there is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of 
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   (Copyright 2005, revisions c. 2007, R.C. Mather)

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THE COMPETITIVE EDGE:
PLAYING THE GAME III

A Novel

by R.C. Mather



- 20 -

SIPHONED AWAY INTO NOTHINGNESS



Kayla's voice quavered a little as she answered the phone. She
silently handed it to me. I slipped out of her and rolled off the bed
to stand by the nightstand. With no small amount of trepidation I put
the handset to my ear.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"It's me, Jesse. Get your ass back downstairs quick. I just got a
call from Jose Maria. Pick's going to do another bed check."

"Okay, dude. I'm on my way. Thanks."

I threw the handset back in the general direction of the table and
scrambled to find my clothes.

"I've got to get back to my room," I said to Kay. She looked
frightened, but there was nothing I could do at that moment to
appease her.

I pulled my shorts on and struggled into my t-shirt as I ran out the
door without saying another word. I took the stairs two and three at
a time, down to my floor, and I flung open the fire door without
thinking.

Fortunately, the hallway was empty. I breathed a sigh of relief,
slipped my key in the door of the room I shared with Luke, and
stepped into the Twilight Zone.

Pick and Eddie were sitting on my bed, looking as casual as could
be. Luke was standing at attention by the dresser in his underwear.
Sweat was beaded on his forehead, and his eyes looked like the eyes
of some sort of caged animal.

'I don't know why he feels trapped,' I thought raggedly. 'He's not the
one who has just fucked up.'

"Good evening, Mr. Porter," said Pick Cropper. "I don't suppose you
have a good explanation for this, do you?"

My brain froze. "Uh... sir..." It was only fitting I would stammer
away any possible alibi that might have convinced my coach of my
innocence.

Coach shook his head sadly. I knew in that instant he had, indeed,
recognized Kayla. From that moment, I had been dead meat. It just
hadn't hit home until now.

Pick stood up suddenly. I reflexively took a step back. Coach took
two steps, coming face-to-face with me. He stared me in the eye.

"Team meeting at eight sharp. Conference Room A. I will not tolerate
anybody being even thirty seconds late."

"Yes, sir."

"You are not to leave this room from now until then," he said. There
was iron in his voice. "I cannot make myself any clearer than that.
Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," I answered, almost whispering.

He stared at me for a time, and I got increasingly nervous. I was
not enjoying thinking about what he was examining within me, but I
wasn't about to tear my eyes away from his search. He would find what
he would find.

Without another word, Pick finally released me from his gaze. He
stepped around me, and Eddie sidled after him. The door clicked
softly behind them. Only then did I dare take a breath. I shuddered,
and Luke nearly collapsed.

"Man, you're fucked," he said.

Didn't I know it.

I couldn't even take the chance of calling Kayla to let her know
what had happened. I lay down on top of my bed, without even turning
the bedspread down. I put my hands behind my head and bleakly
contemplated my future.

Sometime during the long night I finally fell into a troubled and
restless slumber. It didn't last long, though, and I was awake again
by six. I took a long time in the shower before waking Luke, and
together we went downstairs to face Pick's wrath.



* * * * * * * * * *



The team meeting was a disaster. I was the pariah, and deservedly
so, but very few were spared.

Pick started out quietly, and never did raise his voice. It was all
the more devastating hearing him speak in such normal tones.

"We seem to have acquired us a problem," he began once everybody had
found seats. I was in the last chair in the back row, and nobody was
sitting next to me. I couldn't blame them.

"I have always tried to treat each and every member of my team as
equal and valued," Pick continued after a pause. "I put a substantial
amount of trust in my players, my coaches, and my staff. I have
rarely had that trust betrayed. And yet, here we all are. You all
picked a hell of a time to toss this season into the shitter, I got
to say."

He looked directly at me. "You got anything to say in your defense,
Mr. Porter?"

I stood up. 'Might as well face the firing squad on my feet.' "No,
sir," I said. "But I do want to apologize to my teammates for putting
them in this position. I was wrong, and I admit it."

"It's a start, but I'm afraid it ain't the finish," said Coach. "I
believe I've got the gist of it, and I will be willing to listen up
to anybody who thinks I might have some part of it in the wrong.
Without wallowing in the details, here's what I am basing my
decisions concerning this here tournament upon."

Everybody kind of shifted in their chairs, and many of my teammates
craned around to look at me.

"Unbeknownst to Mr. Porter beforehand, some friends of his arranged
for a reunion between him and his girl from back home. Kayla, isn't
it?" He glanced in my direction, but I knew he didn't need my
confirmation. "A lovely girl. Now, there was a couple of others here
in the room who were witnesses to this reunion, and when they saw the
direction that was being laid out, I surely do wish they had
counseled their friend toward a different set of circumstances."

He looked around the room, perhaps noting the witnesses. Eddie
Whitehead and Stan Harvard, stationed on either side of Pick, watched
us, also.

"The upshot of this all is that Mr. Porter, here, has violated
curfew repeatedly during this here tournament, broken team rules, and
all in all behaved poorly indeed. While his behavior has not degraded
his performance on the field, the fact that he has taken it upon
himself to be the arbiter of my rules has placed him opposite me.
And, when it comes to this team, I think you all know how successful
somebody who stands opposite me will be. It's my way or the highway,
as they say."

He gathered himself together and stood up straighter. "Sean Porter,
Jesse Wilhoit, Bryan Watkins, Stuart Early, Spencer Goldman, Luke
Severn, and Brad Rickman. You seven players will suit up for today's
game, but you will not play. If we have an injury, we will play
short. If we have two injuries, we will play two short. If we end up
with a keeper and one player on the field, we will finish the game
with just those two in the game. Understood?"

There was a murmur of assent. The depth of our punishment was
sufficient we were, in effect, forfeiting any chance of winning the
championship. It was startling to me that Pick would so easily throw
that away, when he could easily salvage a run at South Carolina by
merely benching me. I looked around and saw quite a few slumped
shoulders. The realization set in quickly.

"Any further disciplinary measures to be taken will be decided once
we get back home. In the meantime, until we are in the bus and on the
interstate, we are in lockdown. You all are to stay in your rooms
except during scheduled team activities." He glanced at his watch.
"Our game is at noon. Breakfast will be brought in here in a moment.
After our meal, you are to return to your rooms until Eddie, Stan, or
I come and collect you. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," we all mumbled.

Pick turned his back on us and huddled with his two assistants. We
were dismissed, but we had nowhere to go.



* * * * * * * * * *



Twelve hours later, we were on the bus and on our way back to
Gainesville.

The championship game was a disaster. We lost 6-1, and were never a
threat to the Gamecocks at all. I spent the entire game on the end of
the bench, all alone, with a towel over my head and my elbows propped
on my knees. I could barely work up the energy to even watch the
movement of the ball. I just didn't give a shit.

At one point, Trent Abbott trotted the sidelines and slowed as he
got to me. He shrugged, as if to ask me what was up. I just shook my
head once, and he continued on his way, no doubt mystified by our
play and our lineup.

After the game, at the presentation of the championship and
consolation trophies, the seven of us who did not play stood to one
side as the rest of the team mounted the podium to accept the trophy.
Pick kept his remarks short, and did not mention a word about our
abbreviated team. I glanced into the stands just once, looking for
Eric and Keisha, knowing Kayla would be with them, but I didn't see
them. It was probably just as well, as my feelings were in turmoil.

After we had been on the road for a couple of hours, I ventured up
toward where Jesse and Bryan were sitting, across the aisle from each
other. Bryan was listening to music, but Jesse was just staring out
the window. He glanced up at me when he finally saw my reflection in
the dark window, and he sat up and moved over. He patted the seat
next to him. I sat down.

"Look, Jesse, I just want to apologize for getting you mixed up in
this," I said.

He looked unhappy, and I knew it was my fault, even though he would
be the last person to lay any blame on me, deserved or not. "I
stepped into it with my eyes wide open, Sean. Not your fault."

"Yeah, it is," I insisted. I didn't want him letting me off the hook
that easily. "I fucked up, and you're paying the cost with me, and I
don't like it."

He just shrugged desultorily. "I knew about it, I knew it could blow
up, and I didn't say anything to you to try to stop it. Pick's right.
I should have taken responsibility, as a team leader. And I didn't."

"It wasn't your decision. It was mine. You've got a right to be
pissed at me."

"I'm pissed, but I'm pissed at myself for falling into the trap. I'm
not angry with you, Sean."

"Jesse..."

"Look," he said, "if it's okay with you, I'd rather not talk about
it anymore. I just want to try to get some sleep. Okay?"

With that, he rolled his shoulders and tucked his head against the
window and closed his eyes. Our conversation was at an end. I stood
up and looked over at Bryan. I wanted to apologize to each of the
guys, one at a time, but Bryan deliberately kept on looking out the
window, his headphones giving him a perfect excuse for not noticing
me. I knew he knew I was there, but if he didn't want to talk to me
now, it was all right. I'd have my chance sooner or later.

Spencer and Luke and the others were further up the bus. I decided I
would give it a little more time before I approached them. I wandered
back to my own bench seat, all alone in the back of the bus.

Just before midnight, Pick came down the aisle of the bus as we
hurtled into the darkness down the interstate. He stopped at my seat
and looked down at me. There was nobody else around me.

"I'll see you in my office at two-thirty," he said.

I nodded.

"What was that you said?" he asked, anger making his voice rumble.

Without looking up at him, I replied, "Yes, sir. Two-thirty."

"That's better," he said roughly.

I was left to myself once he walked away, with only my own thoughts
and assumptions to keep me company. It was cold comfort.



* * * * * * * * * *



Promptly at two-thirty the next afternoon, I was cooling my heels in
the reception area of the Athletic Office. Pick's secretary, Eunice
Adkins, glanced at me every now and then out of the corner of her
eye. She wore big rhinestone glasses and a pencil stuck into her
sticky-looking beehive hairdo. Every now and then she took her
glasses off and let them dangle from the beaded chain attached to the
bows. I thought she looked a little sympathetically at me, but that
may have been wishful thinking.

Pick let me stew for over forty minutes before calling me into the
inner sanctum. By then, I was pretty steamed myself. Hell, I knew I
had done wrong. All I wanted was to be doled out my punishment for
what I thought was a minor indiscretion, so we could all get on with
the bigger picture, which was winning the SEC and going to the Big
Show, the NCAA tournament.

I made the mistake of slamming Pick's door a little too hard when I
finally was allowed to enter. Unfortunately, it set the tone of the
meeting. Eddie was there, too, probably acting as witness to the
proceedings. I wished I had brought somebody, too.

I was just crouching down to sit in the chair opposite Pick's desk
when he growled, "Did anybody give you permission to set, Porter?"

I scrambled back up and stood to the side. "No, sir." I tried to
sound more apologetic that I felt. I didn't think I succeeded.

Instead of having me sit, Pick stood up and leaned on his desk.

"Son, you remember a previous conversation of ours? About me taking
on projects now and again?"

"Yes, sir, I do," I answered.

"I never expected you to be one of them projects, boy."

"I'm not one of those projects, Coach."

"You may not have started out as one, Mr. Porter," he said. "You are
surely turnin' out to be such a one, though."

"Look, Coach, I realize I broke team rules, but it's not like it was
detrimental to my play on the field," I said.

"You think not?" He looked at me sharply. "Tell me, son, did we win
that there championship game?"

"Of course not," I said angrily. "Because..."

"Because you broke the damn rules!" Pick was shouting over me.

My mouth clapped shut. I had to grit my teeth to keep from arguing
the point.

"You let your gawddamn gonads rule over your thick head, Porter," he
said in a slightly lower tone. "It cost us that Georgetown
championship, and it may cost us the conference title before we're
done with it."

"I don't see how..."

"You just ain't learned to keep your damned mouth shut yet, have
you?" Pick growled, cutting me off. "Maybe servin' out a three-game
suspension will give you time to see the error of your ways."

Relief at not being kicked off the team warred with feelings of
frustration over not being able to defend myself. "Three games?
Coach, I..."

"On second thought, make that five games," Pick interrupted. "And
one game each for Wilhoit, Goldman, and Watkins."

I kept my mouth shut. It was only getting worse. Pick watched me
closely, and nodded with grim satisfaction when he saw I was going to
keep quiet.

"Good. You're learning. You ought to be thanking me, son. Near about
anybody else would have been packing up their locker and heading back
home if they'd pulled something like this. I must be gettin' soft,
but I think you got some redeeming qualities. I ain't one to let go
easily."

He stared at me hard. I nodded and ventured a "Yes, sir," hoping
even that much comment would not draw even more punishment.

It was apparently the correct response, because he nodded again and
sat down at his desk.

"You will practice with the team, just like always," he instructed.
"You will report to the locker room for each game wearing a coat and
tie, and you will occupy a spot on the bench. You will take notes,
copious notes, of each game, and give me a detailed summary of your
observations by the next morning. Are we clear so far?"

"Yes, sir."

"In addition, you will quit your job with the souvenir shop. You
will be Eddie Whitehead's gopher for the balance of the year. Each
and every day, you are to either stop by this here office, or call
in, to see if there are any duties for you to perform. Do you
understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's seven days a week, for the rest of the damned school year."

"I understand, sir."

"Dan Ortega is starting in your place for the balance of this
season, Mr. Porter. With you missin' the next five games, I got to
play the men who have the game experience going into the NCAA. We got
three games left on our schedule, including South Carolina comin' in
here in a couple a days, and then the SEC championship tourney will
start. You'll get some game time, particularly early in the NCAA
tournament, but I can't guarantee how much."

It hurt, but I had no choice. I was going to be a bench player.
"Yes, sir," I said. It was no struggle for me to sound chastised.

"Now get the hell out of here," Pick finished. "Eddie Whitehead will
take over. I don't want to see your sorry ass except at need. Do I
make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir."

I beat a hasty retreat and followed Eddie to the locker rooms to
begin my sentence.



* * * * * * * * * *



Jesse, Spencer, and Bryan had to sit out the South Carolina game
with me. They were pretty mad at me, having thought their punishment
in the whole Porter fiasco was finished. Jesse was never one to hold
a grudge, and after venting at me for a few minutes he was pretty
much back to normal with me.

Spencer, too, took his licks pretty much in stride. He bitched at me
for a couple of hours one night in his room, got it out of his
system, and did his best to overcome his anger.

Bryan stayed mad at me. He wouldn't even look at me, and refused to
acknowledge my presence on the bench for the next couple of games,
including the one he had to sit out. Jesse and Bryan had differing
opinions about the severity of my actions, and the fairness of the
punishments doled out, and it was straining their relationship.

Finally, after my second game of sitting on the bench and taking
notes for my report to Pick, I managed to corner Bryan as we were
leaving the athletic center.

"Bryan, I need to talk to you," I said.

"Well, I don't need to talk to you," he shot back. "I'm meeting
Melanie. I don't have time."

I grabbed his arm. He jerked it away and kept on walking.

"Look, I'm just going to dog you until you talk to me for a minute,"
I said.

He gave me a big, theatrical sigh and stopped.

"Okay, talk," he said. "But make it quick."

I had been planning this for a long time. I had to make it
convincing. "I want you to know I never wanted you to have to pay for
what I did, Bryan," I began. "You were an innocent bystander, and I
apologize. Hell, I've been trying to apologize for over a week now."

"I know you have, but I just didn't want to hear it," he said
angrily. He folded his arms, his body language clear. "You know the
damage you've done to this team? To Jesse? Hell, Porter, I really
don't care about me. I'm just a team player. I can roll with the
punches. I love soccer, but it isn't going to be my bread and butter,
like it was supposed to be for Jesse. He had hopes of going pro, you
know? If not here, maybe in Europe, or even South America. Now what
are his chances?"

"What, just because he was set down for two games? He's a junior,
Bryan. He's got all next season."

"And you'll be back, too, I presume. How will you manage to fuck up
the team next year?"

"That's not fair. What makes you think I'm going to fuck up again?"
I asked. In spite of my best intentions, he was making me mad.

"Because I thought you were a good guy this year," he came back.
"And I was wrong."

"I'm not a bad guy..."

"You screwed up our season, fucked up the team pretty royally," he
retorted. "That's not being a good guy."

"I admit I messed up, but it wasn't intentional, you know." I was
trying to hold back, but it was getting difficult. But then I saw
Bryan's shoulders slump a little. He looked at me a little sadly.

"Melanie's been on me a little bit about you," he finally admitted.
"Have you talked to Reggie since we've been back?"

"No," I said. "She was home for break, I know, but I haven't even
thought about talking to her since she got back."

"Yeah, you've had other things on your mind," he said, a little
unkindly. "It's really none of my business, but you might want to
give her a call. Let her know what's going on."

"Yeah, I suppose," I said. "It doesn't really concern her, though."

He barked out a laugh with very little humor in it. "Not anymore, it
doesn't." He turned and walked away, leaving me to wonder what he
meant by his comment.

In truth, I hadn't given Reggie a thought during all of this. I
probably did at least owe her a call. 'Just another person I have to
apologize to,' I said to myself as I let Bryan walk away from me. The
list was growing longer, and I was finding it harder and harder to
face them all.

The letters from Kayla were also accumulating. I had opened and read
the first two or three, but the questions were all the same. She kept
on asking them because she never got an answer back from me, I
suppose. After the first few, I just stacked her letters on my desk
unopened. They were another mute reminder of my tendency to fuck
everything up. I had every intention of reading them and answering
each and every one, but the longer I delayed the easier it was to put
it off for yet another day. Westy took some telephone messages from
her, too, but I was just too busy, and too broke, to even think about
calling her back.

By the third week, I was receiving envelopes from Jaimie, Jake, and
even Stephen and Tara. I started a second stack, just for those
letters. I knew what would be in them; my so-called friends didn't
need to be chastising me.

My trusty roommate made sure he reminded me of my transgressions
just about every time he saw me. Westy had taken an inordinate amount
of glee in hearing of my troubles. It gave him real pleasure to ride
me, since he had very little time for going out and finding his own
trouble. Ever since about the third week of school he had been
calling me "All-American Asshole," but now he changed the inflection
of his taunt. Before it was "ALL-AMERICAN Asshole", and now it was
"All-American ASSHOLE," reflecting the pleasure he was experiencing
over my suspension. It was also a graphic example of how inflection
can completely change a meaning.

Westy's training schedule for the swim team had kicked in big-time,
though, and fortunately I didn't see him very much. Every time I did,
though, he made some snide comment about my predicament. He was still
spending most of his limited spare time at the fraternity house, so I
was spared his company except for late at night, when my own personal
demons were at their strongest anyway, and Westy just fueled them
with his presence.



* * * * * * * * * *



Our team's chemistry siphoned away into nothingness as a result of
the suspensions. We lost our second game in a row to South Carolina
when they came to Gainesville the week after the tournament. We were
still down most of our offense, though we regained some of our
defensive strength with Brad Rickman back in front of the keeper's
box. Still, it was a 4-2 loss at home.

Our next game we managed to squeak out a 2-2 tie against Vanderbilt,
a team we should have beaten. I took notes at game time as
instructed, sitting by myself at the end of the bench. I wanted to do
a thorough job for Pick and Eddie, so I waited to hand in my report
until after I had seen the film of the game the next morning. I
wanted to confirm some of my observations and give Pick as
comprehensive a report as I could. I typed it out carefully, put it
in a report binder, and handed it in to Eunice that afternoon.

We won the third game of my suspension, against Mississippi State,
by the meager score of 2-1, and I again painstakingly typed out my
notes, put the report in a binder, and left it with Eunice. I watched
the tape of that game, too, sitting with Eddie in the projection
room. We talked about what we both saw, and he spoke to me as an
equal, with no animosity at all. I was grateful to him for his
treatment, though I had enough smarts to keep from saying anything to
him. As Pick had told me before, Eddie was a student of the game, and
he didn't let too much get in the way of his nearly obsessive need to
learn as much about soccer and teams and players as he could.

Because of our overall record, we finished in first place in the
SEC, assuring a berth in the NCAA tournament. After the final game of
the season, we were surprised to learn we would be seeded second in
the conference tournament. Our two losses to South Carolina, both
considered to be conference games, meant the Gamecocks had a better
conference record than we had, so they were seeded first for the
tourney. The winner of the SEC Tournament, if different from the
conference champion, would also receive an automatic spot in the Big
Show.

I would miss the first two games of the SEC Tournament, to be held
in Athens, Georgia, but I would be available to play for the finals,
if we made it that far. I also was anxious to get some game time in
so I would be ready to play once the NCAA Tournament started, a week
after the SEC finals.

It was a moot point. We lost in the first round of the conference
tournament, to LSU. We limped home to lick our wounds and regroup
before the big tournament started.

It was frustrating to sit on the bench and watch the game, and it
was even more frustrating to watch the film the next day with Eddie.
We should have been able to beat LSU in a walk. Instead, what I saw
was a Florida Gators team beginning the game with an attitude of
defeat, and walking off the field at the end of the game having
witnessed a self-fulfilling prophesy.

At the end of the LSU film, Eddie and I just sat there in the room,
not saying anything.

Finally I looked over to him. He was sitting with his head bowed,
either praying or thinking. I wasn't sure which.

"What can we do to turn this around?" I asked quietly.

"Damned if I know," he muttered. "Pick's stymied, too."

It made me feel even worse, something I had thought couldn't happen.
Just when I thought I had hit bottom, a new well appeared underneath
my feet.

"Let's rewind the film," I suggested. "We're missing something."

"Come on, Sean," he said with some heat. It set me back a little; I
hadn't ever seen Eddie display even a hint of a temper before. "If
there was something there, we'd have seen it."

"What will it hurt?" I persisted. "I can't play, I might as well
scout."

Eddie stood up and rewound the film, and we watched it again. Hell,
I knew what was wrong with the team. So did Eddie. We just didn't
know how to fix it.

So I wrote my report for Pick. I wrote about how Dan Ortega, taking
my right defensive spot, was a very good defender, but without
imagination. I wrote about Frenchy's backsliding into showy ball-
hogging, and I wrote about Jeremy's sluggishness on the field. Our
movement among our positions had all but stopped. Spencer tried to
get some switching going, but his teammates on the field seemed to be
content to play positions again. Jesse, Bryan, Brad, and Rick, the
team leaders, were not encouraging sliding coverages, and we were
losing games to lesser teams because of our rigid hierarchy.

I wrote it all down, Pick and Eddie read it, and I knew they agreed.
During practices we were more fluid, especially when we played Alpha
against Omega, but when game time rolled around, the team fell back
into their old, dying ways. It was frustrating for me, not being able
to be out there, and it was frustrating for the coaching staff. They
took to haranguing the players from the sidelines, which contributed
to the level of frustration without adding any better execution on
the field.

We entered the NCAA tournament as the fourth seed in the Southeast.
Jesse and Bryan were still confident they could lead the team deep
into the tournament, and they started studying film of Indiana
University's soccer season. They were the defending NCAA champions,
and according to the pairings, we had a chance of taking the field
against them in the quarterfinals. They wanted to be ready, so they
convinced the team to work on plays designed to challenge the great
defense of Indiana.

We traveled to Texas by bus for the first series of games, and the
pressure of the tournament kicked in. We started playing better, and
we made it through our first two opponents. It looked more and more
to our team leaders their choice of focusing on Indiana might have
been a wise decision. In fact, we won the first two games, and we
were beginning to feel like we were ready to move up to the next
level, feeling more confident than we had felt since the semifinals
of the Georgetown tournament.

That feeling lasted until the third game we played in the NCAA
tournament, the game for the Southeast Championship. We walked onto
the field on a hot and dusty afternoon and lined up against the
Tigers of Clemson University. I was an activated player, and even
though I was not starting, I had high hopes of getting some
significant minutes in the game.

It didn't happen. I played about six minutes of the first half, and
less than five minutes in the second half. By that point it was a
done deal: we were hammered by Clemson, losing 4-0. The game wasn't
even as close as the score. We were harried on the field, outrun and
outgunned. Watching from the sidelines, I doubted we would have been
able to stop them, even when we were playing our best. I thought they
were damned good.

Two weeks later, watching on televisions back on campus, my opinion
was verified. Clemson beat Indiana at the Seattle Kingdome in the
championship game, winning the NCAA tournament.



* * * * * * * * * *



All during this time, my frustration with my situation grew and
grew, until I felt I was going to explode. I was angry at everybody.
I barely spoke to my teammates. Spencer and Jesse were about the only
friends I had left on the team. I had finally jumped Westy after one
particularly bad day when he came into our room with another smart
remark. He rang my bell pretty good, but I managed to loosen a couple
of his teeth before Jason and Craig, roommates from across the hall
who rushed over when they heard the fighting, managed to pull us
apart. I brusquely told Reggie I was too busy to see her, using the
telephone like a coward. I just didn't want the complications.

I got angrier and angrier, mad at myself and mad at the world for
what I considered unfairly harsh punishment for a relatively minor
crime. My state of mind spilled over into all aspects of my life, and
my grades dropped along with my attitude.

I tried to figure out a way to stay in Florida for Christmas. I
didn't want to face the questioning from my family and my friends. I
just wanted to crawl into a cave and be left alone.

I worked myself into such a bitter, poisoned state, I ended up doing
the stupidest, most Porterish thing I had ever done in my nearly
nineteen years of living to that point. I took a good, hard look at
my troubles over the previous weeks, and I squarely placed the blame
at the source of my misery.

I blamed Kayla.






(Continued in Chapter 21)


  
CE20