Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Mason Breaks

Mason stopped in front of me.

Up close he was shaking, a fine tremor all through his shoulders, and he looked about nine years old.

He didn't look at the crowd.

He looked at the microphone in my hand.

He held out his hand.

I gave it to him.

He lifted it to his mouth and spoke so quietly that the speakers barely caught it.

"She's telling the truth."

The sound system carried it anyway, thin and plain, to every seat.

"My knee went by itself."

"I felt it go."

"Nobody had touched me." His voice caught, and he waited for it.

"Shay Dunleavy was in front of me and his hands were in the air."

"I told the ref he pushed me."

"That was a lie."

"I'm the one who lied."

A woman in the bleachers gasped.

Somewhere far up, a single person began to clap, slowly, and stopped when no one joined.

Mason lowered the microphone and handed it back to me, and it was damp from his hand.

"Go home," the coach said, through a megaphone he'd found from somewhere. "Everyone. Drive safe. Garnet Falls, go home."

It took a long time.

Dad came across the floor with the foam finger still in his hand and stopped three feet from his son.

He didn't speak.

Mason didn't, either.

Dad opened his arms, and Mason walked into them.

The coach waited until the gym was empty.

Then he blew his whistle, once, and the team came out of the tunnel in their game jerseys.

They stood in a ragged half-circle at center court.

Shay was at the end, by himself, with his towel still around his neck.

I stayed beside Dad on the sideline, in the white light, and nobody told me to leave.

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