"Football is a Man's Sport" My Derriere.

"Football is a Man's Sport" My Derriere. {18}

When I walked into school the next day--late, disheveled, and looking like a drowned rat from the unexpected rain--people didn't say anything to me, but gave me looks of...sympathy?

My math teacher made me stay after class. At first, I thought I was in trouble. The, giving me a sympathetic look, he said, "I'm really sorry about the things you're going through right now, Miss Kane, so I just wanted to give you the guidance counsellor's card." He handed me a little slip.

"Um, Mr.Lake--"

"It's fine. It serves as a pass as well, so you can go to her anytime. Promise you'll talk to her?" He looked into the distance, almost wistfully. "She really is great." Unwillingly, images flashed through my mind. I shuddered and nodded.

"Okay. But can you please tell me why you're giving me this?"

His brow ruffled. "Don't you know about the newspaper article?"

"What newspaper article?"

He handed me the school's newspaper from behind his back. "Personally, I think you were very heroic, pretending to be a guy so that you could play properly." He said something else, but I barely heard it over the blood roaring in my ears.

~*~

I slammed the newspaper down onto the lunchroom table. Penelope chewed slowly, while Bennet wiped his mouth and said in a small voice, "Not guilty."

"HOW COULD YOU!?!"

"It was simple really, all I had to do was interview a few people--"

"Penelope." I said in an even voice, gripping the edge of the table. By now, the entire lunchroom was focused on us, but I didn't care. "Why?"

"Your story is awesome, Liz. It's inspiring, it's romantic, it's---"

"Not supposed to be for the entertainment of the public! Not to mention, Kale and Van's lives. Did you even get permission from them!?!"

"I'm a journalist, of course I did. Though....I may have said the article was for Sport's Illustrated."

Breathing, at the time, seemed very difficult. I needed to punch something, kick something, do anything. It was as if someone had taken a fierce energy capsule and someone had put this red-hot energy inside of me, and it was just waiting to come out in a slew of curse words and a severe beat down.

I couldn't deal with this right now.

I was going to crack.

"I hate you," I spat.

And then, for the first time in my life, I turned heel and skipped that day.

Which is why, a week, later, the day before the game, I was sitting in a shrink's office.

Now, my shrink wasn't nice, like the 'and how does that make you feel?' type. No, she was like a rock. Trying to crack me, the metaphorical pecan, in half to eat out my insides.

"Did Penelope betray your trust when she posted that article?"

"Um. What do you think?"