Loving Knight: Book One of the Cresswell Series

30. DEION

Everything was off. I was off. My head was in the clouds. I couldn’t pay attention to anything, and Coach, along with other teammates berating me wasn’t making anything better.

I plop down on the bench in frustration, dropping my helmet down on the ground. Theo comes jogging over to me, taking off his helmet before running his hand through his partially damp hair. Aaron follows behind him.

“Deion, what the hell was that?” Aaron asked in an annoyed tone. “I know it’s practice, but come on, man. We need to get in all the work that we can and you’re screwing up shit.”

“No need to be harsh with him, Aaron,” Theo says.

“I have every right to be harsh. We don’t need him ruining our chances of winning against Riverside because of some damn chick.”

My jaw ticks as I get up from the bench. “What did you say?”

Aaron takes a step closer to me. “You heard me, or do you want me to repeat myself, because I won’t hesitate to do so.”

Theo gets his arms in between us, pushing both of us back. “Alright, alright. We don’t have time for this, okay?” He turns to me. “Look, Deion. I don’t normally like taking sides, but in this case, Aaron is right. This game is important to us, and we don’t need anything or anyone causing us to lose.”

“Exactly,” Aaron chimes in. “You need to pull your head out of your ass.” He then makes his way back onto the field, Theo following behind him.

I had hoped for the rest of practice to go smoothly, but it was only one mess up and mistake after another. Getting called into Coach’s office after practice only made the bad feeling inside of me even worse.

“Have a seat, Deion,” Coach says as I step into his office, closing the door behind me.

I took a seat, already knowing what he was about to say to me. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I know I haven’t really been pulling my weight at practice.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed that,” he says. “What’s gotten into you, son?”

My shoulders slump, my hand reaching up rub the temple of my forehead. “It’s just a lot going on right now.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. “Not really.”

Coach leans back in his chair. “Well, whatever it is that you’re going through, I’m gonna need you to set it aside.”

“It’s not that easy,” I tell him. “I did something terrible and I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it.”

“Listen, Deion. I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I do know that mostly everything is easy to fix.”

I look down at my lap. “Not everything, Coach. A broken heart can’t be fixed, especially by the person who broke it in the first place.”

Coach nods. “Now I see. Some girl broke your heart, huh?”

I shake my head again. “No. I broke hers.”

“Ah. It was that girl that I’ve been seeing you with, isn’t it?” 

I continue to look down at my lap as I nod again. “I did a stupid thing, Coach. I did a stupid thing and I fucked everything up. And I know that this is probably something you don’t wanna hear right now, but I loved her. I still love her. She said that she hates me, but I still love her. And I just want her back.”

“You know, Deion. I’ve never had a player tell me about this type of problem before,” Coach says. “I know I’m not the best person to seek out advice on relationships or romance in general, but if you really love this girl, then you need to show her that.”