Page 66 of Open for Negotiation
“What happened to make it end so badly?”
“Miranda didn’t have the best childhood. Her parents were very hard on her and then just… left her when she was ten years old. She ended up in the system for a bit, fucked up by the foster system. She has some mental illness issues that she really needs help for, but she is stubborn.”
“That’s why you stayed for so long, right? You didn’t want her to feel abandoned by someone else that loved her.” She cups my cheek. “You’re a great man, Max.”
Her touch is warm. I want to lean into it and disappear.
“How have you handled the curveballs life has thrown you?” I ask with complete sincerity. She seems to have it all together and I want to know how she’s managed to stay so bright and sunny.
“Saying that I’ve handled them is generous.” She slips her shoes off and brings her feet up to rest on the dash.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you watch or follow college sports?” she asks randomly.
“Umm, I mean… I watch football games in the fall, but that’s it. I don’t follow it per se. Why? That seems like a very random question.”
“It’s shockingly relevant actually.” She pulls all of her hair over one shoulder, exposing her perfect neck to me. “Does the name Carson Whitaker mean anything to you?”
“It sounds familiar, actually. I just can’t put my finger on it. Who is that?”
“He’s the head coach of the football team at my old college. He’s… a big deal.”
The lightbulb ignites as soon as she specifies who he is.
“Oh, yes, yes. I heard on the radio, I think, that he just got a big contract extension.”
She scoffs at that and rolls her eyes. “Of course he did.” She rests her head back on the headrest. “When I was a freshman in college, literally freshly eighteen years old, naïve, unsure what I was going to do with my life… I made a mistake. A big one.”
“What happened?”
“One of my art history professors suggested I help out with a mural that was being painted in the men’s locker room. I was one of the only underclassmen picked. I was so excited and proud. I got there early, stayed late, did everything I needed to make the mural the best it could be. Coach started hanging out more and more as time passed. Dropping by to see the progress, then talking to me about it. Then he started bringing me coffee… food… and then one night, I was there working late. One thing led to another…. and … I slept with him in the locker room.”
I wish there was a word for what I am feeling right this moment while she is telling me this story. It’s living somewhere between rage, jealousy, sadness, and anger. I’m raging at the idea of another man touching her, I’m jealous for the same fact. I’m angry at the grown-ass man taking advantage of a teenager, and I’m sad for eighteen-year-old Scarlett who got her heartbroken.
“Jesus Christ,” I say under my breath.
“I wish I could say it stopped there, but it didn’t. I kept seeing him. We’d sneak away to motels or I’d come to his office.” She sniffs back, like she’s holding back tears. “I think I fell in love with him or as in love as a teenager can be. Looking back now, maybe it was just the idea of him.”
“What happened? How did it end?”
“He took photos of me… videos too. They got out. I don’t know how. He says he never shared them, but that’s impossible. You’d think that the media and everyone would brand him a predator and run him out of town, but the entire city, hell, the whole state, turned on me.”
“What do you mean? How could they possibly see you in a bad light? He took advantage of you.”
“I was of age, an adult, and to them, a whore who potentially ruined the hopes of a national championship year for the football team.”
I have to sit up straighter, clutching the steering wheel of the unmoving car, the leather creaks under my grip. “Explain that to me.” Really, I just need to hear her voice to stop myself from driving from Savannah to wherever this college is to smash some reporter’s face in for running with that story.
“He was sleeping with a student. The university and the NCAA should technically fire him for that. The team would lose their coach, and that didn’t make the media or the public very happy with me. It was my fault. I must have pursued him. I was from a less than fortunate family, so I was blackmailing him for money. I was a whore. I was a slut. My dorm room was trashed, my parents were getting death threats in the mail. Social media tore me apart.” She wipes tears from her eyes as she continues, “I dropped out of school and went home.”
“And he’s still living the big life as the head coach of a national championship contending team.”
“Life isn’t fair, is it?”
I think about everything she’s been through in her life and everything I’ve been through then and now with Miranda, and take her face in my hands, making her look into my eyes.
“No, it’s not fucking fair, but we have to make our own way now. We have to make sure everything in our lives goes the way we want. No more running. No more settling. No more hiding.”
