AllFreeNovel
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Coach told us to stay out of the gym and rest, but we leave for the game in a few hours, and I don’t want to be home with Farrow. Best to stay busy.
I hear cars through the auto shop door peeling out of the parking lot, classes today were a mess as no one’s mind was on anything other than the game. The cheer team and band are eating sandwiches catered by a few of the parents up in the gym, and my team is carb-loading at Fletcher’s, whose wife helped him make the guys breakfast for dinner. Eggs, rice, oatmeal, turkeybacon, and potatoes.
I should be with them. It would distract me, at least. Dylan hasn’t spoken to me since the pool party Wednesday night, and I haven’t pushed her, either.
Two days.
She didn’t tell me she loved me back.
I’m not going to say it again, and I’m not going to force into her space like I did Monday after school every time I want to fuck. It’s not enough.
I sit on the bench and start the presses, wishing it was tomorrow already. I’ll wake up, knowing we already won, and I’ll start working on my application to Chicago again, gearing up to start my life at the end of the year. There are other girls out there for me.
“Kade won’t be tiring himself out before the game.”
I pause, hearing Dylan’s voice behind me. She came in through the auto shop.
I continue moving my arms up and down, tightening every muscle. “Just warming up,” I tell her.
I hear her footsteps on the padded floor before she’s coming around my side to face me. I stare ahead, but I can tell she’s still wearing what she wore to school today. High-waisted jeans with a vintage brown and pink Sukajan jacket, crop top underneath. She hasn’t gone home yet. I imagine she’ll be changing into Pirate gear for the game.
She stares down at me. “If you win, what happens?”
I grunt, pushing the bar up. “We’ll feel good.”
“You will?”
I don’t meet her eyes. Yeah, it’ll feel good. It’ll actually feel great to shut him up.
She slides her hands into her pockets. “If you lose, what happens?”
I drop my hands, hearing the bar clang back into place. I shoot my eyes up to her as I rise. “Get out.”
I grab my towel and move toward the rowing machine.
“If he wins…” she says, following me. “Did you even think? After the game? What happens then? If he wins?”
I slam my towel down on the floor and turn to glare down at her.
“What are you going to do when you’re standing on the field, sweat dripping down your face, out of breath, watching him celebrate with his team?”
I lock my jaw so hard my teeth ache.
“He’s going to feed off that high for years,” she goes on.
No.I refuse to wake up tomorrow, knowing I lost.
“He might win,” she continues, “and I’m going to go home, and what will you do then? Keep running, thinking your happiness is out there somewhere, and always feeling second place, because you learned nothing? Because you thought winning a game would beat him.”
“Stop.”
“Because you wrapped all of your value into proving something to someone who never loses, even when he does.”
“Stop,” I grit out.
“Because doing this for the wrong reasons will make me see you as less than a man.”
Motherfucker…
