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“My turn.” I slide past her, handing her the ball as I lightly jog away from her. I feel every emotion in each step as I do. The deeper she dives into me, the farther I want to pull away. I'll redirect this back to her. Put her life in the spotlight as she's trying to illuminate mine.
She definitely upped the speed because the next one came at me like lightning. But the now completed catch has me jogging back with tension in my neck.
“If you had the right support growing up, what would you see yourself doing differently?”
She winces slightly, taken aback by the question.
“I'd be doing exactly what I'm doing now,” she says with an edge to her tone. One that wants to slice through me for being so perceptive.
“So nothing would change? You wouldn't see yourself being anywhere else? Striving to achieve different goals? Reaching for more? Focus set elsewhere?”
What do you want out of life foryou, Dylan? I want to ask the question. Shake her until I get the answer.
She’s doing that thing again. Attempting to decipher through the words I’m saying to find a deeper message. She's trying to read through the question, but I can tell by the way she folds her arms across her chest she's not opening that door.
“Nope.”
She's lying. She's lying because it hurts her to imagine anything else. A world in which Dylan thinks of herself and her own wants first. She can't even play along. Won't even allow herself to dream of what truly makes her happy.
Making the next catch, she jogs back to me with a scowl already set.
It's becoming heated, our little game of get-to-know-each-other. And the next question she asks lets me know.
“What's the actual need to get back on the field in record time?”
It sucks the air out of my lungs. The question that was meant to be simple. But it's anything but. She's testing me. Feeling me out. Pushing me the way I push her. Wanting me to expose the part of myself that hurts most, just as she so recently refused to in her previous answer.
My answer is buried in my need to heal my mom. My need to get that shell of a human back to the breathing, life-filled warrior who made me, because she deserves better. Better than this. And I won't let her go until she has that. UntilIcan give her that.
So I lie.
“To become the greatest of all time, of course,” I reply hastily, oozing with the confidence of the man they want me to be. The selfish, driven, playboy all-star. A man fighting for his mother's broken soul, trying to right the past traumas she's endured, isn’t what makes headlines.
Her face says it all. She knows I'm lying. I offer a quick shrug, as if to say,This is the game you wanted to play, and now I'm playing it.
Next one comes at me harder than any quarterback I've played with. Sweat is dripping off my forehead as I approach her frowning face. My ammunition, my question.
“Are you really going to allow a prick like Eric to ruin your chance at happiness?”
The question comes out with more heat than I intended. Suddenly, Eric's words find me again.He ruins her.My stomach drops, but it's too late. The word is now floating between us like an atomic bomb, begging to go off.
She blinks at me, disbelief etched into her features.
“I-I just mean, are you really not going to open yourself to the possibility of anything great in life because of hi—”
“Open myself?!” she yells, interrupting me, and I straighten in surprise. “You can't even tell me what truly motivates you, as if it's some sort of secret, Lake. Don't give me lessons in opening myself. That's one class you've yet to take.”
She turns, walking towards the sidelines. I run after her, grabbing her by the upper arm to stall her.
“You're destroying yourself by thinking you're not allowed to be happy, Dylan. You push away what you want because you think you're supposed to. As if you're less of a protector if you find your own joy in life. It's pathetic. It's weak. And entirely unattractive.”
Wrong words. Wrong words again, Lake.
Her eyes set ablaze with fire from years of enduring a pain I've never known. Trauma that's created this controlled, calculated and careful person before me. She's not weak. She's entirely too strong. Her strength is all I see. It's blinding. It's a barrier. An army of soldiers set to mutilate me and anyone else who even thinks of attempting to storm the castle that encases her heart. It's how she conducts her life. With strict, premeditated order.
“Well then, it's a good thing that I don't care to be attractive to you.” She rips her arm out of my hand with a painful look of disgust in her eyes. “Remember? This only goes so deep, you and I. Surface level and secrets. It’s what we’re good at.” Storming past the stands, she grabs her jacket and keys, heading towards the doors.
Our game didn't go as planned. My hopes to open her heart while simultaneously denying her entry into my own ended with a head-to-head battle of players rejecting their truths.
