“Boom, bitch!” Gavin yelled, holding up his hands victoriously with the Xbox controller secured in one. He did a little dance, wiggling his hips before promptly framing his crotch with his hands in a suck it motion that I couldn’t help but smirk at.
The fact that the corners of my mouth had managed to curve up at all was a miracle.
“Too easy, man,” he said, giving me a look before we started picking teams for the next game. “Wake up over there. I came for a fair fight, not to beat an already dying horse.”
The smile I’d managed fell, and I couldn’t find the energy to bring it back as I selected the Seattle Seahawks and waited for Gavin to pick who he wanted to play with. Once he was settled on the Colts, we began.
I welcomed the silence that fell between us as we played, how my fingers knew what to do, what controls to push without my brain having to do any work. Any excuse to get out of my head and into my body was welcome nowadays, and truthfully, it was the only way I was surviving.
I missed the blur of the season when I was with Riley, when we were so caught up in each other that every day flew by, and the only thing that kept me grounded in reality were the stolen moments I had with her. Now, life was a blur in a completely different way, in the way it had been for nearly a year after the accident that paralyzed Gavin.
It was a blur of guilt, of suffering, of wishing I was in a nightmare I could wake up from.
No matter how many times I replayed that day in my memory, trying to remember what I’d written in my paper in my haste, it never made sense. I couldn’t remember essentially copying her work, rewording it just enough to think I was smart and had come up with the idea on my own. I really thought I’d written that paper by myself — with her help, of course, but just in the way a tutor would help anyone.
It wasn’t hard to imagine, though, how I could have slipped up and made the mistake. I was so desperate to get in that shower with her that I would have written anything to finish the paper and fast forward to her in my arms.
And that was just the problem.
I didn’t think.
I never did.
Riley was right about me.
It was a sucker punch to the gut any time I thought of it, any time I closed my eyes and saw hers blurred with tears as she told me how I was nothing but selfish, how I would never change.
Here I’d promised her I wouldn’t hurt her, that I could be better than what she’d thought I was for years — only to add wood to the fire and make it burn even hotter.
I knew without begging her for one that there wouldn’t be another chance to prove her wrong, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to throw myself at her feet every time I saw her.
She wasn’t the only one I’d let down, either.
When I told my parents what happened, I could feel their disappointment through the phone. Mom excused herself altogether, while Dad took several silent minutes before he could address me. When he did, it was just a threat to get the paper re-written and stay focused on the bowl game — whichever one was coming.
He also took it as the perfect opportunity to remind me of what he’d drilled into my head my whole life.
“You don’t need to be good at school, son. You just need to get by until your real career starts. Maybe you could change majors, find one a little more… well-suited.”
Well-suited meaning easier.
He called the team advisor right after we ended our call, without asking me, and before I could even think of a reason to argue it, my major was changed, a tutor assigned, and my focus re-aligned just like Pops wanted.
What was most interesting was that I wasn’t even mad.
I was relieved.
For some sadistic reason I couldn’t explain, it felt good to lie down, to roll over and concede to the fact that everyone was right about me.
I’m not smart. I’m not a good friend. I’m not good at anything.
Except football.
And that I’m damn good at.
So, I threw myself into practice, into the only thing I could control.
And that’s when I realized that maybe… maybe… I was putting myself through more misery than I needed to.
My pulse climbed up a notch as I glanced at Gavin, cracking my neck and taking my gaze back to the screen before I got up the nerve to say what I wanted to.
“I think I’m going to enter the draft.”
Gavin’s thumbs paused over the controller for a long second, snapping into action again just to finish the play before he hit pause, his eyes losing focus on the screen.
“I know you’ll want to talk me out of this, Gavin, but… I’ve given it a lot of thought. And I think it’s the right thing for me.”
“To quit college as a freshman? Forgive me if I disagree.”
I steadied a breath. “I hate school. And I’m a terrible student. You’ve known this about me for years.”
“You’re not a terrible student. You have a learning disorder,” Gavin argued. “There’s a difference.”
“Doesn’t matter. You had to carry my ass through every class in high school, and look at me now,” I said, throwing a hand out as if Riley were right there, as if Gavin would understand what I was referencing without having to say it.
I couldn’t say it.
“This isn’t for me,” I said, though my voice cracked with the words. “Football. That’s my job.”
Gavin shook his head. “It’s too soon. You’ll be lucky to even get picked at all, let alone in the first few rounds.”
“I don’t care if I get picked last,” I said. “I’ll do the Combine. They’ll see me then.”
“And if they don’t?”
I shrugged. “Then I’ll find another way. Dad already said he has an agent dying to work with me. I could get invites to summer camps.”
“What if you don’t though?”
“I will.”
Gavin threw the controller on a curse, turning in his chair to face me. “This is cowardly talk, Zeke. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What do you expect me to do?” I asked calmly.
“Stay!” He laid his hand out like he was handing me the answer on a gold platter. “Change your major if you want to. Get a tutor, have the guys on the team help you. Shit, let me help you. But don’t quit. You’re not a quitter.”
“I’m not quitting.”
“Now you’re lying to yourself, too?”
I bit back a sigh, tossing my own remote control on the ground. “I have changed my major — to something I’m not even remotely interested in purely because the team advisor thinks it’ll be the easiest for my caveman brain. She assigned me a tutor, too, and guess what? This shit still doesn’t make sense. It still takes me three times as long, if not more, to even understand what I’m studying, let alone apply it.”
Gavin opened his mouth to interrupt me, but I didn’t let him.
“I’m out of options, alright? Better to get in early and ride the bench a couple years, learn from the best, than to ruin my football career because I can’t keep up scholastically.”
There was another silver lining to this plan, one I couldn’t admit out loud — certainly not to Gavin.
Riley.
I could leave her alone like she desperately wanted me to, could give her the space to be the star athlete I knew she could be — without me being a distraction or annoyance. I saw it every time we ran into each other in the locker room or were assigned to the same drill on the field. She hated me even more than before, and this time, it was affecting her game.
It killed her, having to play nice with me, and if that hadn’t been clear just from practice, watching her on the sidelines of the last game had been proof enough.
She was on the sidelines because of me.
One lethal look at me told me she’d never forget or forgive that.
And to prove her point even further, the selfish part of me longed for the day when I wouldn’t have to suffer being so close to her and yet unable to touch her, hold her, or even so much as look at her without her bolting.
“Why are you doing this?” Gavin asked, his voice quiet as he shook his head. “This isn’t what you want. I know, deep down, you want a degree. You want to prove your parents wrong, hell, to prove everyone wrong. You have more to offer and you know it.”
“I thought I did,” I corrected him. “But my actions of late have proved otherwise.”
Gavin watched me a long moment. “This isn’t about school at all,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “It’s about Riley.”
“What are you tal—”
“Don’t,” he said, cutting me off. “Don’t lie to me. I can take that from her, but not from you.”
I looked at the paused image on the television screen, unable to look him in the eyes.
“What happened?”
I sighed. “I was an idiot, okay? I was just… in a rush, and I guess I had her essay points in my head as I finished mine.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I cracked my neck, finally looking at him and wanting to shrink into nothing when I did.
“Was there something more between you two?”
My jaw ached from how hard I clamped my teeth together, and when I didn’t answer, Gavin rolled right up in front of me, leveling his gaze with mine.
“Answer me.”
I swallowed, knowing I was on the brink of making Riley hate me even more — if that was even possible. But I couldn’t lie to him, not when he already knew.
“Yes,” I croaked.
Gavin shut his eyes on a breath, one that shook my already fragile bones. It was laced with the same betrayal his sister had felt, and the fact that I’d heard it out of both of them damn near eviscerated me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally asked when he opened his eyes again.
“I think the answer is pretty obvious.”
I gave him a pointed look, and he nodded on another sigh, running a hand back through his hair as he sank into his seat more.
“I should break your jaw, you know,” he said.
“About what I expected.”
“But,” he added. “Honestly, I saw it coming. I’m just surprised it took so long.”
I frowned, but couldn’t deny how I relaxed a bit knowing my best friend wasn’t about to take my head off after finding out I was into his sister. “You don’t want to murder me?”
He considered. “Maybe a little. She is my sister,” he said, glaring at me. “But… I’m more upset you hid it from me than anything.”
“We were going to tell you,” I explained, and my throat tightened with the memory of us planning that dinner for Gavin, how happy and excited we were despite the nerves. “But then…”
I didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“This all makes so much more sense now,” he said after a while. “How crazy she’s been acting, how miserable you’ve been.” He pinned me with a hard glare. “And you’re not thinking about the draft because you hate school. You want to run away.”
I didn’t even bother arguing. I just swallowed, nostrils flaring with emotion I couldn’t wrangle now that the truth was out. “Can you blame me?”
Gavin was quiet for a moment, digesting. “I guess we’ve all done stupid things to get away from heartbreak,” he whispered, eyes on his immobile legs.
When he looked at me again, I had to look away, inhaling a stiff breath through my nose to keep my eyes dry.
“You’re giving up,” he said.
“I have no choice.”
“That’s even more bullshit than you thinking you can’t get your degree.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“No. I think it’s you who doesn’t understand. My sister has been in love with you since we were kids, you idiot,” he said, and his smile was an amused one when I snapped my head and pinned him with my confusion. “How the hell did it take you this long to realize that?”
“She hated me,” I argued.
“After the accident, yes. But even then, you couldn’t see it? The way she looked at you? How she got all nervous and weird when the three of us were together?”
I swallowed, jaw tight as I remembered how Clay had said the same thing.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Whatever chance I did have, I blew.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Oh yes, I do.”
“Talk to her.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Have you?” he challenged. “I know my sister, and I know that while she may put up her walls and sit happy in her fortress of solitude, she’s got a heart about as hard as a couch cushion.” He waited to see if I would smile with the joke, but when I didn’t, he continued. “She’ll forgive you.”
“She already did, and I fucked up. Again.”
“Probably won’t be the last time, either.”
I screwed up my face at him, and he laughed, shaking his head. “Come on, man. We’re kids. We make mistakes. Some have worse consequences than others. But that doesn’t mean we just… run away. It doesn’t mean we quit on the people we love. If anything?” He shrugged. “It just means we should show up more. Try harder. Be better.”
I swallowed. “What if I don’t know how to be better?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
I stared at my hands in my lap, not convinced. Gavin let me sit in that silence for a long while before his alarm went off on his phone, signaling that he needed to leave for practice. He sighed, cutting it off before he knocked on the arm of my chair.
“All I’m asking is that you try,” he said, his brows lifting a bit. “Okay? Can you give me that?”
I nodded, though my throat was still thick with a knot I couldn’t swallow.
“No decisions about the draft or otherwise until after the season is over,” he added, holding up his pinky.
I eyed it with a frown, arching a brow when I looked back at him. “Isn’t that yours and Riley’s thing?”
“Well, now it’s our thing, too. Come on,” he said, wiggling his pinky. “Swear it.”
I shook my head on a sigh, but conceded, wrapping my pinky around his.
“That’s a sacred vow,” Gavin reminded me as he grabbed his bag and headed for the door. “Just so you know.”
“I said I’ll try,” I said, opening the door for him.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
He wheeled out on a cloud of hope, like he’d already won, like he was so certain everything between me and Riley would work out and I’d graduate with a degree and wait until after I’d walked across the stage to enter the draft.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that try as I might, my shot with Riley was nonexistent.
And if I couldn’t have her, I couldn’t bear to stay here long enough to watch someone else get to.
Just the thought made my fist tighten around the doorknob as I shut the door, and then I sank down into the couch, hating that it still smelled like her, that her long hairs were still in the sink because I couldn’t wash them away, that her hair tie was still around my wrist from when I’d pulled it out of her hair while fucking her against the wall.
She was everywhere, inking herself into my skin like a tattoo.
And maybe that was the hardest truth to face.
Even if I did run, I’d never be able to run far enough to forget her.
