Page 29 of Catching Feelings

I frown. “It has to be pretty bad to get kicked out. I can’t picture Tyler doing anything that problematic.”

Kara holds up her hands. “Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard. Who knows what’s true. I just don’t want you mixed up in anything, you know?” Her gaze softens. “You’ve dealt with enough this last year.”

I have to look away. The pity in her eyes burns. Kara’s one of the few people who knows everything, and usually she lets me ignore it, but… well, she’s right.

For the last few years, I thought my parents were still in love. Maybe they didn’t go on dates or ask each other many questions about their days anymore, but I figured that was just what happened after decades of marriage.

Things got weird last fall, though. Dad started working later than ever, and he and Mom started griping a lot more than usual. I’d tried asking if something was wrong—looked my dad in the eye and said, Is everything okay?—and he’d looked right back at me.

There’s nothing to worry about.

So, I’d told myself to be grateful they weren’t having bigger fights, and I did my best to keep things from getting worse. Defused tense situations, was always ready with a smile and good news from school, made sure I wasn’t a problem that would give them anything to get upset over.

But then I’d signed on to the family desktop because I needed to print an English essay and my laptop was dead—and a bunch of iMessages popped up between Dad’s phone and some number I didn’t recognize. Before I could click away, I’d read more than I ever needed to know.

Though I spent a long moment staring at the blank screen, wishing I didn’t have to say anything, eventually I made myself tell my mom. Hoping things still might turn out okay. That maybe they’d talk it through, and figure things out, and love each other again.

Instead, they had the biggest, loudest fight I’d ever heard. Dad started with a Let me explain, and Mom screamed, Now I understand why you’ve been working so late, and it turned out they hadn’t been fighting because they’d been repressing all the deep damage between them.

And I’d been the one to release it. For the rest of the spring, our house was nothing but fights. Suddenly our mostly peaceful home was anything but.

They ended up setting some sort of record for the fastest divorce ever, because by the end of it, they were so ready to be free of each other. Now I play mediator, carrying messages back and forth about important school news, and child support, and summer visits. And I smile and show that I’m fine and do everything I can not to cause another explosion like the one that blew the cover off the tension we’d all been ignoring for years.

Maybe your senior year isn’t the worst time for all of this to be happening? Dad had suggested, face pleading with me to agree. You’ll be so busy, and you’ll have a year to adjust to it before moving out?

Sure. A lot of parents waited to divorce until their kid actually left the nest, but the last thing we needed was another thing to fight about. I’d smiled and agreed and been very grateful I did have so many extracurricular responsibilities. It kept me out of a house that was by turns silent and empty and then shaking with years of frustration.

So, yeah. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that. Not by rocking the boat with Ryan, not by risking too much with Tyler, not by fighting with Kara.

I shrug, and smile, and tell myself to be grateful she’s looking out for me. “You’re right. So, it’s a good thing we’re just friends.”

Kara looks at me knowingly for a long moment, then waves her hand to flag Harper down. “Another milkshake for the lady!” She turns to me with a smile. “As many as you need.”

I do my best to smile back. “The year of letting go is real, huh? Should we get fries, too?”

But I can’t stop hearing my own words echoing back.

A good thing we’re just friends.

Yeah. Good thing.

14. TYLER

I don my Hawks jersey for the first time for Friday’s pep rally. The blue and white falls from my shoulders like it was made for me, and an unexpected wave of emotion hits. After leaving my old team, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get this feeling again.

But here I am, a brand-new number on my back and a mob of guys surrounding me. We can hear the noise from the gym through the locker room walls, and the volume of chanting and cheering and teasing only rises to meet it.

My phone chimes, and I glance at it out of instinct. Avery this time. I fucking hate playing without you.

It hits like a punch to the gut. Because yeah, same. But they weren’t there when it mattered, so here we are. I would have thought the countless battles I fought on the field beside them would have made their decision easy. That all the trust and benefit of the doubt we gave one another would have been on their minds when it mattered most.

But it wasn’t. And now I have a new team—even if it’s not quite the same as the old one.

I told my parents not to bother coming for our first game next week; Savannah has a gymnastics thing that weekend, and no way am I going to ask them to miss it, so that would mean they’d drive more than two hours in Friday-night traffic and then two hours back in the pitch-black night. They protested (Dad, gruffly: I need to be sure your coach knows what he’s doing; Mom, voice concerningly choked up: But I haven’t missed one of your games since peewee!), but I won in the end. I’ve been enough trouble for them this year already.

But maybe soon. If I keep things low-key, and settle in, and put their minds at ease. Maybe then I can have that one tie to home.

So I turn off my phone, slide it in my pocket, and refocus. Take a deep breath and smile at the guys around me.