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The girl won’t even take my damn calls anymore.
So yeah, maybe it’s not that I’m not enough or needed but not worth the trouble at all.
Pushing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I growl in frustration, shoes pounding heavily against the concrete until I’m breaking out into a full sprint, tearing down the longhall, and shoving through the metal door at the end until I’m stumbling through, out onto the open field.
I gasp, hands falling to my knees as my lungs threaten to seize.
Behind me, the door slams against the wall with a resounding ricochet, and my eyes snap to the field just as the figure in the center of it comes into view, whipping around and glaring this way.
My brows snap together, and my spine shoots straight.
Alister fucking Howl stands at the fifty-yard line, a bag of balls at his feet and half a dozen spread out on the field. He stares for a long moment, then pretends I’m not even here, spinning back around and firing a bullet toward the end zone. It’s fast, straight, and a perfect spiral, not unlike a pass I’m known to make.
I was out getting drunk and acting like the sentimental prick I am and punching my best friend in the face for buying a soda, and this guy’s here on his days off, working on his game.
Anxiety falls over me like a tsunami, preventing me from breathing and sending panic through my every pore. My eyes fall to my hand, the knuckles swollen and bruised, an ache that burns all too familiar.
You’re fine. Everything is fine.
I step farther into the afternoon sun that’s scarcely peeking out between a layer of clouds, and I keep moving until I’ve reached the sideline benches. I don’t look his way, but I can’t help but watch his every pass thrown from the corner of my eye as I stretch.
A few minutes go by before he’s stalking closer.
I wait until he’s nearly reached his bag, sitting on the ground four feet from me, before I take off around the track. At some point, Alister packs up his shit and disappears, and I keep running.
I run until my legs begin to shake and my lungs start to shrivel, and then I push beyond the burn. My speed increases, my arms pumping wildly as I round the track for what must be my ninth mile. I’ve run farther distances, but that was when I kept a steady pace, so when my body starts to rebel, I have no choice but to listen.
My legs give, my knees buckling, and I just manage to veer to the left, falling onto the grass.
My stomach muscles convulse, and I start puking, nothing but vanilla protein shake and stomach acids. Maybe a little beer.
I heave and heave, my vision spinning and calves burning as I throw myself onto my back, fighting for air my lungs refuse to give. Lying there, I stare up at the cloudy sky and out at the empty stadium seats.
It’s like an omen, the emptiness around me, a glimpse into the future I’m headed toward.
One without the girl.
Without the boy.
Without the game.
Who knows if I’ll even finish college at this rate? Nobody gets to keep a sports scholarship if they’re booted from the team for bad grades.
Closing my eyes, I replay my last game, tracking my movements as if watching from outside my body, picking apart my every step until I’m fully immersed in the game, every other part of me fading to the background.
It works.
It works until I get to the third quarter, and the ball is snapped, but instead of a rough brown leather pressing into my palm, it’s a fuzzy little football with red ink penned into the side.
My lips twitch. My little man loves that damn ball.
My eyes flick open, and I sigh.
What the fuck am I going to do?
The harsh bangon my window has me jolting, my glare swinging to the side. It’s black out, so I blink a few times, and then his face presses closer, a hard glare etched across his face.
“Fuck,” I mumble, turning on my Tahoe and unlocking the door, fighting against the throbbing of my every muscle. It feels like woodpeckers pecking at my damn temples, and I groan.
