Whatisa bad thing is that he’s gotten so stressed out by his family that he said what he said to me.
How did I not see how much this was beating him down?
Or maybe I did. Maybe I knew, but thought he was handling it. Maybe I was so corrupted by my own stress that I trusted his smiles and reassurances because why wouldn’t I? We’ve only been dating for a little over a month. We’re still new and cautious and I couldn’t have known he was hurting so much. Right?
Fuck that.
A month, two months, hell, twodays—it doesn’t matter how long Thio and I have been together. This isreal. We decidedthis is real. And that means he should have told me how upset he was getting, and I should haverealizedhow upset he was getting, but I was lost in my own issues, andfuck that.
I’m pacing across our kitchen, back and forth, Orok watching me, a considering, worried look on his face.
It rips me to a stop, my eyes running all over him, taking in his posture, his stained sweats.
He really is exhausted. Sunken eyes, with a crease between his brows.
“You’re not okay either,” I guess.
Recognition slams into me. Orok’s been struggling, too. Not in the same way as Thio, and not in the same way Orok’s usually struggling; this is different.
I haven’t talked to him about my dad’s visit either. About thelawsuit. He hasn’t brought it up, and I thought we were both focusing on surviving this last push until graduation. That we’d talk about it after.
But… whatever’s wrong with Orok has been going on since before my dad’s visit. The differences echo out over the past few months: Orok’s deflection, helet menot be home practically ever.
Orok chews the inside of his cheek. Between one blink and the next, his eyes tear.
My stomach knots, desperately trying to build a retaining wall against the remorseful look he’s wearing now.
I don’t pry, don’t push him, and we watch each other in silence until he shakes his head and lays it all out in a breathless rush.
“I got a contract. To play pro rawball.”
I rock backward. “What? When? I—but, tryouts, I thought—”
He shrugs. “I was supposed to. But I kept putting off responding, and it must’ve scared them. They offered me a position straight-out. A full contract, Seb. The kind of money that—” He gasps, winded, like this news has been running circles in his head the whole time he’s held it in. “In one season, I could pay off all my student loans. Allyourloans.”
“You aren’t paying my loans.”
He ignores me. “And I’d be playing professionally, and I—”
“O.” I cross the kitchen and squeeze his forearm. “You don’t have to sell me on it. Are you happy? Do you want this?”
He nods.
“Well, that’s all—”
“It isn’t for the Hellhounds.”
My fingers spasm on his arm.
Orok keeps his eyes pinned on me, fragile. “It’s for the Chimeras. In Vegas.”
Vegas.
Nevada.
And I have a job here. In Philadelphia.
“That’s—”Far. Far away.“Great, O.”
