Page 62 of Not How I Saw That Going

“Someone a little anxious?” Collins mutters at my back after my third time down the field.

“Why would I be anxious?” I stop next to her and command my feet to stay put.

“Maybe because a certain mom you convinced to fake date you is now avoiding you.” She pulls her shoulders back, stretching. Why did I think I could trust her with that information?

“I wasn’t thinking that.” But now I am. Should I have included the soccer games in our agreement?

No. I don’t need to add more stress into her life by inserting myself everywhere.

“Remind me again what made you come up with that grand idea?” She taunts, a wicked gleam growing on her face.

I scrub a hand down my face. I’ve been wondering that myself. I could have given Sophie a million excuses for why we couldn’t get back together. But then Lyndi showed up, catching me off guard like she always does, and my brain must have short-circuited. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She rubs the small swell of her stomach. “Most things do.”

Out of the corner of my eye, a familiar redhead appears. She looks exhausted and frazzled as she hurries to keep up with Crew.

The little man runs right out onto the field. Lyndi falls to a heap on the grass. She pulls up her knees and buries her face in her crossed arms.

She’s worn out.

My feet are already pointed in her direction, but my sister hits my chest with the back of her fist.

“I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it,” Collins says.

I whip my head around to look at her. “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know what you’re thinking. You see someone in need of saving so you want to be the knight in shining armor.”

My eyebrows furrow. “I do not want to be her knight in shining armor.”

“Yes, you do, because I know you. You want to save everyone.” She squeezes my arm. “Not everyone needs saving.”

Her words pierce my heart, right in the center. She may not be wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that there were people counting on me to save them, and I let them down.

“I just want to see what’s wrong,” I grunt.

Collins faces me head-on. “What’s wrong is that she’s exhausted and probably on the verge of tears.”

That sounds exactly like she needs saving, and it would be rude to ignore her. I try to take another step toward Lyndi but Collins pushes me back harder.

“Just, be careful, Ward,” Collins whispers.

I look at her. “Huh?”

“You can’t carry everyone on your shoulders. Sooner or later, you’ll drop someone.”

My whole body turns to ice. “I don’t…”

Her expression softens. “You think we didn’t notice when you came home, how much pain you were carrying? Instead of letting us help you lift that burden, you just threw more on top, trying to save everyone at the same time.”

She thinks I’ve been trying to carry everyone? No. Hiding maybe, feeling crushed under the weight of everyone’s judgments of me, yes. But I haven’t helped anyone.

I’ve tried. Gosh, I’ve tried. Nothing I do changes anything.

She rests a hand against my upper arm and looks up at me, her bright green eyes a contrast to my brown ones. How did I get all the darkness, and she got all the light? “You don’t have to fix the whole world. There’s beauty in the broken things too.”

I shake my head and walk away. Why does she mess with my brain like that? I’m not trying to save Lyndi. She’s intriguing. That’s all. I can help her without fixing her. I don’t have to save everyone.