Chapter Two---- part four

    Andy went to bed early that night. He had asked everyone to not say anything until at least Friday. That would give him time to tell the people that he needed to tell himself. The first one on that list was Pamela. As he got ready for bed, he considered how he was going to tell her. She knew they were going to end up apart, but she had no idea of just how far apart they would be. Andy wasn't sure how he felt about it himself, not yet. He would miss her, but he had been surprised at how little that had figured into things when he had been trying to sort this mess out. Now that he knew what he had to do, the only issue was how to make it as easy as possible for her. Somehow, in the back of his head, Andy knew that this was to be the end of their relationship, at least the end of it as it had been. His mind was so filled with thoughts of what he needed to do now, and how to do those things that he didn't even manage his nightly prayer before he slipped off to sleep.

    The next morning, his mom had to wake him because he had overslept. Andy had never needed an alarm clock. He was always up with the sun, if not before. This morning he barely had time to get his morning chores done in time to change and catch the bus to school. Most of the seniors drove their cars or trucks to school, but Andy only did on rare occasions. He had thought about it this morning, but he didn't want to drive when he was this distracted. At least he had gotten a decent night's sleep for the first time in days. He also knew how he was going to tell Pamela and when. They had an awards program this evening. He was supposed to pick her up for that. He would tell her after it was over. He would take her out for ice cream and tell her while they were parked over by the lake. He still didn't know how she would react, but at least they could be alone and nobody would bother them. School went much better for him. Most of his classes were done except for the final tests, most of which he didn't even have to take, but there was still other things to do. Today he had actually felt like getting involved and enjoyed it.

    He rode the bus home and hurried to get his chores done. He was going to miss that. He actually loved tending the livestock. It wasn't work to him at all. He got to know each of them; the animals had individual personalities just like people. Some of his friends thought he was nuts when he would talk about the animals, but he didn't care. As a young boy he had also gotten used to the fact that most of the animals were going to end up on a plate somewhere and even that didn't bother him. He was going to miss the time he spent with the animals. They needed him and that made him feel good too. Once the chores were done he got cleaned up and fixed a sandwich. He had to be gone before supper would be done if he was going to pick up Pamela. He should have taken more time to make another sandwich. He had to wait until it was almost too late before Pamela was ready to go. He didn't mind too much though. She was worth waiting around for, even if he was dreading talking to her after the program.

    Pamela wasn't impressed with his truck in her dress and heels. He could have brought the car his oldest sister had given him when she got married, but the truck was his favorite. It had been his grandfather's. Andy had done a lot of work to get it back in good shape and running again. He had rebuilt the truck from the frame up. It was all original, except for the engine and the seats. The engine he had torn apart and rebuilt himself. He had even done his own machine work, thanks to his dad having a buddy with a machine shop. The seats he had made at a custom shop. They still looked like bench seats, but they had extra padding as well as being made more like bucket seats by each door. Once Pamela was inside she was glad he had brought it. There was a lot more room and the truck was a lot cleaner than the car, so her dress wouldn't be wrinkled or dirty when they arrived.

    They didn't say a lot as they went to the program. It was an athletic awards program and dinner. Pam's folks were coming, but Andy hadn't asked his folks. They would have come and been proud to come, but Andy had never been a big fan of any of the award programs. The less that was said about him the better he liked it. The meal was better than the last time, but Andy was still glad he had eaten that sandwich before he came. They never gave you enough to eat at these things. Pamela received several awards; including a full athletic scholarship at the local two year college for track. She and Andy had spent a lot of time training for track together.

    Andy had several awards himself. The big one was in basketball. He had earned recognition at state level in that. He had more awards in track though. Several schools were interested in recruiting him for track, even some of the major schools. Andy was one of only a very few athletes that had the speed of a sprinter along with the endurance of a distance runner. His coach remarked that if Andy had wanted to try he could have easily placed at the state level in high jump or hurdles too, because he easily beat the boys on the team who did those and they had placed at state level. Once the embarrassment of the individual awards was over Andy thought he was done. Instead he was shocked to find that both he and Pamela had been selected as the all around athletes of the year at district level. Pamela received that award with laughter and smiles. Andy just shook his head and frowned as he received his. He was glad when it was finally all finished and they could leave.

    However, before they managed to get away the coach caught them. He had congratulated them both again and then he turned his attention to Andy. "Now that all of this is done, I need to talk to you about your future Andy. I know that you have the academics to guarantee that you will get into a top notch school, but why don't you put all of this physical talent to use? You could become a starter in almost any college that isn't ranked in the top 20 of NCAA basketball. There is nobody that wouldn't jump at the chance to get you on a track team too. You have speed, endurance, and you can out jump a deer. Why won't you use these gifts? You could go anywhere you wanted to go without a thought about the cost if you would use athletics too." Andy had discussed this more than once with the coach. Andy knew the coach was right, but Andy had never been able to explain why it wasn't right for him to try. Andy just felt it wouldn't have been right for him to use his athletics to get a free ride when he could use his academics. There were several guys in school who needed those athletic scholarships to have a chance at college. Tonight he had a better answer. "Coach, I appreciate your concern, but honestly I have made my decision. I don't need an athletic scholarship for where I want to go. In fact I am not sure I would want to add sports to my load. I will explain it all to you in the morning at class, but right now you just need to trust me on it when I say I will definitely be using all my abilities to compete, just not on the court or track." The coach had said nothing. He shook his head while he watched as they slipped out.