Page 132 of Dream On, Liar

I did.

It was that I noticed her becoming closer to Raina, which made her nearly inescapable.

At first, it had been little things.

Raina saving her a seat.

Maeve stealing food from her plate.

Their phones constantly lighting up with messages as they sat together.

Then they’d started disappearing together after training, returning with coffees or some inside joke that made absolutely no sense to the rest of us.

Raina had always been one of the people I trusted most.

Watching her become comfortable with Maeve should have irritated me.

Instead, there was something warm about it.

Something that made the emptiness in my chest feel even more obvious.

Because Raina liked her.

Really liked her.

And somewhere along the way, it only made me realise how easy it would be to have her be part of my life.

I hated that she didn’t want it with with me.

I hated it enough that I said nothing.

The travel home was long.

Not because of the long flight distance—including even the stop in Dubai. The journey had taken more than twenty-four hours, but somehow, the time I’d spent travelling wasn’t what had made it feel so damn long. I’d spent nearly all of it fighting the urge to look at her, speak to her, or find some excuse to close the distance between us. Even my dreams hadn’t been free of her presence.

The worst part was that she seemed perfectly content to keep her own space. It was almost painful, watching her remain so determinedly away from me, as though she hadn’t even noticed the space I’d been deliberately giving her. I’d been trying to stay out of her way, giving her the distance she seemed to want, but she was doing the exact same thing to me. And somehow, that had hurt far more than it should have.

Mostly, because it gave the bitter voice in my mind the power it had been fighting for.

All my life I’d been prioritising cricket, so I could get my father to notice me.

Like, I was afraid to make a choice for myself all because I was afraid of what might come if I did.

Only now, that was the thing stopping the only person I wanted to be mine, from choosing me to be hers.

The thought of walking away from cricket that had been sitting somewhere beneath my ribs, waiting for me to acknowledge it struck up again. But I was more terrified to walk away now than ever.

If I left the sport for her—the one thing I was seemingly good at, would it be enough?

Was I?

I’d spent weeks treating Maeve like she was the cause of everything becoming unbearable.

She wasn’t.

She’d simply been the one to show me the side of myself I was afraid to acknowledge.

But, now that I had, would it matter?