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“I know that,” I whispered. The realization washed over me slowly. I’d spent months convincing myself that distance was the reason we could never be together. Only, I wasn’t the only one leaving Everdale. So would Theo.
“Then you know that the only thing standing between you and a relationship with Theo is your own fear of letting someone love you,” Sariah replied.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I said nothing because I didn’t know. Every ridiculous reason I’d clung to had quietly fallen apart over the course of this conversation, leaving me with nothing more than the explanation I’d spent years refusing to acknowledge.
I was scared.
Relationships scared me. I’d learned way too young that love was conditional. Conditional love came with pain, and I couldn’t do more. After a childhood knowing I couldn’t be loved because of who I was, I couldn’t imagine giving another person that power over me.
“You know what I think?” Sariah asked.
“What?”
“I think you’ve mistaken self-protection for strength,” she said. “You’ve spent so much of your life making sure that no one could hurt you that you never realized the walls you built to protect yourself are the very ones hurting you.”
“That sounds like therapist bullshit.” I shut my eyes as her words hit harder than I would’ve liked.
“Probably,” she replied. “You are worth loving exactly as you are, Rhodes.”
My jaw ticked as I said nothing. We were treading into an area of my life I didn’t like to talk about.
“And I can confidently say that Theo knows that too,” Sariah continued. “But you can’t expect him to wait around forever for you to figure it out. You have to take down a few of those walls, Rhodes. You have to be the one to make him know that you want this too. All of it.”
Did I want all of it? Was that what all these convoluted feelings were about?
Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped thinking about Theo as just someone I hooked up with. I found myself drawn to him, looking for him when I didn’t have a reason to. I found myself memorizing all the little things about him—things I had no business noticing. I found myself looking forward to the banter and texts with him.
And all the while, I kept convincing myself I wanted less. Detachment was an art that I had supposedly perfected, but the minute Theo actually gave me less… I hated it. I didn’t want less. Not from him.
Maybe Sariah was right. Maybe all the things I did to protect myself were the very things standing in my way.
Which also meant this wasn’t something with Theo that I had to fix.
I had to fix myself.
CHAPTER 36
Rhodes
Amarillo Tech had us backed against a wall. They matched us play for play. Every time we created an opening or gained yardage, they shut us down again. I paced the field with my headset hanging around my neck, my attention bouncing between the clock, the scoreboard, and the field. My heart hammered furiously in my chest, and it had been most of the game.
Across the field, Amarillo’s sideline buzzed with confidence and excitement. The coaches celebrated right alongside the players. Our side didn’t carry the same energy. My players sat silent on the bench while my coaching staff read through the laminated play sheets like it was gospel. The weight of a loss before the final whistle had settled over us, heavy enough that even the crowd seemed to feel it.
I refused to. Not yet, though optimism was hard-pressed. It didn’t matter what play we called; they were ready for it. It was like they were reading our minds before we ever broke the huddle. I thumbed through the call sheet anyway, my eyes skimming route combinations and blocking assignments. Every page was exactly as I had memorized it. And yet, I kept staring at it like the answers were hidden between the lines.
They knew our tendencies and formations as perfectly as I did. Hell, at this point, it felt like they knew what play I was going to call before I did.
I looked up just as Theo was swallowed behind the line for a short gain of three yards. Again.
