Page 42 of Forever Defiant
For my own good.
But as my dad liked to lament, I’d never been any good at pretending.
I scanned the rest of the document; the rest of the roster appeared normal — names, numbers, positions, heights, GPAs, academic standing, and player evaluations. It could have been a simple mistake: a name was added when it shouldn’t have been, and it was just manually omitted rather than reprinted. That definitely could have been it.
But this name... It seemed like someone wanted it obliterated from memory. It felt personal the way it was scratched out. The paper had been torn, indicating the personwas either furious or frustrated. I looked closer. Whoever did it had used a pen, not a marker, so faint indents were still visible beneath the black fury of ink strokes, which was frustrating because I couldn’t read the full name — just the first letter and part of a curve.
No explanation, or notes and no follow-up. Just this person removed from the roster, as if there was no mistake he should have been included.
Weirder still? Next toPlayer Evaluation, the section was blank. Not zeroed out, or incomplete. Not ‘did not participate,’ which I had seen next to a few names — just nothing. This again suggested it could be someone included who shouldn’t have been. It was the most reasonable explanation, but this program and the word ‘reasonable’ didn’t belong together. Not when it was just one big glossy cover over an infestation of rot.
I took a slow breath, feeling the hairs on my arms stand up. Did this mean something? Was this the ‘more’ I was looking for?
Was this . . . a story?
“Shit.” I stepped back, looking at the paper as if it were poisonous.
I thought about the guys I’d spoken to and what Mike had shared. All of it was with Coach Sutherland’s permission,of course. Mike didn’t have any missing evaluations. Neither did any of the current players. Every player I spoke to had piles upon piles upon piles of data. One of them even joked that their coaches were obsessive, filling in evaluations if a player sneezed weirdly.
How they missed limps or shallow diaphragms made me even more suspicious, but to question openly would get me in hot water with Head Coach Sleazeball.
I looked at the date, realizing it was almost four years ago. Maybe they didn’t use computers back then. I snorted softly at my own ridiculousness.
One thing I had learned in my last few days was that everything about this game, the player, and the sport was about stats. They had a statistic for everything.
I swallowed, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I was still alone. Turning back, I flipped through the file to see if there was anything else about the scratched-out name. I noticed two more places where the name was scribbled over, not with the same force, but whoever they were, they’d definitely pissed someone off. They were removed from the playing schedule. The same thing happened on the academic sheet. When I flipped to the next page, they were just... gone.
Not reassigned, benched, or transferred. Just . . . gone.
I checked the list to make sure I wasn’t being paranoid, but no, thirty-four names, including Scribbled Out, and then it was thirty-three. Where did they go?
A pit opened in my stomach. What happened to him? More importantly, why did it look like someone wanted to pretend he’d never existed? I glanced toward the hallway, listening for footsteps. Nothing. Just the hum of the cursed printer and the distant thud of weights.
“Don’t be dramatic,” I whispered. “People leave programs all the time. Injury. Grades. Family stuff. It doesn’t have to be weird.” I scoffed. “Hell, he could have died, Hadley.”
But something in my gut told me there was no normal explanation for what had happened here. It was weird. Every part of it was weird. My gut was a great judge of character, so I was listening to it. I shoved some of the papers in my bag.
I flipped back to the roster, tapping the scratched-out name with my finger. Who was he? And why did this look like the entire department was pretending he had never been here?
I reached for the next stack of papers — older spring files, old reports, whatever else these filing cabinets had swallowed overthe years — when a voice made me jolt so hard I almost dropped the folder.
“What are you doing in here?”
I spun around, folder half hidden behind my back like a guilty toddler. Dustin stood in the doorway, brow furrowed, sweat still visible on his forehead from practice, looking at me as if he’d caught me rewiring a bomb.
Well.
Crap.
This was going to be a problem, not just emotionally — physically. I remembered him leaning over me in the coffee shop. My spine locked up, my lungs forgot how to breathe, and the folder behind my back suddenly felt as heavy as a guilty conscience, and I couldn’t find a single word to say.
Dustin filled the doorway with the same dread-inducing energy as a pop quiz I hadn’t studied for — only with a much better aesthetic. Arms crossed, brows furrowed, wearing that familiar look of irritation I was getting used to, except this time, there was something else tucked beneath it. Something that looked a little too close to concern. Andthatcaught me off guard.
And I still hadn’t answered him. Fantastic.
His frown deepened as his impatience grew thinner. “What are you doing in here?” he repeated, slower this time.
His eyes darted to the cabinets behind me, then to my hands behind my back, then back to my face.
