It could not be understated how much the energy in the room had shifted when Reid Donahue walked through those glass doors. He naturally pulled attention to him the way I imagined a planet's gravity pulled in wayward asteroids. It was just the scientific way things worked, and we were all just doomed to be moons in Reid Donahue's unrelenting orbit. 

He'd clearly just come up from the locker rooms, threading his fingers through his still-damp locks of hair as Elijah explained to him the reason for calling him up after the spring game. Reid looked like he had about 10,000 other places he'd rather be, his regrettably handsome face masked with a vacant expression, but he'd listened intently without interrupting.

But the moment Elijah finished his elevator pitch for ESPN's intentions with him this season, the response came out of Reid quickly and ferociously, like a demon being exorcized.

"Abso-fucking-lutely not."

The hint of native Southern twang in his voice was blanketed in sharp ice, and it shrunk Elijah in his chair. The conference room we were all sat in was soundproof, which only added to the feeling like we'd all just been sucked into a vacuum of silence. I wasn't sure how long we lingered in that vacuum, but the awkwardness continued to balloon.

"Why not?"

It took me a moment to realize I had in fact been the one to shatter the silence. It was too late now, and after a short but full lifetime of speaking my mind sans filter, I'd grown into the kind of person that had to lean into my verbal blunders. So, I sat up in my chair as I braced for the impact of when Reid undoubtedly decided to fix his gaze onto me. After all, my question had merit whether he liked it or not.

But when our eyes met, there was a tiredness glazed over his - far from the freezer burn I'd expected, and far softer and warmer than his dark eyes had any right to be.

"Because I don't want to," he replied, cooler and calmer than I anticipated. "And I don't owe you any more explanation than that."

"Reid." Mariah had stood up from the cushy orange chair at the head of the table and spoke to him with the tact of a mother gently trying to parent her son. "I implore you to think on this for a bit. We don't need an answer right away-" 

"But I've given you my answer," came the response of the petulant child. "And the fact that y'all just concocted this without consulting me at all and just assuming I'd go along with it is fucked up."

Guys like Reid always needed the last word, so he backed out of the conference room before anyone could muster up another response. He let the glass door shut behind him, leaving a chill lingering in the air as if someone had left the window open in the middle of winter.

"Shit," Kayla sighed out, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I really did not think he would react that negatively."

"I did," I grumbled.

Mariah, sensing my indisposition, turned her attention to me, and I stiffened up again. I had to remind myself this wasn't any normal brat-pack-esque media team meeting, and I was still in the presence of someone who had a crystal ball with my name on it. She knew my future before I did.

"Don't worry, you still have the work study internship with us. You earned it, Josephine," she reassured me, her composure unwavering. I could only assume the overprivileged, hot shot athletic personalities she had to deal with on a regular basis made her almost unflappable. "We have plenty of projects in the wings, so I'm sure we can find something else for you to do."

I allowed more relief to show on my face and offered Mariah a soft smile. "Thanks, I appreciate that. And whatever happens, I promise I'll be committed to it."

"That's what I like to hear," Mariah mirrored my smile.

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I'd never been much of an exerciser, at least until last year. I'd gone to appease my lab partner turned friend Kendall, who taught spin classes at the gym in downtown Clemson. She in turn appeased me by mixing in some pop punk and progressive metal music into the class, and the class itself appeased the competitive side of me, since there was a leaderboard broadcast on the big screen behind Kendall's head. The higher your output, the more you'd climb the leaderboard. I didn't like losing.

Now, I go twice a week. I'd found myself yanked off my feet more often than not lately, and spin class kept me grounded.   

After I'd come back from my class and showered, I sat on my bed while I unloaded all the spring game's photos and videos from my camera onto my hard drive. I tended to skim through photos quickly, having developed an eye for what we did and didn't keep, but videos needed a more thorough glance.

The final one was from Reid's touchdown, and since I was alone in my room, I didn't hold back a dramatic eye roll at his infamous archer celebration. There used to be rules that prevented such egregious celebration, but I wasn't sure Reid would have cared either way. He can't help himself to it.

I'd almost moved it onto the hard drive when I realized the clip continued about 10 seconds after his celebration. After all the high fives and congratulations had been given, and everyone's attention had turned elsewhere, Reid gingerly limped to his place on the far end of the sideline. When he took his helmet off, there was no smug celebration to be had. It was just pain.

A knot tightened in my throat, and I quickly swallowed it down before moving the clip to the trash.

Before my resolve could waiver, I opened Google and typed in the search bar Reid Donahue injury, quickly clicking on the first video that popped up.

It had been the week of Thanksgiving during Sophomore year, and since I'd been a mere underling in the media department (see: not involved in football), I'd been able to go home for the short break like most regular students could, and I'd watched our yearly matchup against the University of South Carolina from my parent's couch in New York. Even though USC was in a different conference than Clemson, in-state rivalries were steeped in tradition and malice. We'd been playing them the Saturday after Thanksgiving since 1908, and rivalry weekend across all of college football was what closed the regular season before conference championship games and playoffs started. 

Clemson had been winning by 28 points by the fourth quarter, and one of the things the football program prided itself on (and used as a means to lure recruits) was that they made conscious efforts to play their entire 52 man roster. When winning a game by a large margin, starters tended to come out of the game and give backups a chance to play.

The concept in and of itself was nice, but Reid being Reid, insisted on staying in the game. He was one touchdown away from setting the ACC single-season scoring record, and his ego wanted another trophy for its case. 

I'd been deep in a conversation with my sister Amy about kitchen appliances for her new Boston apartment (where she'd just been placed for her OBGYN residency), and my dad's stunned exclamations from the living room were the only reason I'd been alerted that anything had even happened. Reid had been carted off the field when the game returned from commercial, and it was one of those injuries that they wouldn't dare show the replay of on television.

But there it was now, full spread on Youtube, to be consumed by the ravenous voyeurs of the internet. Reid was a big, powerful runner which really cemented his talent as a dual-threat quarterback, but when he lunged forward into USC's defense going for a touchdown, he got tangled up in the pile of bodies in front of him, and his leg went sideways.

I grimmaced and slammed my laptop shut almost immediately. Who on Earth would willingly seek that out? Not me. Definitely not me.

I made my way into the kitchen, desperate to balance out everything unsavory about my day by baking something sweet. In our open floor plan living space, my roommate Bree and her girlfriend Lana were on our thrifted Pottery Barn couch watching the same anime series they'd been watching since last year when they first started dating. I think they were on episode 700-something now.

I'd only alerted them to my presence after I'd slid a cooking sheet out of our cabinet too aggressively, and it went clattering to the floor.

"Sorry, sorry," I called over to them after I'd popped my head back up over the counter that separated the kitchen from our small but cozy living area.

"Oh, she's baking," Bree said to Lana, but plenty loud for me to hear. "The spring game must have been shit today."

I'd lived in an apartment on Strawberry Lane - just one block away from campus - with Bree Salazar since our sophomore year. We'd met in a GenEd requirement class, and despite having minimal surface-level similarities, we shared a blunt, dry humor and a dislike of our random freshman year roommates.

"What?" I called out to her. "I can't make cookies just to make cookies?"

Bree rolled her eyes in what might as well have been another dimension. "Okay J."

She was the only person who called me J.

"Fine then," I shrugged, continuing to pull out a few staple ingredients out of my designated baking cabinet. "Guess you don't get any jammy sandwiches."

"Oh, me, pick me," Lana perked up and stuck her hand in the air. "I'll take hers."

Bree snorted out a laugh. "She makes jammy sandwiches when she's stressed."

Far too zeroed in on the truth of Bree's offhand comment, I'd switched my mixer on too high and sent flour splattering everywhere.

I sputtered out a cough. "Shit."

Laughter fluttered from the living room.

"You look like you just had a sloppy make-out session with Casper the Ghost," Bree teased with a smirk, prompting me to swipe the back of my hand across my mouth and chin. Sure enough, I came away with a dusty white smudge.

"Okay, seriously no jammy sandwiches for you," I huffed, turning the mixer on to a reasonable speed this time.

While my high school obsession with Great British Bake-Off got me into baking, more often than not it was another outlet for my stress nowadays, and Bree's scientific mind had worked out the barometer. Cakes were chill. Cookies were decidedly not, even when they were sandwiched with raspberry preserves.

I'd gotten it in my head that if I could mitigate and compartmentalize everything on my own, the girl that would be seen and heard would be polished and shiny, but sharp enough to cut through the bullshit that any woman in my position would undoubtedly face sooner or later. Men in sports media and journalism could be fools gold, but I had to be a diamond.

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now that you've gotten to know jo and reid a little bit more, who are you more intrigued by so far?

also shoutout if you know what anime bree and lana are watching!

tysm for reading, any thoughts and comments are appreciated <3