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“What do you mean?”
His eyebrow nearly disappeared in his hairline with how far he raised it. “How long are you going to keep us away? How long until we can help you?”
My shoulders slumped. “I don’t need help,” I said in a lower voice. It sounded stupid even to me.
“Right. Because everything is going swimmingly with you.”
I grimaced at that.
“Keep this up, and you won’t make it to swim season at school. You won’t be able to do shit because you’re being dumb right now.”
“I’m not being dumb. I just have a lot on my mind.”
“And you’re not letting us help you. Again. You do this a lot, you know that. Shit happens and you go silent on us while you mull it around. And it never works. But it’s different this time. You can’t do that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You pounded Benji’s face in.” Toby let loose a quick grin but then went back to staring at me all seriously. A serious Toby always meant shit was bad. “You did what we all wanted to do. What we were all about to do. You were just faster. And frankly, while I’m sure people are upset with you, I’m glad you did. That little turd needed to be reminded that it isn’t okay to run his mouth like that. But now you’re mulling over that. And Cadence. And your dad. That’s a lot to think about.”
“I fucked up with Cadence.”
“You did. And you’re still fucking up. Every day you keep acting like this, you’re fucking up. I think you need to find out how much longer you plan to keep fucking up.” Toby turned and headed back.
I stared at his back for a moment before forcing myself to follow him.
Yeah, I was screwing everything up right now. But I also didn’t know how to stop doing it either. I just wanted all these thoughts to end. I wanted to stop feeling what it felt like to unleash all my anger and frustration out on Benji. How good and bad it felt to hurt him. To stop seeing Dad’s gaunt face. To stop feeling like I was becoming just like him. I wanted to be able to close my eyes and feel peace.
I just wasn’t so sure how to do that.
I gripped the drinks in my hand tighter, stopping myself from reaching out to Toby.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Justin stayed away from me all weekend. Even through Paxon’s championship. Unfortunately, they lost, but not without a really good fight. It was heartbreaking. Paxon was uplifting though, saying taking second place was still a massive achievement and that seemed to help psych the team up to accept that they had an amazing season and gave it their all.
Justin also kept to himself all week. The guys kept trying to talk to him. And then they tried to get me to tell them what was going on. The tension between us was evident, but I wasn’t going to cave. I told him I’d give him space, and so I was, and this time, since I knew he wanted to act like there was no one around him to support him, I let him. I could only help someone who wanted it, and the current Justin didn’t want it. He wanted to disappear.
So I let him.
Even if it tore me up inside.
Dr. Arason asked me all kinds of questions on Tuesday. Questions I didn’t know how to answer. And others that made me realize I was being petty. But I wanted to be petty. Once again, Dr. Arason was able to put it in better perspective for me. Justin had truly hurt me when he disappeared. He hit all the wrong buttons and had sent me over the edge into a whirlwind of crazy emotions that I hadn’t handled too well.
He disappeared. Disappearing wasn’t something I could handle, but I wasn’t sure how to share these feelings with him. With any of them. I had hoped they’d understand the way my dad left.
Emotions and thoughts and human psych made no sense to me, even when it was all supposed to feel like it was common sense.
After my session with Dr. Arason, the sharp anger dulled into something floppy and weak. I wasn’t even all that angry anymore. I was just sad. And worried. But it was obvious Justin wasn’t ready to talk about anything. He was trying to swim away from something. Sometimes, it felt like he was trying to swim away from me.
Before I knew it, Friday was here and nothing had changed. During lunch, I stared at Justin. He pretended not to notice. Then I did the same during study hall at the end of the day. I got no work done, but he certainly did. More than I even knew he had to do.
“Justin,” I whispered, tired of this game, only five minutes left until the bell rang and he’d take off on me. How long until it was too much space? Maybe he needed to talk to someone like I did with Dr. Arason to help pull him out before he drowned in all that extra space he was getting.
He didn’t look up at me.
I lightly nudged his leg with my foot.
He still chose to ignore me. Even Paxon was frowning now, worried.
