Chapter 6
6
Aviva
S ilently, Jack untied my arms from the bench before surprising me by rubbing life back into them. I lay there, panting, staring up at the ceiling, counting the white squares that decorated it like an empty Tic Tac Toe board. That was funny, because just like with Tic Tac Toe, there was no winning here.
I drew in a breath, and began, even as I regretted the words. I was breaking my promise to my brother by telling someone, and I couldn’t tell if I was more ashamed of that or of what had just happened.
Either way, I was weak, and I hated myself for it.
“My last name is Gold. I’m Asher Gold’s sister.”
Nothing.
“Your head coach, Joshua Jensen? He abused him.”
Jack rolled his eyes.
I narrowed my own. How dare he be so dismissive! “For two years, ever since Asher joined the Kings.”
Jack snorted .
I turned my head to look at him. “You think that’s funny?”
“Coach was right,” he said.
“About what?”
Jack cleared his throat. “Asher’s been playing like shit for a long time. Kept letting the puck past him. He’s a weak link. Coach had to tell him he was being replaced as a starter. When your brother found out, he lost his mind?—”
“That’s a lie!”
“—Thought he could blackmail Coach by making false claims against him?—"
“They’re not false! They happened!” I practically yelled, I was so incensed.
“Bullshit,” he scoffed.
I tried to control my anger. I didn’t have to be a psych major to know he was deep in denial.
“Right,” I said. “I bet you think that Boy Scout leaders, priests, and all men in positions of authority are good guys.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, like my words pained him. Well, they should.
“No, I know shit like this happens in the NCAA and on teams all the time. With bad coaches. But Coach—Josh—is a good man. The best .”
“Maybe you think that, Jack, but I know my brother. I’ve seen his pain. He’s—” I stopped myself. Jack didn’t deserve to know how badly Asher was hurting. How he’d cut himself off from everything and everyone. Thrown out all of his hockey gear, his posters, everything. Gotten rid of our subscription to ESPN, stopped listening to Kendrick Lamar. He wasn’t himself, and I was determined to change that.
But how could I, when Jack was in my way, and wouldn’t listen to me?
He continued, speaking over me. “Your brother was pissed, especially because there were big sponsorships on the line, so he threatened Coach: either he got to keep his spot, or he’d tell the faculty, the paper, everyone that Coach had assaulted him. Josh was concerned, and tried to get Asher the help he needed, financial and mental, but your brother is a greedy asshole with a huge ego and an axe to grind. Josh knew this was coming, and I—we—told him we’d back him up.” He glanced at me, anger and revulsion in his eyes. “Had no idea that Asher had a greedy sister who was as conniving and fucked in the head as he is.”
It was like he’d punched me in the gut, and I’d lost my ability to breathe. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s obvious from your clothes. Asher was a scholarship student, and so are you. You don’t have money, so you’re desperate—and what better way than to lean on your brother and his sponsorships and future NHL contract? Hate to break it to you, princess, but you’re going to be wearing those cheap clothes for a while. Asher’s not going anywhere in life—he’s lucky that Coach didn’t take action against him.”
Bile, sour and burning, rose in my already aching throat. I wanted to kill Joshua Jensen, and Jack, too.
“So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Plant a confession in coach’s office that says ‘Yeah, I did it,’ signed Joshua Jensen?”
“Hardly.” This time it was my turn to snort. “I was looking for the videos.”
“Videos?”
“Your sick fuck of a coach recorded every ‘session’ with my brother.” Just saying the words made me want to throw something. Ideally at Jack.
Jack glared at me like I was vile. “My coach saved my goddamned life, Aviva. You don’t know—” he paused. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t fucking deserve to know. He’s a good guy whose only real fault is giving everything to his team and being too trusting. It bit him in the ass with your brother; I won’t let it happen to him again.”
“But the videos?—”
“There are no videos, unless your plan was to plant them.”
I glared. “Do I look like I’m hiding videos anywhere?”
Waving this off, he said, “My brother’s a computer genius. I know you can plant shit digitally.”
He grabbed my wrist, dragging me off the bench without much care. I grabbed my skirt, trying to pull it up my shaking legs, but Jack had no regard for my comfort. He tugged me forward, even though I had one leg in my skirt, one out. I tripped and would’ve fallen if he hadn’t caught me with hard, cruel arms. “That is, unless you were planning on planting some doctored ones. Asher’s a film major, right? Always thought that was weird, but it makes sense, now.”
“Do you hear yourself? You’re so desperate to keep your coach on his pedestal, you’ll convince yourself of anything.”
He laughed again, no humor in it. “I know when someone’s lying, Aviva. I learned at a young age that people lie as easily as they breathe. You might have a cute pair of tits and a tight little cunt, but that won’t fool me into falling for your bullshit and betraying the only real family I’ve ever had.”
“Fine.” I blinked away my tears, refusing to let the asshole see me cry. I was crying because I was angry, not because I was sad. “If you’re determined to ignore the truth staring you in the face, then let me go.”
“Nah,” he said, keeping me locked in the cage of his arms. “You’re not going anywhere.”