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Triedbeing the operative word becausewhat the fuckwas that?
“So…” she says out of nowhere, leaning into my side. “With the whole fake girlfriend helping you better yourself thing…”
She’s warm against me, and I’m tempted to put my arm around her, pull her closer. I don’t. Instead, I say, “I don’t recall stating it in those terms, but okay?”
“Would I have to go to your games?”
“It’s probably expected, right?” I shrug. “Would that be a problem?”
She inhales a sharp breath, releases it slowly. And then she scoots closer, resting her head on my shoulder. I can smell her hair—the flowers or spices or whatever—and it makes me dizzy with desire. “I’m not sure,” she murmurs. “I haven’t been to a game since…”
Shit.
Shit, fuck, shit.
This is why people don’t like me, or at the very least, don’t like to be around me. I say and do dumb shit without thinking about others. I’mselfish. But at least Iknowthat I’m selfish, and it’s the reason Ichooseto be alone. So I don’t hurt the people around me…
…like I’ll inevitably end up hurting her.
Harlow
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t think?—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupt, and it really is. I understand why some people don’t want to be reminded of the people they’ve loved and lost, but I’m not one of them.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a choice in the matter. One night, I went to bed with recollections of a big brother who took care of me in my darkness, and the next… my mom took away everything that was his, and I was stripped of all memories of him.
“How much do you know about him?” As far as I’m aware, people at school know I screwed one of my brother’s coaches. I have no idea how much more than that Jace knows. “I know that his name’s Harley, which is kind of cute,” he says, and it’s such an odd word coming from his mouth to my ears.Cute.“Harley and Harlow.”
“My parents thought the same,” I tell him, shaking my head. “It probably should’ve been the first sign that I’d forever live in his shadow.” I don’t say it to talk shit on the dead or disrespect my brother, but facts are facts.
“Did you enjoy watching him play?”
I glance up, my heart warming. A smile forms when he holds my stare. One second. Two. “Ilovedwatching him play,” I tell him, my throat aching with emotion.Five months.Five entire months since I watched my brother collapse on the court and never get up again. And then there were the weeks after, where he laid in the hospital bed, dead to everyone else but my mother, who refused to let him go. “It wasn’t supposed to happen so soon,” I mumble. “The doctors—they said he had time. As long as he limited the number of minutes he played, he could get through high school and then…” I’m rambling, going around in circles with no proper sense to my words, but I’ve never spoken about this. Not out loud. I tried once—with my mom—she didn’t want to hear me. It was my pain, too. Myhurt. “It was just a routine medical check during one of those training camps… the diagnosis came out of nowhere… the heart disease… it’s genetic. Fifty-fifty chance of having it. It was him or me…” I suck in a breath, hold it in my lungs until the weight of my guilt burns a hole in my chest. I think back to that moment, to the collective gasp from the crowd in that arena. To the way his team surrounded him while the medical staff worked on him. I remember my parents on the floor, my mom crying while my dad held her in his arms. I remember watching it from the stands, unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to breathe. And I remember the momentsafter… when no one was around to hear my cries, see my tears, or witness the ache in my chest that later formed the scars on my flesh.
I’m so deep in my heartache that I don’t even realize Jace has reared back, just so he can hold my face in his hands, wipe my tears with his thumbs, and thenkiss me.It’s not a passionate kiss or even a lingering one, but it’s his lips on mine, soft and gentle and caring, and then he’s pulling away, releasing me, and I’m blinking, blinking, trying to get back to reality.
“That was better than the first time,” he murmurs, looking away completely.
“Right.” Because none of this is real. Especially the connection I thought we were having. Still, I’m not ready to let go of my brother’s memory, and if Jace wants to use this time to practice “fake-dating,” then I get to use him, too. I clear the knot in my throat and ask, “Would you have done it? Played knowing it could kill you?”
Jace is silent a beat, before he answers, “I’m the wrong person to ask if you’re looking for a comparison.”
“Why?” I face him. “You’re on the same path as him, right? You said it yourself. D1 college, then the pros? That was his future, too.”
After a heavy sigh, he kicks his legs out in front of him and says, “If you’re asking me if I’d be happy to die doing something Ilove? Then the answer is yes. I would’ve played until I couldn’t anymore.”
“Doyou love it?” I ask, and this should feel strange, right? Sitting in the darkness with a boy I’ve barely said two words to, discussing things I’ve kept locked up for months? It’s not as if I didn’t want to talk about it or that I couldn’t… I just didn’t have anyone willing to listen.
Until Jace.
“Sure, but for different reasons.”
I watch him, waiting for him to elaborate. He doesn’t. Instead, he looks sideways at me, and I return one of his world-famous glares. I’m rewarded with half a smile and the answer I was after. “I watched a few of his games after I found out who he was to you,” he says. “Your brother loved thegame, Harlow. Anyone who watched him play could see that. He loved putting on that jersey and representing something bigger and better than himself. And he loved the feeling he got when he was on that court, shredding maple in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands of fans. There was nothing in this world that could’ve replaced that feeling for him, and I know he knew that because I feel it, too.”
I replay his words over in my mind, again and again, and I realize that not once since Harley’s diagnosis had I ever thought about whathewanted. Sure, I felt bad for the future he had lost, but I always assumed he was grateful to ever find out. Grateful that he could live a longer life, even if the path took him in a different direction. He could still fall in love and get married and have kids and love those kids the way he was loved. I guess I never thought that for Harley…lovemeant basketball.
“You say you forever lived in his shadow…” Jace says, and it’s not a question, so I don’t respond. “But maybe hewantedyou to see his shadow… so that you’d always remember there’s light.”
