Page 198 of On the Breakaway

Sloane scrunches her face. “Might’ve helped if you figured it out just a tad sooner, you know?”

Harper giggles, and Wesley loses the battle and grins.

For a moment, just a moment, the noise in my head quiets.

Then, Katie’s eyes find mine, and her smile disappears.

“Are you okay?”

The concern in her voice makes my stomach twist because out of everyone standing here, Katie should be furious. She should hate me for hurting Grayson with my indecision. Instead, she’s looking at me like she’s worried.

“No.” The word cracks apart on the way out, and my eyes burn. “Not even a little.”

Harper reaches for my hand as the hallway blurs.

“I don’t want to end things. I never did. I just never wanted any of this. I never wanted to love anyone again. I wanted my freedom and my time and my life to be all mine. I didn’t think I could ever let anyone in again.”

I lean my head back against the wall.

“And then Grayson started showing up. At the grocery store, at the field, in the alley behind the bar. He was always there with his annoying concern and unbearable hero tendencies, wearing his stupid glasses and cooking for me. Then, I wasn’t noticing all the times he showed up anymore; I was noticing all the times he didn’t, wishing he had.”

Nobody rushes to fill the silence, letting me sit in it while I hear my own thoughts. The truth that’s been sitting inside me for weeks, that I’ve been too scared to touch.

A tear slips down my cheek, and I wipe it away angrily.

“I love him. I don’t even know when it happened. It just did. I spent so much time looking for reasons to run that I never noticed he’d already become what I wanted to run to.”

The confession leaves my lips in a rush, the words settling over all of us.

And every reaction I’ve had tonight starts making sense.

It’s why watching him walk away felt like my heart was being shredded.

Because somewhere along the way, the future I’ve been so terrified of started looking exactly like him.

And now he’s sitting on the other side of that locker room door, convinced I don’t want him.

“Oh my God.”

Harper squeezes my hand. “Aves.”

I shake my head. “No, he thinks I don’t want him.” Fresh tears blur my vision. “He thinks I was looking for a way out. And what if I’m figuring this all out too late?”

“It’s not too late,” Sloane says with full confidence.

“He shouldn’t want me anyway, not after everything I’ve put him through.”

Katie finally steps forward with her expression gentle but firm. “Maybe you should let Grayson decide who he wants.”

The image of Grayson taking a step toward me, choosing me after everything, right before I backed away, replays in my head.

I’ve spent months thinking about what Grayson deserves and the kind of person he should have. Even when he’s spent that same time showing me exactly who he wants.

Me.

Shame curls low in my gut.

The locker room doors swing open, and we all turn, but it’s just Nathan and Liam.