I turned around and pointed, almost without looking at who was there. “Stay away from me, Drake.”
Of course it was Drake following me. I secretly wished it was him, and I was inwardly thrilled that he had, even though I would never, ever, admit that, even on pain of death.
At the same time, though, Drake was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. He had some serious explaining to do before I could even stand to be in the same room as him, and that wasn’t even a guarantee. Maybe we could do our daily interviews by email or FaceTime. But audio only, none of that video nonsense.
I didn’t want to see him.
“Lily, what’s wrong? We have an interview, remember?”
What’s wrong? He’s asking me what’s wrong, after who I just saw him talking to? They had probably already hooked up once before. It would be just like Drake Rollins - he had already slept with every other attractive girl on the planet, why not Annie Ross too, while he was at it?
She must have visited Cal last season at least once to cover the Bears steamrolling through the Pac-12, ugh, I meant, Pac-11. It was really tough to wrap my mind around just what had happened to Stanford and the complete destruction of their academics and athletics program. It was almost sad, but then again, couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch. At the rate the scandals kept on mounting, their degrees would never be worth the paper they were printed on again.
“Interview for today’s canceled. I’m not feeling well.” Of course I couldn’t tell him what was really bothering me. That would be too normal of me. Ugh again.
“Canceled? We haven’t missed a single one yet, and now you want to cancel? Something’s up.”
I crossed my arms under my chest and shook my head. “Look, I’ve got a headache, maybe you could just email me about today’s practice. You know the standard questions I ask each day.” That was true, our daily interviews had gotten a little stale.
Drake was getting better and better at espousing what the media called “The Patriot Way,” in which players completed with each other for new and inventive ways to say absolutely nothing of substance to the reporters covering the team.
It had actually gotten kinda fun trying to get him to say something that the team didn’t program into him. Or, rather, it would have been fun if we were having a normal interview.
Today was anything other than normal, though. Today was the worst.
Drake stepped toward me, holding his arms out. He looked around really quick, like he was checking if someone else was watching us, but no one else was around, and I didn’t notice any prying eyes in the area. He dropped his voice down low. “Lily, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
“Don’t come any closer, Drake, I don’t want to see you right now.” I couldn’t be around him any longer, and I turned and fled, running back into the building.
Thankfully, my room was close by and I didn’t run into anyone else from the team along the way. I fumbled around with my keys, looking back and forth, crossing my toes that no one would see me, but thankfully I managed to unlock the door, get inside, and close it behind me, sinking to the floor, leaning against it, breathing deep and holding back the sobs just barely.
Here, though, I was safe. I could let it all out. And that’s exactly what I did. I sat there on the floor and cried long and hard.
I didn’t know what caused it, why Annie Ross and her lies bothered me so much. But as I heard a knock on the door I was learning against, I knew what the reason was.
It was Drake Rollins. The guy I knew was leaning on the other side of the door. “Lily?” I heard his muffled voice through the hard wood of the door. “Let me in, Lily.”
What was I doing here?
Why did I ever think I could be a sports reporter? What made me think I could survive in this kind of world where people would use personal and private attacks like that?
And why would Annie Ross even do that to me? It’s not like only one of us could cover the Patriots this offseason. There were tons of reporters, local and national, hovering around the team, and would be till the season ended in January or February!
Was it because we were both women? Or because she was jealous of my writing ability? Why did she even have to bother? She was a national TV reporter with ESPN, literally the biggest name in sports journalism. As venerable and respected as the Boston Globe was, compared to ESPN’s reach, it was like playing in the kids’ sandbox.
It just didn’t make any sense why she would come after me like that.
The pounding on the door became rhythmic. “Lily,” Drake’s voice drifted over, “open the door, I’m not going away until you open up the door and tell me what’s wrong.”