AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Chicago is closer to Dunbar than where she is now. So, yeah, a little.”
“If she’s there, you’d be able to see her more?”
“Maybe. She said she could come to some of our games. I guess I had this image of her driving down on Friday night, staying with me, coming to a Saturday night home game, then staying another night, and driving back on Sunday for work on Monday. But we’re not a couple, so I got ahead of myself here. I think now, I just want to know where she stands. Maybe she’s somehow met someone else, and this is her ghosting me to try to be nice, but it’s actually really mean.” Shay’s eyes widened then, and she looked over at her mom. “Mom, what if she’s met someone else? I just realized that’s a possibility.”
Her mom chuckled and said, “Where would she even meet her, and with what spare time, Shay?”
“There are other interns in her program. She has a job now. She could’ve met someone there. Maybe they’re doing long-distance over the phone, like we were.”
“Shay, I highly doubt that’s the case.”
“But how would I know? I like her, Mom. I don’t want to be sitting around here waiting for her to call me only to find out she has someone else months from now.”
“Then, ask her.”
“I told you; I’m trying to give her space to deal with everything there.”
“Then, wait until she calls.”
Shay grunted and said, “I’m going to my room.”
Her mom laughed and replied, “She’ll call, Shay. Just think about it from her side of things; pretend me and your dad both got sick for a minute.”
“What? No!”
“Just pretend we have bad colds, but we can’t really go to work or take care of ourselves. You’d have to do just about everything around here. You’d have to feed us, make sure we’re sleeping, taking our medication, and clean up after us. Now, picture you have a full-time job that means you’re busy for forty-hours a week at least on top of that, and you need to sleep yourself.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“It’s a lot. She’ll call. She just needs time.”
“You’re right. I’ll try to chill.” Shay stood up. “Dad still working?”
“Yes. I’ll bring him a plate. Can you do the dishes?”
“Sure,” she replied.
While Shay was finishing cleaning up in the kitchen, she tried to picture Layne having to do this while her mom was sick, and she wished she could talk to her, see her face, know that Layne was okay for real, and maybe offer some words of encouragement. Instead, Shay went down to her apartment and decided to start packing up her stuff since she had to report to campus in two weeks so that they could have enough time to move everyone back into the dorms and still keep everyone spaced out. She’d also have their off-season workouts starting shortly after, so she needed to get her shooting back on track and stop letting this stuff with Layne get to her so much.
Her phone rang, and she rushed over to it, hoping to see Layne’s face on the screen, but instead, it was only her coach’s name. Shay shook her head in disappointment and answered.
“Hey, Coach.”
“Hey. I wanted to make sure you were still good getting to campus a little early.”
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m packing now, actually. Why?”
“We’ve been approved for all those off-season workouts I mentioned before, which is good. I think the NCAA realized that they’re going to need to relax some rules this season because everyone was trapped indoors for months, unable to work out in the right ways for their sports. Anyway, I’m working on the plan now, so I wanted to make sure you were still good. I’m calling everyone else, too.”
“All good. I’ll be there.”
“Great. I also wanted to know something. Have you heard from Layne recently?”
“Um… Yeah. She texted me the other day. Why?”
“She didn’t answer when I called.”
“Why did you call Layne?” Shay sat on the side of her bed.
