“Tell me what you need me to do.”
I almost break down in tears, because it turns out that's the sentence I've been waiting my whole life to hear.
“Don't make the call to Carolina,” I say. “And stay out of my way.”
“And Jasmine.” He stops me at the door. “Whatever you're about to go do. I'm not going to like it, am I?”
“Probably not.”
“But I'm not going to stop it either. That's the best I've got, kiddo.” He says it like each word is being pried loose.
“Cool,” I say.
It’s not exactly an apology, but I’ll take it anyway.
Then I go to find a man, my man, who is sure that nobody ever stays, to prove him wrong in the loudest, most public way a girl like me can find.
Caleb
I read her text about two hundred times before I work out the one thing I have to do, which is not text her back.
I need to be sure of what I say or do next. I can’t just react. She sent that text because she sat frozen in a chair while I decided she was leaving me, and the only thing that fixes that isn't a text back or even a phone call. It's me walking back into the exact room I set on fire and trying to put out the flames.
In the past, I’ve been a runner. I bail on people and situations before they can bail on me. Maybe walking back in is the only way to find out if I'm actually growing up, or if I just tell myself a nicer story about it.
So this morning, now that I trust myself to walk in as the calm version and not the other one, I head back into the building that cut me loose, and I knock on Coach Dixon's door, ignoring Wendy’s explicit instruction to wait.
“You've got a lot of nerve,” Coach says, when he sees me.
“Yes, sir. Always have. It's most of my problem.” I stay in the doorway. I keep my hands loose and my voice even, because the whole point of today is to be a man who can fight for what he wants without fists.
“I'm not here about Caroline. I want to say that clear up front. I'm not asking for it back. I lost it fair. I lost my temper in your office, that's on me and nobody else, and you were right to end it.”
He leans back. “You lost it when you encouraged my daughter to compromise her ethics and change that report.”
“I asked her not to do that.”
“But yet she did it anyway.”
He doesn't say anything else. He lets me stand there. Fine. I've earned this reaction. I continue the speech I’ve practiced.
“While I admit that I deserved to be cut based on my actions, I came here to fix the part that wasn't fair,” I say. “Which is what I left you thinking about your daughter.”
“Adams–”
“Let me get through it. Then I'll go, Sir.” I make myself hold his eyes, which is its own kind of hard, because his eyes are her eyes, and looking straight into them stings. “I told you it was one-sided. A crush. That she didn't do anything. That was a lie. I lied to you on purpose so you'd only have one person to be angry at, and I picked me, because I'm used to it and she's not. The truth is she's the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm the luckiest idiot on this campus that she even looked at me twice.”
“I know that,” he says quietly. “I worked that out earlier this morning.”
“Really? How?” I start, then stop, because it doesn't matter how. “Doesn't matter. The point is”
“The point is you're a worse liar than you think you are, but you can keep going. I can tell that you're not done.”
I keep going, because I rehearsed it, and if I stop, I'll lose it. “And the thing you said about her being fragile. Not built for it. I need you to hear this, even if you never let me near her again.”
My voice wants to climb. I don't let it.
“She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. She froze in here yesterday because her body does that when things get to be too much. It isn't weakness, it's wiring.
