29. Mutually Assured Destruction
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION
LAKE
I’ve spent the entire day drafting an article that sugarcoats as much of this team-destroying scandal as possible.
I don’t want to lose my job. I want to make a difference—that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Nobody cares about student mental health or the uptick in sexual harassment surrounding Greek life. People would prefer to stay ignorant than address the faults of our school.
I beat Sutton back to the hotel room. I can’t face him right now. I know I’ll eventually have to see him, but I’m trying to stop my world from its inevitable collapse with the misguided belief that I actually possess the power to.
I don’t hear him come in. The second I exit the adjoining bathroom after dry-heaving over the sink for the past ten minutes, I’m greeted by the sight of his six-foot-five figure situated near my open computer.
I take conspicuous stock of his body, picking up on his quiet contemplation like a hunting dog who just got wind of a bloody, metallic scent.
Disappointment instantly eclipses his face. “When were you going to tell me?” he asks, turning my laptop around to show me my nearly completed article.
Guilt stings like broken glass lodged in an arterial vein. “I was going to tell you. I…I just didn’t know how,” I blurt out before I can reassess my approach, perturbation racketing up the notches of my spine.
“You think Buford is colluding with sports bettors and throwing our games so he can make money?”
Fuck. Shit. I don’t want to do this. I just want to forget all about the stupid article, go to sleep wrapped in the arms of the boy I love, and then cheer him on at the next game and celebrate his win, even if he doesn’t bring home a physical trophy.
I’m not here to play judge. I’m not here to balance the scales and confront the peculiarities of morality at ten in the evening.
I’ve always been prone to overthinking, but this may be the first time that my anxieties aren’t so far-fetched.
I inhale sharply, failing to ensure my tone is less defensive as it slips freely from between my teeth, unhindered.
“I don’t ‘think.’ I know. I saw it happen in front of me.
I watched a guy give Buford a wad of cash, so I looked him up online, and he’s a known sports bookie who was investigated for paying players to throw games. ”
It takes a Sisyphean effort to stay completely still—to plant my heels into the floor and prevent myself from running away from yet another problem I’ve offloaded onto his shoulders.
The air in the room shifts. I’ve successfully polluted our sanctity with my accusation.
He pauses, his brows meeting. “Buford is an idiot, but he wouldn’t accept bribes. That would be fucking reckless. And illegal.”
With my patience on its last thread, I lose the possibility of any mature response, suddenly aware of the red-blooded desire inside of me that wants to start chaos. It’s a nasty habit to kick.
In the past, I’ve picked fights just to pick fights.
I wanted to…hurt…people so they wouldn’t try to save me.
I don’t have those tendencies anymore—not since I’ve been with Sutton—but they’re starting to make an appearance that I didn’t sign off on.
Hiding in the darkened corners of my body, worming into my stomach lining, somehow more volatile than my gastric acid’s pH balance.
“You don’t know him like I know him. Haven’t you noticed him playing poorly in the last period of every game the Mustangs have had this season? Seen him talking to strange people?” I snap.
I’ve got an unhealthy arrhythmia going on, and my skin feels suffocating. Hot, impenetrable, a nuisance that I need to peel from my bones if I want to breathe again.
His muscles tense. “But to jump to that intense of a conclusion? An accusation like that could ruin his life, Lake.”
I laugh. It’s certainly not the appropriate response, but I’m seconds away from needing to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
I begin to pace back and forth, hoping the cadence of something steady will ground me. My pulse is out of the question—that motherfucker is breaking the charts and crash-diving into an ocean on the opposite end of the planet.
Sutton straightens his posture. Despite being physically close to him, I’ve never felt so far away. Alone.
“How long have you been spying on him?” Judgment drips from his tone, which only alchemizes the anger inside me.
How is he more concerned with the logistics of things rather than the real problem at hand? Why is he downplaying what I discovered? Why is he treating me like I’m crazy?
“It only happened one time!” I half-shout before remembering to lower my voice—perks of having unwanted neighbors. Tears pop and fizzle behind my eyes, one belligerent push from cascading over my waterlines and blotching down my skin. “Do you not believe me?”
“I…I don’t know what to believe. The timing is really unfortunate, Lake.”
I fish my phone out of my pocket, enlarge the photo I took of Buford and the sports bookie, then shove the screen in Sutton’s face. “Why would I make this up, huh?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration, the tension in the air going absolutely haywire now that I’ve injected enough testosterone into our emotionally charged conversation to kill a small horse.
“Buford is rich. Why would he need to gamble illegally?”
“Because he’s greedy. Always has been,” I mutter, slipping my phone back into my jeans pocket.
“So you were just going to publish the article? During playoffs. Before talking to me first.”
“I was getting around to it! If I didn’t publish it, I’d be going against everything I believe in. I have a real shot of making editor in chief next year, and this is exactly the kind of story that should be reported. I advocate against suppressing stories like this.”
“Nobody can find out about this.”
Hold on. What is he implying?
It feels like my whole world has snapped clean down the middle, jagged crust forming a saw-toothed massif, molten core oozing out from its home in a subterranean sanctuary. I visibly stagger backwards, as if adding distance between us will save me.
Something foreign shadows Sutton’s eyes—all the warmth I’ve grown to love dissipating far more quickly than it took to stake its claim. I fear that I may never see it again.
Nobody has ever mastered the art of loving, but I thought I got pretty damn close.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Why would I tell someone if it could jeopardize us playing in the semifinal?” Sutton asks.
I feel so…small. Sutton has never made me feel small. And I’m all alone out here, hundreds of miles away from home.
“It would only affect Buford’s standing.”
I watch as irritation converts to brazen rage on his face. I’ve never been on the receiving end of my boyfriend’s anger before. It feels like my heart bruises my ribs with each dizzying beat, composing a melancholic percussion.
“Who knows the extent of who would be affected. If the world finds out that one Mustang was participating in illegal sports gambling, it will launch an investigation and not only ruin our reputation, but it could put other teammates’ chances of making it to the NHL in jeopardy.
Everyone will hate us. We’ll be torn apart on the internet.
Crew has worked so hard to curate this amazing image for the team. ”
For someone who has never bitten before, Sutton goes in for the kill with ease. “Lake, this isn’t your story to tell.”
“I have to do the right thing, Sutton,” I retort, the meager rations of my last meal trying to take a one-way trip back up my throat.
“Just talk to Buford. Maybe you misunderstood what you saw.”
“Buford wouldn’t tell me jack shit. Why are you protecting him?”
There’s a chilly detachment in my boyfriend’s voice—one that has never been reserved for me. And I’m more than aware that the moral superiority Olympics we’re playing right now is turning neutral ground into a war zone.
He doesn’t cage his truth; he doesn’t even water it down so there’s a cushion for its hard-hitting blow. “I’m not excusing his behavior, but if we’re thinking logically here, maybe some subconscious part of you realizes this is the perfect opportunity to get revenge.”
I got revenge one time, and now he thinks I ruin people’s lives just so I can watch them scramble to put the pieces back together. Does he even know me? I’m not that kind of person.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to do better for myself, my family, and the people around me. My trauma ironed me out to be a girl who takes action when nobody else will, and now I’m being persecuted for it.
“Wow. I can’t believe you think that lowly of me,” I whisper, indignation rattling through my body on some unauthorized mission to turn my stomach inside out.
“Then why do you care?” he growls, stepping closer to me, dwarfing me in every conceivable way.
I’m seeing a side to my boyfriend that I never knew existed. Maybe he was just exceptionally good at hiding it beneath his moon-eyed optimism, or maybe I was blinded by something I knew was too good to be true.
“Because what he did was wrong and illegal. I can’t brush this under the rug.
This is a serious offense. Shit like this could continue if we don’t put a stop to it.
He could lose the championship game for you guys if that’s what he was paid to do.
Buford is quite literally sacrificing all your hard work as a team for some extra pocket money. I’m just trying to—”
“Play moral police,” Sutton finishes.
Ouch. Getting a right hook to the face would’ve been less painful. Why isn’t he on my side? Why am I suddenly the bad guy for wanting to do what’s right?
Tears finally carve tracks down my cheeks, singeing my skin, secretly working in tandem with the fire in my sinuses that makes it hard to breathe and see and speak. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You’re going to sabotage me…your friends…all based on an unsubstantiated accusation.”