Page 49 of The Way We Swing

“Easton and Ashley. Should be easy pickings.”

Of course we were facing Easton first. Because why wouldn’t we?

“We’d better kick their asses,” I said, walking over to grab two Bud Lights from the case sitting against the wall.

The game before us ended, with Zach and Nicole losing to Maddux and Silas by a wide margin. When Zach passed us on the way to the table, he whispered to me to take a breath and relax.

I tried to follow his advice, but when I looked across the table and saw Easton’s face, I couldn’t help but tense. When I mustered up the courage to make eye contact, he was looking anywhere but at me.

I missed my first five shots, and Easton couldn’t miss. Thankfully, Ricky sunk three, so we were still in striking distance.

“Time for you to sink something, Quinn. We can’t lose to these sophomores,” Ricky said. They had one cup left while we were still shooting at three.

“I’m trying,” I said. I bounced the ping-pong ball off the table twice before lining up a shot on the front cup remaining. The shot soared over the table, not even close.

“Goddammit,” I mumbled.

Ricky sunk another shot, but Easton and Ashley were still way ahead.

Easton grabbed the ball that was rolling on the floor and took his shot. In one fluid motion, he sunk his sixthstraight. Ashley missed, so we were going to have a shot at redemption.

Ricky’s shot rimmed out, meaning it was up to me. We’d be out in the first round if I missed my shot. I couldn’t let that happen, especially not against Easton. I bounced the ball off the table twice, cocked my elbow, and let the ball fly—and it splashed in the center of the cup.

“Game on, fuckers,” I said, a little too loudly. I looked across the table, again trying to make eye contact with Easton, but he wanted nothing to do with that. My chest tightened even more as I balled my hands into fists.

We ended up going on for another four rounds, Easton making his shot and me sinking redemption. Neither of us could miss at this point. In round five, Easton and Ashley both missed, and we had a chance to eliminate a cup. Ricky missed his shot, but I made my fifth in a row. Ricky grabbed me in a hug before pushing me away and high-fiving me. “That’s how you fucking do it, Quinn. That’s how you do it!”

“Faggots.”

The word was barely audible, but I heard it as clear as any word ever spoken. Easton had picked up the ball I had sunk and called Ricky and me (mostly me)faggots.

All the air had been knocked out of my chest. My vision blurred at the edges as sweat dripped into my eyes from my forehead. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

I expected that word from a random person. Someone that already hated me. A faceless villain.

Not the person whose lips had been connected to mine so many times. Not the boy I’d let myself fall in love with. Not him.

I doubted anyone else had heard him, other than maybe Ashley, who looked at him curiously. But I’d heard it, and Easton had said it, and that was what mattered right now.

Easton stepped up and sunk another shot. Ricky missed, which meant I needed to sink my sixth in a row. I didn’t care anymore. I wanted to be anywhere but here. My shot fell short. Easton grabbed Ashley in a hug and started to make out with her right there at the table.

I sprinted out of the room and left the house as quickly as possible. It wasn’t the first time I had left in a huff after a loss, so it’d be a while before anyone realized I had gone.

I ran the two miles home in my jeans and polo. The wind cut through my clothes, but I didn’t feel it. My lungs burned, but I kept going. I ran as if, were I to stop, the grief would catch up and swallow me whole.

Easton hadn’t rejected me—he’d erased me. He’d turned me into something dirty. These thoughts swirled in my head when I got home, and I wasn’t able to make sense of them.

I wished I was good enough for Easton. He knew me, all of me, and yet—rejection.

Since the conversation at the smash room, I’d thought we were past this, that he was coming around, that I actually meant something to him, even if he couldn’t say it out loud.

I cried until I had nothing left. And when I finally slept, I dreamed of the version of Easton I could never have. The version of Easton who didn’t hate himself enough to hate me.

CHAPTER 18

For the next month, nothing changed. I’d wake up hoping Easton would sit next to me in class, look at me, see me. But he never did. Every time I heard his voice, my neck would snap in his direction, and nearly every time, he was looking the other way.

The few times he did glance in my general area, I’d flinch like I’d been caught doing something wrong—not because I regretted what we’d done but because I kept trying to pull him into something he clearly didn’t want.