Page 45 of Built To Perform

“Okay...”

I recognized the tone, the dwindling patience. But I wasn’t quite ready to say the truth out loud, to hear it in my own voice and know it was real.

“It’s just been a... really shitty day,” I hedged.

“It’s barely even 11,” Adam pointed out.

I shrugged, or tried to. Laying down made it awkward.

“Did you eat breakfast? I bet you didn’t.” He sat up, hand pulling away. “You know you get grumpy when you’ve not eaten properly.”

It felt like cheating to go along with his excuse, but one little extra deception didn’t seem like it would end the world.

“Not yet,” I admitted.

Adam sighed. “I’ll go pick us up some of those breakfast burritos you like, how about that? There’s nothing that chorizo and scrambled eggs can’t fix.”

I already missed his hand on my arm.

“Sure, that’d be... sure.”

“And maybe we can talk, some, while we eat,” he suggested, standing up. “If you want to, I mean.”

I nodded again, not daring to turn around.

A pause, like he was considering saying something more, and then I heard him sigh again. “I won’t be long, okay?”

I waited until I heard the door latch behind him.

#

Leaving a note felt like theatrics, a little kid running away from home and needing to declare that fact, but I knew Adam would only worry otherwise. The thought of sitting there, trying to swallow chunks of burrito while my roommate tap-danced around just what had upset me, was as much of an appetite killer as Coach’s cold scolding.

I stuffed clothes into my duffel bag while I tried to rehearse what I’d tell my parents when I got home.

It’d be easier to call them from the local train station, to pick me up. If I rang now, they’d only insist on getting answers over the phone. And while the thought of having to hold my mom and dad’s eye while I explained how I’d detonated my college career filled me with dread, that was still better than confessing it to the echoing static of a phone line. Trying to picture their faces, their reactions. The looks they’d share, and the disappointment.

And as for my big bros...

I couldn’t even start to process that, to figure out what I’d tell them. How I’d apologize, how I could ever make up for letting them - the team - all down so badly.

I shoved those thoughts even deeper than I pushed the last of my toiletries into the bag, zipping it closed.

Simple seemed best, for the note. Enough to stop Adam from worrying, anyway.

“Catching the train to see my parents,” I wrote on one of the notepads on his desk. “Not sure when I’ll be back.”

If you stopped moving, the thoughts and the fears and the sick feeling caught up with you, came surging back. The only way was to keep going. One foot in front of the other.

Casting a final look around the little room that’d started to feel like home, I grit my teeth and pulled the door shut.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It wasn’t going to be an easy journey, with a couple of transfers involved, but at least it was cheaper than a plane ticket. The wind was crisp as I sat on a bench at the end of the platform. According to the clock suspended high above the rails, I had an hour or so to wait for my first train.

Enough, certainly, to think about the things I might’ve appreciated more, had I known they were happening for the last time.

Like how good it felt to practice with my big bros. How incredible, and frustrating to be always a step or three behind them, and how flattering that they stuck with me nonetheless. Persevered, because they saw something in me that I wanted to believe I could see there too.