Cheap Shot

two: wes

WES

"She wrote an article about me?" I frantically pressed the button on the side of my phone, which was taking its good old time turning back on. "That doesn't make sense. It should be about the team. Why me?"

Shai held out his phone, the screen lit up with the blog post in discussion. "Just read it on here."

"No," I snapped stubbornly, sliding my finger across the unlock button when my phone finally decided it wanted to turn on. "Send the link to me."

I had been half-asleep when Shai busted into my room, phone held out in front of him, and said I needed to read the blog post that Maxine Evans had put out. I had heard about Max before - she was a somewhat popular sports blogger on campus and I was pretty sure I shared a class with her, but her blogs had never made waves in my life. Anything there was to write about the hockey team since I joined had all been positive, anyway.

Until tonight.

I clicked the link that Shai sent me, biting on my lip as I waited for it to load. He was casually sitting on the couch as he watched me, but my nerves were too shot to do anything except pace around the room. If she had written an article about the team depicting the details of our loss, that I could understand. But an article solely about me wasn't something my brain could wrap itself around.

And then the title of her article loaded, and I understood exactly what Shai meant when he said it was about me.

Star Goalie Turned Flop Goalie?

"Dude," I muttered, eyeing her scathing review as I scrolled through the post. "No fucking way she posted this."

Shai shrugged, locking his phone and putting it back into his pocket. "If it makes you feel better, I scrolled through a couple of her other articles and they're all just as ruthless. So you're not special or anything."

"Weston Walsh might have deceived fans his freshman year as a breakout star, but the eyes of those fans will most definitely be opened after an abysmal performance in the teams' first game," I quoted the first line of Max's article, which basically summed up the rest of it: a scathing "review" about how I was going to drag the team into a losing season.

I cleared my notifications and silenced my phone before locking and stashing it away in my pocket. All of the earlier notifications I had been receiving hadn't been about my performance or anyone from the team chewing me out. It had been an influx of texts about the article, which everyone seemed to have already read and then read again. And then probably read a third time so they could memorize some of her best, most ruthless criticisms of me.

I shoo'd Shai out of the way and dropped down onto the couch, at a complete loss of words. Her article didn't mean much - it wasn't like it was going to catch national news or be talked about at reputable college sports centers. But it was going to circulate around campus, and I was already going to have to deal with enough talk from our loss. I really didn't need this added on top.

"It'll blow over in a few days," Shai pushed himself up off the couch and nudged my knee to get my attention. "Get your shit together, kill the next game, and that's all anyone's gonna be talking about."

It would be a lot easier to get my shit together if I hadn't received shocking news a few days before our first game of the season and if Max Evans hadn't decided to make me the target of her next blog post, I thought, practically biting my tongue to keep from repeating my thoughts out loud.

"I gotta knock out, I have an eight AM tomorrow," I pushed myself off the couch, making a mental note to put my phone on DND for the night. "Night."

Without waiting for a reply, I walked back into my room, slamming the door shut behind me. I wasn't mad at Shai. I wasn't really mad at Max, either, even though she couldn't have made her stupid blog post at a worse time. I was pissed at myself; I lost that game and now I had brought this article upon myself. Being mad at myself, however, meant inner reflection and that sounded terrible, so, for the time being, it was easier to take it out on everyone else.