Page 84

I side-eye her when she doesn’t respond. She’s been hyping me up the whole “fuck him” party, but now she’s silent. “What?”
“I don’t think he actually sold you out.”
“Why? Because Aidan says so?” My words come out childish, but when I’m four or five shots in and nursing a broken heart, I don’t feel bad about it.
“Well, he did. I think he’s telling the truth, but I don’t know why West didn’t just say that.”
“If he didn’t do it, another football player did. It said so on the TV.”
“You mean the same TV that so many reporters have been calling you that you had to turn your phone on Accept Calls From Contacts Only?”
“Yep, that one.” I fill up her shot glass again, along with my own. Clearly, she’s still using logic, and I’m not in that same frame of mind. “Like you said, it doesn’t matter. He could’ve said something. Instead, he’s been ignoring me since all this happened. He bailed on me at Richie’s. Sure, he came back over to have sex with me and told me he felt bad, but then the very next day, he abandons me again. Again, Sydney! And again, I don’t hear from him the whole day, even though I call and text like a good little girlfriend. Still, we’re done. He officially said it.”
I throw back the shot, letting the liquor burn my throat all the way down.
“I’m shocked. It seemed like he was so into you. He could’ve fought for you.”
“Right?” I burst out. “Ugh.”
Two Hours After That…
“You know he took his sweatshirt back?”
Sydney’s such a good friend. She pouts and answers with all the right things. I know I need to wrap this up soon because she has a big day tomorrow, but I can’t stop spilling out everything I think.
I nod like I’m answering her. “This morning, before he left. He threw it on and walked off with it. At one point, he said something about wanting me to keep it, but I guess he didn’t really mean that.”
The alcohol has been put up already. The shot glasses cleaned. We’re both sitting on the couch, staring at a TV that isn’t on.
“I even called him today to tell him I was on the dive roster.”
She shakes her head. “It would’ve taken all of two seconds for him to take your call and wish you good luck.”
I bite my lip. The alcohol is still making my brain fuzzy, but now I’m getting depressed. “I can’t tell if I’m more mad that he did all these things to me or because he didn’t let me in when he was going through this.”
Sydney reaches over and squeezes my hand, jarring me into the present. I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud. It was just a quick thought, a brief acknowledgment of me trying to pinpoint why I’m so hurt and pissed. “He definitely pulled away. He could’ve handled things a lot better.”
“Fuck football players,” I mumble for the hundredth time tonight. I get that football is so important to him. It’s his future, and he has a lot riding on it, but I wanted to help. That’s what people who are together do, right?
Instead, he slinked off on his phone and wouldn’t even let me in.
So, every time something big comes up, I’m supposed to accept that he’ll go handle it on his own and forget that there’s still a whole other part of his life out there, waiting?
Nope.
And it doesn’t matter because I guess that’s not what he wanted either.
I peek over at Sydney and see her eyes flutter. I’m being a terrible friend. She probably wants to kill me.
After I give her hand a quick squeeze, she peers over at me. “Sorry, what?”
I smile. “I was just telling you that I’m ready to go to sleep now.”
“Oh, you sure? I’m here. We can do whatever.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll just sleep on it,” I tell her. “Thanks for being there for me.”
“Of course,” she says, getting to her feet. She stretches her hands in the air, reaching for the ceiling. She turns to give me a hand up. I take it, vowing that this is the last time I’ll say anything about West until her halftime show is over tomorrow. I give her a hug, and she returns it.