Nerds Don't Date Athletes

SLOANE The thing about being cheated on is that the worst part isn't finding out. It's realizing that deep down, some part of you already knew. I'm standing in the middle of Chase Bennett's apartment - or what used to feel like my second home - watching him pull on his practice jersey like I'm not even in the room. Like I didn't just walk in twenty minutes ago and find a girl's earring on his bathroom floor. A hoop. Gold. Definitely not mine. I don't even wear hoops. "You're overreacting," Chase says, not looking at me. "I found an earring, Chase." "It's probably Chelsea's. She was here last week with the girls." "Chelsea has her ears double pierced. Both sides. She only wears studs." I push my glasses up my nose. "I know because I'm her roommate. I've lived with her for two years." He finally turns around. And God, I hate that he's still beautiful. That's the most infuriating part. Chase Bennett is exactly what everyone says he is - tall, built, jawline sharp enough to cut glass. Crestwood's starting center. The golden boy of our campus. Captain of the hockey team before he even hit junior year. My boyfriend. Or at least he was as of this morning. "Sloane-" "How long?" "It's not what-" "How. Long. Chase." He sets his jaw. Looks away. That's all the answer I need. "Okay." I pick up my bag off his couch. My hands are steady. I'm annoyed by how steady they are. "Okay. Cool. Got it." "Don't do the quiet thing. I hate when you do the quiet thing." "Then you should've kept your hands to yourself." "You know what your problem is?" He steps toward me. His voice has that edge now, the one he gets when he's losing an argument and knows it. "You're too in your head all the time. You analyze everything to death. Being with you is exhausting sometimes, Sloane." I stop. Turn around slowly. "Exhausting," I repeat. "I didn't mean it like-" "No, say it. Say exactly what you mean. Because I have been showing up for you for two years, Chase. Every away game, every time you came home bruised up from a rough game and took it out on me. Every 5am ice time I drove you to because your car was in the shop. I was there. I was always there. And you're standing here telling me I'm exhausting?" He opens his mouth. Closes it. "Goodbye, Chase." I walk out. The door doesn't slam - I close it quietly, which honestly feels more final. --- I make it to the stairwell before my legs go stupid on me. I sit on the third step from the bottom and just breathe. Glasses off. Eyes closed. The fluorescent light above me buzzes like it's also having the worst day of its life. Don't cry. Do not cry in this stairwell. My phone lights up. It's my roommate, Chelsea. Chelsea: you coming back for dinner? I made pasta Chelsea: hello?? sloane??? Chelsea: babe why is chase posting on his story without you I stare at that last message for a long second. He's already on his story. I put my phone face down on the step beside me and press my palms against my eyes. Two years. Two years of Tuesday night study sessions where I basically wrote half his essays. Two years of skipping departmental events because they clashed with his games. Two years of being introduced at parties as "Chase's girlfriend, she's in cybersecurity or something" - like what I did with my life was a footnote. I should have seen this coming. Hell, I did see it coming. I just chose the comfortable lie over the obvious truth because I am, apparently, an i***t with a good GPA. My phone buzzes again. Chelsea: SLOANE MARIE MERCER if you don't answer me in 30 seconds I'm calling campus security I almost laugh. Me: I'm fine. Coming home. Don't make a big thing of it. Chelsea: what happened Me: Chase happened. Chelsea: ...I'll put wine in the pasta --- Except I don't go straight home. I don't know why, but I end up walking. Campus at seven in the evening is its own specific kind of alive - groups cutting across the quad, music bleeding out of the library windows, someone's playlist drifting down from a dorm floor above. I end up at the fountain near the east gate, which is a Crestwood tradition I've always found mildly ridiculous. The story goes that if you throw a coin in and say your rival campus's name - Ridgemont - out loud, something bad happens to you before finals. Nineteen-year-old me thought that was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. Twenty-one-year-old me is standing here considering it anyway. I fish a quarter out of my jacket pocket. "Ridgemont," I mutter, and throw it in. "Bold choice." I spin around so fast I nearly lose my balance. There's a guy leaning against the stone pillar at the gate entrance. Tall. Dark jacket. Built the way hockey players are built - like his shoulders have their own zip code. He's got a gear bag slung over one shoulder, the kind that's long enough to fit hockey sticks, and he's looking at me with this expression I can't quite place - somewhere between amused and genuinely curious. And then I see it. The logo on the bag. A black and red R. Ridgemont. Oh. Oh, hell. "You go to Ridgemont," I say flatly. "Guilty." He doesn't move from the pillar. "You know that fountain thing is a Crestwood myth designed to make people feel better about losing to us every season, right?" "We don't lose every season." "You lost last season." "We lost one game." "It was the conference championship." He's fighting a smile now. I can see it. "I'm Noah. Noah Sinclair." I don't give him my name. "You're on the wrong campus," I say instead. He tilts his head. "Am I?" "The Ridgemont shuttle stops running at six. Gates technically close to non-Crestwood students at-" "Seven-fifteen," he says. "I know. I've got eleven minutes." He checked. This man checked the gate schedule before showing up on our campus. "Why are you here?" I ask. He looks at me for a moment - really looks, in that way that makes me want to check if I have something on my face. "Honestly?" he says. "Our coaching staff wanted footage of your goalie's positioning before Saturday's game. I was running the footage back to our team van when I saw you throw a coin and curse our school." I open my mouth. Close it. "So you weren't stalking me," I say. "Not yet," he says, easy as anything. My entire brain short-circuits. He pushes off the pillar, adjusting the strap on his bag. "You okay?" He says it differently than people usually say it - like he actually wants to know. "I'm having a fantastic evening," I say. "Sure you are." He glances at my face, and something in his expression shifts - just slightly. "Rough night?" "Nothing I can't handle." "Right." He nods, like he's filing that away. Then: "For what it's worth - the fountain thing doesn't work. I've been on this campus three times this month and nothing's happened to me yet." I stare at him. "Three times?" But before I can say anything else, his phone buzzes. He glances at it, then back at me. "That's my eleven minutes." He picks up his bag. Starts backing toward the gate. "Hope your night gets better, Crestwood." He's almost through the gate when he stops. "You never told me your name." I don't know why I answer. "Sloane." He nods slowly. Like he's locking it in somewhere. "Sloane," he repeats. Then he's gone. Through the gate, into the dark, leaving me standing next to a fountain that apparently does absolutely nothing. I look down at the water. Three times this month. He'd been on my campus three times before tonight. Before the joint sessions were even official. I stand at the fountain for a long time after he's gone, the coin at the bottom catching the lamplight. I don't go home. I take out another quarter.