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

my lips. He leans back against the wall and his hands are soft on the top of my head. I brace my hands against his thighs inside his jeans. I open my throat and slide Neal into my mouth as far as I can, preparing to lick and suck him dry as he groans with pleasure, when two things happen simultaneously.

The lights in the arena suddenly buzz to life and Coach Thomas clears his throat from the tunnel to our left. "Fuck," Neal whispers, pulling out of my mouth and shoving his hands over his crotch. I'm frozen in place kneeling between Neal's legs, my hair disheveled, my world dropping out from underneath me.

An eternity passes before Coach Thomas makes eye contact with me. His face is hard, angry, and he says, "Nice motivational technique you got there." He shakes his head and pounds a fist on the glass barrier. "Sweeney, put your dick back in your pants and get out of here. I've got recruits and parents coming for a tour."

Coach Thomas begins to walk back down the tunnel, presumably to meet a freshman in the lobby. Neal leaps to his feet and tries to chase after his coach, still wearing his skates and trying to zip his pants. "Coach, wait--"

"Save it, Sweeney. I'll see you on the ice tomorrow." He slams a door and is gone.

Neal turns to face me, and I'm not able to stop the tears that are spilling down my cheeks. I close my eyes and start to rip off the skates, not caring about the rented laces as I yank them off my feet so I can run.

"Dahlia, don't do this." Even running on skates on the foam floor, Neal is faster than me. He has his arms around me in seconds and I release a sob into his chest. "It'll be ok," he says into my hair, and I stiffen.

I pull back and look at him, furious. "How?" I scream. "How the fuck will it be ok, Neal? I'm going to have to leave school."

"Dahlia, Coach isn't going to say anything to the math department. Seriously." Neal is reaching for me again, trying to pull me back in.

I snort, backing away toward the exit. "No, he'll just think I'm some fucking whore. Some groupie puck bunny. God, he probably thinks I've been giving the entire team blowjobs for years." I'm ranting now, enraged. I throw the skates against the wall and am startled by the echoing boom they produce in the empty arena. I wait for Neal to do something, to reassure me it’s not like that, or to say anything at all, but he just stands with his hands in his pockets.

I shake my head, blind with rage and tears, turn away, and run from the arena. I don't stop until I'm in my bed, where I stay for the next two days.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

When Linda comes home Sunday afternoon, she throws on the lights in the bedroom and pulls the curtains open. "Dahlia, what the hell? I've been calling you all day."

"Go away, Linda." I try to keep my voice neutral, thinking maybe I should feign an illness so she'll leave the room. I can't even bear talking about what happened. I feel filthy and exposed. Caught in an act that was so personal, something I'd only ever done with Neal.

"Is this about grad school stuff?" She sits on the bed and starts rubbing my shoulder through the blankets. "Tim told me Jeremy didn't do so great on his GRE."

Eager to talk about anything other than my screwed up life, I pull down the blanket. "Really? On the math part?"

"Nah. The verbal. But I guess he didn't score high enough for any of the schools he wanted. He decided to work for a year and try again."

"That stinks." I can't think of anything to say beyond that.

Linda dips her head to meet my eye. "But you didn't bomb the test, did you?" I shake my head. "I thought so."

I bite my lip and whisper to her. "I got a 330." And then I can't help but smile, because I know that my scores were well above the average for MIT and Penn. But that reminds me that the scores are meaningless if I don't actually have a college diploma and I start to cry again.

"Hey," she says. "What happened?" She pulls me into a hug and I start to sob. I weep into her shoulders for awhile and then tell her everything. About my magical morning with Neal and the horrifying events of the afternoon in the arena.

She lets out a long breath when I've finished talking. "Well, did you hear from Dr. Meyer or anything?"

I look at her blankly. I have checked neither my phone nor my email the entire weekend. She brings me my phone, where I see I've missed a number of calls from her and Neal. I have about 100 text messages. Nothing from the university. "It's because it's the weekend," I mutter. "I bet Coach Thomas called Dr. Meyer after the game Saturday."

Linda laughs. "I doubt that very highly," she says, pulling up something on the screen of her phone. She shows me the headline from the SCU student website. I see Neal and his roommates embracing on the ice, helmets off, faces joyful. "They won 7-0," Linda says. "They're going to nationals."

I start to cry again, sad that I missed Neal's big game. He probably could have used support in the stands before such an important match and I would have loved to watch him. I think about how it would feel to sit there with the other players' loved ones, wearing his jersey. How would it feel if everyone saw that I was Neal Sweeney's girlfriend?

Then I remember that he didn't speak up after his coach caught us.