You Did A Bad Thing

Chapter 10: Contest.

Chapter 10: Contest.

"This is it, Paragon." Coach Lizzie says as she stares at me.
"Scouts are all around this stadium, it's sink or swim." She says and I nod.

"I won't let you down, Coach." I tell her.

"You were never letting me down. If you fail you're putting your future in jeopardy not mine." She says and I nod.

There's that tough love I'm used to her giving.

"Open up." She says, holding a spoonful of glucose. I open my mouth and she pours it into my mouth in a waterfall motion.

"Thanks coach." I say as some of the white powder flies out of my mouth.

"You're all set Paragon." She tells me as she walks away.

I send a nod her way before I grab my water bottle and take a sip from it.

"Ten minutes till the 100 meters." I hear from the stadium's speakers.

Damn.

The pressure is on.

I do some final stretches and then say a little prayer like always. Soon, we're called to mount our starting blocks. The lights in the stadium go dim and my eyes are focused solely on the track. I hear the starting commands. The starting gun is fired and I project my body foward. My heart beats faster with each long stride I take. In ten seconds I'm at the finish line, diving my head down as I cut the rope with my moving body.

"And Paragon takes it!!!" I hear the moderator says as I try to catch my breath. The cheers in the stadium almost deafen me. I stand by the time board and when my name appears I smile.

Running to the coach stand I see Coach Lizzie wearing a proud expression on her face.

"I did it, Coach." I tell her and she nods.

"It's that glucose." She replies and I laugh.

I head to the interview booth for my interview and when I'm done with that I walk to the locker room and pack my things. While I'm there I get a message from Rasheeda and Destiny.

"There she is, the lady of the hour." Destiny says, hugging me while Rasheeda blows a party flute behind her.

"Aww thank you." I say as Destiny pulls away.

"You were awesome out there for real." Rasheeda says hugging me. As I lift my head to pull away from her embrace, I see Sawyer and Alyssa holding hands and laughing as they walk towards the parking lot.

"The Uber's out front. So let's get a move on." Destiny say and I nod. We walk to the sidewalk and we spot the car. Destiny confirms the details and we get in. The drive to my house is quick and I exit the vehicle and kiss my friends goodbye before I walk into my apartment building.

As I turn into the hallway my apartment is in, flowers are the first thing I see as I walk towards my door. There's a huge bouquet of tulips just in front of the door and for a second I think they are from Sawyer, but that's proven wrong when I bend down to pick up the card.

"Congratulations on your win.
- Love, Mom."

My mother is so cheesy, but I love her.

Opening the door to my apartment I set the flower vase in the center of the dining table and place my fitness bag by the door. I'll unpack that later. Heading to the kitchen, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and gulp that down. Sitting on the cold wooden floor in the kitchen, I rest my back on the fridge and scroll through Instagram.

I click on Alyssa's story and there are a lot of videos. She posts a lot for one day. I keep clicking on the next video until I see one of her and Sawyer. This one was taken in the stadium. In the video, she leans into Sawyer and his arm is wrapped around her and she captions the video "date night with bestie❤️". That makes me physically gag and I leave the app.