Who Wouldn't Want To Be Me

My palms were sweating, my heart was beating a million miles an hour, and I’d spent the entire night pacing Jordan’s bedroom worrying. I’d felt awful about keeping him up and after he’d fallen asleep went to the living room, but he’d soon realized I wasn’t there and came to find me to haul me back to bed. About ten minutes after that I was back to pacing. Now we were almost to CONSOL and I was ready to have a heart attack. What if the team hated me because of this? I couldn’t stay here and play if they all hated me.

“Cam; cool it,” Jordan sighed as he pulled into a parking spot. I went to open the door and get out but it was locked, and I felt Jordan’s hands on my shoulders, turning me to look at him.

“Cam, I mean it. You have nothing to worry about sweetheart. Sure, they might find it a little weird at first, but they’ll get over it,” he insisted, and I weakly nodded, hoping to satisfy him and let me get this torture over with as soon as possible. He leaned over and quickly pecked my lips, which I’ll admit did help a little bit.

“Okay, so let’s go,” he said, forcing a small grin for me. I knew he was secretly just as nervous as I was, but he felt the need to hide it from me to try and make me feel better.

The walk to the locker room seemed to take years, everybody on the team stopping to say hello and chat, the usual conversation that would never bother me, but now it seemed like every word that came out of my mouth would be my last. Most of the guys wanted to know about my contract situation, knowing that I had yet to sign it, and I knew that the sports news was doing some severe speculating about me. Especially when Washington had put in a huge offer for me to sign there, and the Jets had put a big one in too, which they knew would be tempting as it was so close to home.

Every time I’d reassured them that I was planning on staying here, that there were just a few bugs to work out first. They all took the news well, and by the time our team meeting started I was so jittery I could hardly sit down at my stall.

Dan started things off, going through what I assumed was the norm; he welcome us all back, and introduced the rookies who would be joining us for training camp. From there he addressed some roster changes we’d be doing for pre-season and to allow for the new guys to get some ice time in with the rest of us, rather than having all-rookie lines.

Soon the guys were all talking about their summers, and then Dan moved on to some new play ideas, and after that had been talked out, he looked to me. I nodded, feeling like vomiting more than speaking, but if I didn’t do it now I might never actually do it.

“Um, Coach, can I say something?” I managed to weakly sputter out, and everyone turned to look at me.

“Of course. Listen up!” he said, catching Kris and Chris horsing around.

“Um, well, there’s no real easy way for me to tell you guys this. I feel really awful about it, but you guys are about as close to family as I’ve got out here, and you mean a lot to me, so I want you all to know before everybody else does,” I started, and Jordan, Dan and Steve all nodded encouragingly.

“DEAR GOD YOU DIDN’T SIGN WITH WASHINGTON DID YOU?” Marc burst, and everybody gasped.

“Hell no!” I retorted, which made everyone seem to relax a little.

“Well then what could be such a big deal mon ami? Are you not playing this year?”

“No, I’m, well, hoping to,” Dan nodded and I swallowed hard again. I knew I was beating around the bush, but I was having trouble getting it out.

“Shit, did you screw up your knee?” Sid asked, and I looked at him in confusion. I’d twisted it over the summer, but it hadn’t been anything serious.

“No, it’s all right. Where did you get that idea?”

“Becka said you’d hurt it this summer, I just thought maybe…” he trailed off, realizing that now the entire team was going to start pestering him about her. They all knew they were close, but some of them weren’t convinced she was actually his girlfriend.

“No, it’s all right. I just… please keep an open mind?” I nearly begged, and my teammates all nodded in confusion. Jordan managed a small smile for me, as did Steve, and I took another deep breath before looking up and into the general direction of my team.

“I’m a girl,” I said, biting my lip immediately after the words were out. You could have heard a pin drop in the room, and more than a few mouths were open.

“What?” Brooks asked, and I managed to look him in the eyes as I answered.

“I’m a girl,”