Page 63 of Striking Range

I don’t intend to give him that privilege tonight.

“No! I can’t!” Everett sounds like he’s pleading.

“Why?! Why won’t you leave me alone?”

He takes another step, and I can smell her even better from this distance; I can smell what they did. I almost choke on it.

“I need you!” he insists. “I need you so badly. And I know I shouldn’t; I know it’s not meant for me, but I’m here anyway because I’m horrible and cruel to myself. But I can’t help it. I just… I want you.”

I feel as if he’s just punched me. As if he just laid my ass out with one hit; like we’re fifteen again and I’ve broken his favorite copy of Shutter Island.

Once again, those large, warm hands have balled into fists and are barreling toward me at a devastating speed, so fast that my skin is splitting open under the sheer force of it.

What a fucking joke my life has turned out to be. I can feel the hot tears as they leak from my eyes, as they roll down my cheeks. I can see the moment he notices them, as he reaches forward to catch them with his fingertips and save them like mementos from the first time he crushed me.

I dodge him and whisper, “When did you find that out, before or after you fucked her?”

Everett’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open and then closing like he knows he needs to speak, but whatever it is that he was going to say will only damage his case.

So he did. I’m not wrong.

He fucked Ashley, put his pants back on, then came here to confess.

“Skylar…” There is nothing he can say to remedy this, and he knows it. Even drunk, he knows it.

I can feel the emotion building desperately inside of me. “Everett Young, get out. Don’t come near me again. Have you ever seen me so serious? Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

As the front door slams shut behind his retreating back, I finally let the sobs out.

I haven’t seen Everett for a handful of days now. It’s an intentional choice; I avoid anywhere that I know he’ll be, and both of my games this week were away games, which helped keep him at bay.

I do sympathize with Kelly and Henry; they’re working around the two of us, left in the dark as to why we’re not speaking—but they don’t complain. They’ve met me for lunch or to hang out at my apartment a couple of times, and they don’t pry.

When Mom and Dad came for lunch yesterday, I told them that Everett is busy studying for midterms, just as I am. Which I’m sure he is, so it’s not totally a lie.

The only place in which it’s not possible to avoid him assuredly is on campus, and today I finally see him. It’s Friday, and I’m heading to my car, about ready to leave for the day.

As I’m crossing the main square, I see Everett in his blue jeans. He’s wearing one of his plain black crewnecks and a baseball cap pulled down low, but unfortunately, it’s not hiding what he’s attempting to hide.

His right eye is black and slightly swollen.

I know if I approach him and ask, he’ll tell me some bullshit story about fighting with a teammate. But after so many times, that excuse has lost its effect. Plus, I’ve never met a single teammate of his who doesn’t like him.

What is happening behind the scenes of Everett’s picture-perfect life? Who is he fighting with? I watch him, hunched over as if to make his huge self smaller, walking toward his last lecture of the day.

I want to run after him. I want to ice his face and push him around until he tells me the truth. Then, I want to give him a black eye of my own, only to get on my knees in front of him and apologize.

It’s fucked up—so twisted now. I can’t find a path to take that will lead me back to him; a way to fix this and salvage the years we’ve spent together like brothers.

It seems, in the end, I cannot stop this life from separating me from what lies closest to my heart.

So instead, I stick to stalking him like a damn creep and pull out my phone to shoot him a message.

Skylar

what happened to your eye?

I watch him pull his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, eyes shifting from weary to surprised, then back to weary as he reads the message. Then: