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“Yes, I’m in love with him,” I say. “He’s not at all the person you’ve been trying so hard to make him out to be. He’s kindhearted, open, and funny, and he’s always been up front with me from the very beginning.” He opens his mouth to cut me off, but I don’t let him. “Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about you. He told me everything. About Alice, and his relationship with you, this weird animosity between you guys. I don’t entirely understand it or know if it can be fixed, but it’s fucked up.”
“If he really told you the truth, you’d know it wasn’t just me—it was both of us.” He stops himself before he can go on. Takes a breath. “I know I have my part of the blame. I never meant to hurt him, and I felt awful about it for months. But he wouldn’t even listen to me when I told him to slow it down.” My brows crease as he goes on. I thought he was talking about when he started dating Alice at first, but the last part doesn’t make any sense. “He wouldn’t even listen to the doctors when they warned him he could permanently damage his knee and have to retire a few years into his career.”
“Wait—”
“But that didn’t stop him from shutting me out and blaming me for it in the first place,” he says. “He thought I did it on purpose, to get back at him for all the teasing and shit talk.”
Theo’s torn ACL. He said it was from an old injury that never healed right—but he never told me that Ben was the cause of it. Alice isn’t the reason they stopped speaking. It all stems back to the injury. That’s the root of the crack in their relationship.
“I’d never do that,” Ben says. “It was an accident, but he’s never once let me live it down. It doesn’t matter how many times I apologize, he doesn’t care. Not as long as he can still blame me for taking everything from him at every turn.”
I don’t think that’s what Theo really blames him for. Not anymore, at least.
“I have to go.” I don’t care if there’s still unfinished business between us. I’m finished, and that’s all that matters. He calls me back when I dash across the coffee shop, but I don’t stop.
Ben has been the source of pain for all of us for too long. Theo’s NFL dreams, cut short. Alice’s career, stalled. My romantic relationships, a fucking joke. For the first time, I’m finally seeing him clearly. And I don’t like it one bit.
On Wednesday night, Theo is sitting on a bench outside the library. He never answered my text. I’ve been walking around in a fog all week, checking my phone every time it vibrates, waiting for a reply that never came.
Now he’s here, bundled in a brown coat and olive-green beanie, hands buried in his pockets for warmth. I’m so stunned to see him out here, I drop my lunch box. What’s dorkier than carrying around a lunch box? Dropping it at the sight of the rebound you’re still in love with. Even worse, when I bend down to pick it up, I’m so antsy that I accidentally kick it forward. The poor floral-print bag flies across the sidewalk and hits Theo’s leg. Just when I thought I couldn’t get any dorkier.
“Here.” He picks it up from the cement, then raises himself from the bench, immediately towering over me. I take the bag from his hand, wincing from embarrassment.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I got your text, but I wanted to see you in person.” He blows out a breath, eyes shutting. “And to see if you heard—”
“I did,” I tell him. “Alice told me they broke up.”
I wonder who told him, Alice or Ben. Does he know my rogue text message is the reason? God, I hope not. I want to tell him myself, so it doesn’t sound like I betrayed him coming from someone else. But now that he’s here, and he knows Alice is single, I can’t help but fear he’s changed his mind about me.
“Yeah.” He nods. “So, I guess I was just wondering if that changes anything.” Those blue eyes study me, gauging anything in my expression that could give some sort of clue to the question he’s posed. I walk past him to the bench, setting my stuff down on the sidewalk as I take a seat. He returns to me, taking up the space beside me. His thigh touches mine lightly. I don’t pull away, but I almost want to. I can’t sort out my thoughts properly in his proximity.
It’s not Ben and Alice’s relationship ending that’s changed things for me. I’m partly the reason they’re over, and it’s because of a text I meant to send to Theo. I don’t feel a single thing about their breakup, but I have no idea how he feels.
“I don’t know,” I say, because I want to hear his answer first. “Does it change anything for you?”
Alice’s words keep repeating themselves in my head. There was a moment. I can’t stop thinking about what Theo would do if he knew. If he’d drop me in a second, just for the chance of re-creating that moment with Alice. He’s settled in a new job here, but are his feelings strong enough to follow her across the country? They were strong enough once for him to try to stop her from walking down the aisle, if I hadn’t intervened.
“Not really.” Theo shrugs. “I meant what I said to you. Alice was never going to see me that way, and even if she does—”
“What?” I interrupt. “Even if she does, what? Would you be with her instead?”
“She’s not the one I want.” There’s something in his tone that gives me pause. A fraught earnestness that makes me want to believe him. I want so desperately to believe him. His eyes soften as he looks at me, and I wonder how I look to him. If any trace of hope gives me away.
“I don’t know how long it takes to get over someone completely, if that ever really happens. But you’ve made these past few months…” He clears his throat. “Better than I ever could’ve imagined, given the circumstance.”
I understand what he means. He surprised me. Took my life by storm and tore through everything I thought I knew to be true. He became so much more than a rebound, long before he asked me for more. Now I can hardly imagine what my life would look like without him in it.
And that terrifies me.
“What about you?” he asks again. “If Ben feels the same way you do, would you…” He trails off, unable to complete the question. Maybe he doesn’t know about the drunken text after all. When I don’t answer right away, he turns away from me. “Right. Of course. I should’ve known, given how much he tried to keep us apart.”
“Theo—”
“No, don’t.” He whips up from the bench, pacing the length of the sidewalk. His voice doesn’t raise in anger. Instead, it’s carefully controlled. Resolute. “It was stupid of me to think I could change your mind. He’s clearly interested in you, and if you want to give him a shot, I can’t stop you. No matter how much I might want to, and believe me…” An emotion I can’t name bleeds through his tone suddenly. He kneels directly in front of me, the lamplight reflecting in his blue eyes. “I want to. But I don’t want to be the only one fighting for us. Especially if I’m not the one you want.”
His hands rest on my knees, warming through the fabric of my jeans. I reach out toward him, hands cupping his cold cheeks. I’ve gone so long without touching him that the second I do, I breathe a sigh of relief. Even now, with all my mixed-up emotions, this just feels right. It’s hard to tell who moves first, who kisses who first, only that the second our lips touch I melt into him. His hands move up my back, pulling me closer. I latch on to him, arms curling behind his neck. I lose myself in the warmth of his mouth, in the touch I’ve spent weeks craving. He’s what I want. I can’t deny that anymore.
He’s right. He shouldn’t be the only one fighting for us, but if we do this the fight won’t be over yet. Something tells me that nothing will test us more than Alice and Ben’s breakup. I want so badly to believe him when he says I’m the one he wants. That he won’t go running to Alice now that she’s free. That in time, I’ll be the only one who owns his heart the same way he’s the only one who owns mine.
