Stone Creek by Davis, Lainey (reading diary .TXT) 📕

and embarrassed, as if it's somehow my fault that Talon Kelly disrupted the unspoken seating rules.

He hasn't texted or made eye contact, and this hurts me worst of all. I start to feel furious with myself for being so forward the night of the game. I miss those electric moments of teasing, flirting, cuddling with Talon. Before I had to go and say anything, we had an exciting tension buildup. I found it thrilling, texting back and forth with him at night, studying with him.

"God, Lis, I miss him," I say, a week later as we eat dinner in our apartment. She pats my hand. I know she's going over to their apartment later to see CJ. "He's probably going to go fuck some random girl while you and CJ are using the apartment tonight," I say, stabbing my food with my fork.

Alissa shakes her head. "Nuh-huh." She swallows. "CJ says he's been moping around like an asshole. I didn't tell CJ anything about what happened--I swear. But he brought it up. He said something like, 'I just hope Claw isn't home when you get here, baby. He's been so fucking depressing lately.'"

Alissa promises to discretely gather as much information as she can, making me promise to do something involving other human beings tonight.

As she leaves, my phone rings, and I look down, surprised to see it's my uncle calling. Shit, I think. For the first time since he died, I'd forgotten my dad's birthday.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

 

"Uncle Travis. Hey."

"Serena, I thought I'd hear from you earlier. I wanted to make sure you were doing ok…you know, considering."

"I feel kind of awful. I actually forgot the day."

I can hear that he's shaking ice in a glass. Probably finishing his annual toast to my dad. They always used to find time to go to their favorite whiskey bar once a week, regardless of football season pressure. "That's really unlike you, sweetheart. Anything wrong up there in New York?"

I tell him I'm starting to make some friends with some of the girls here at school. "We've been going out for cheesecake," I say. "Between that and keeping up my grades, I got so busy I didn't take note of the date."

We talk a little about my stats class, how I'm still planning on grad school as my next step. He says, "You've always got a home here. You know that, right?"

"I know, Uncle Trav.  Who knows? Pitt has a pretty good PhD program in statistics…"

I hear him set his glass down and he says, "Hey, speaking of Pitt, I know you watched the Super Bowl! How about that game, huh? Man, your dad would have loved to watch the Steelers win it."

I agree with him on this, and we talk a bit about pro football, which seems like a relatively safe subject until he tells me he had an email from Coach Burns. "He remembers your dad really fondly, sweetie, and Coach asked if you were coming back to work in his booth this fall."

This surprises me. Quite a lot, actually, since I told Coach I was done with football stats and sort of stormed out of the booth at the end of last season. When Talon got hurt, actually. "What did you tell him? When he asked about me?"

My uncle chuckles a bit. "I told him he'd have to give you a call himself."

Coach Burns calls me the next afternoon. I'd spent half the day expecting my cell to ring, so I wasn't surprised to hear his loud voice. "Serena Sanders! How the hell are you, sweetheart?"

We exchange small talk for a bit and he invites me to grab dinner with him at the deli on campus. He doesn't mince words, which I appreciate, and as soon as I order my turkey Reuben, he asks, "So what's this I hear you won't be in my stats booth anymore?"

"I told you last semester I was done," I say, twirling my napkin around and not meeting his eye. "I need to start getting my grad school applications together and taking exams and--"

"Bullshit," he says, pointing at me with his straw. "Tell me what's up, kiddo." Coach takes a long drag from his lemonade.

I meet his eyes for a long time and just blurt out a lot of the things that have been weighing on me. "I don't want to be in this world," I tell him. "I saw it eat away my dad. He was obsessed with football, with his team. He didn't have time for anything else, including me, unless I was helping out with the damn stats."

It's like a dam opened up, and I am just unloading to Coach all about how I hated not seeing my dad, spending every day after school running around the football sidelines instead of taking ballet or gymnastics like every other kid I wanted to be. No single guy would so much as talk to me in high school because first I was either the coach's daughter and then the weird, mopey, orphan girl whose face was an open book of sadness.

I take a deep breath. "I'm really good at statistics and math and the upper level courses are really demanding, timewise. I just feel like I need to focus on school now."

Our food arrives then and Coach eats for a few minutes in silence while I pick at my sandwich. Then, leaning back with his arms crossed, he rubs his chin and says, "Serena, I'm not gonna say anything about your dad loving football too much or too deep, but here's what I know. You have a better vision for the game than half the guys on my staff. I hear you talk before the meeting starts and they shut you up with the other interns. You don't just know about the numbers, Serena, you know what they