Page 12

CHAPTER 12

blue

A s soon as they were out of sight I opened the door to my room.

Anna’s head came up when I walked in. She pulled both AirPods out, put them in their case, and closed the lid on her laptop. “Is everyone gone?”

My eyebrows flicked. “Yup. It’s just you and me.”

There she went blushing again. Good gosh, she was beautiful. I’d been waiting all day for the crowd to disperse. All I wanted was to get this girl back in my arms like last night.

I sat on the edge of the bed, hiding the tremble in my hands. Then I scooted back next to her.

She turned sideways to face me. “Hi.”

I reached over and touched her cheek. “Finally. I have you all to myself.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Yeah.”

We lay there for a long while, staring at each other. I didn’t know what she was thinking about, but my mind was on one thing in particular.

I drug my bottom lip between my teeth. “You look a little cold. I think we should…exchange my sweatshirt .”

Her eyes fluttered wide and she let out a little gasp. “You remember that?” She giggled. “I’d forgotten.”

My brow raised. “How could you forget our code word for kissing?”

She shook with laughter and playfully slapped me on the chest. I caught her hand, lifted it to my lips, and kissed her palm.

“Okay, I didn’t forget.” She blushed deeper. I made this gorgeous girl incredibly nervous and it felt like a superpower. “I just…I haven’t let myself think about it in a long time.”

My head cocked, taking in that last sentence. “What happened to us?” Her face fell and she looked down, breaking eye contact. I raised her chin up, forcing it. “Anna, tell me the truth.”

She gave me a sad smile, taking a moment. Then she sighed. “You were supposed to come home for Christmas. We hadn’t seen each other in eight months. Then you called and told me you weren’t coming after all.” Her voice turned small and quiet. “I couldn’t handle it. So we broke up.” She shrugged like that was all there was to it.

But there was no way it was as simple as that. That sounded like a clean break. A mutual decision. But if that was the case… “Why aren’t we friends though?”

She didn’t answer. Just tugged her chin from my hand and fiddled with a stray thread on the sleeve of my shirt, saying nothing.

My fingertips trailed along her hairline. “Are things still complicated with your boyfriend?”

Her head shook almost imperceptibly. “No. There’s no boyfriend. Anymore.”

“No boyfriend?” I made myself sound forlorn for her sake, but I was doing all the fist pumps in my head.

She shrunk down a bit, looking a little sad.

“You have a boyfriend,” I whispered.

Her brow furrowed.

I fingered a lock of her hair, almost unable to speak the words, “His name is Blue Bishop.”

Her head cocked to one side, a wistfulness in her eyes.

I propped up on my elbow, looking down at her. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?”

She didn’t say yes. But she didn’t say no either. Her dark eyes anchored to mine. “Blue.”

I leaned down, taking a massive chance. My lips were light against hers, testing the waters. She stiffened. Crap. I leaned away, trying to gauge her reaction. We stared at each other for three heartbeats, the air crackling between us.

Her stare burned into me. Fierce determination crossed her face just before she slid her fingers into the back of my hair and pulled my mouth against hers. I melted into her, and a calming wave rippled from my chest to my fingertips. The taste of peaches exploded on my tongue. Her hands curved up around the base of my neck and it sent electricity down my spine. My hands slid around her back, pulling her closer, her chest tight against mine. My blood heated, and all the things we could do right here, on this bed, did cross my mind. I had to be careful with her. It was a struggle every time we kissed. The feelings were always so intense. Then and now.

I rolled her onto her back, our tongues finding each other. She let out a little whimper but then tugged on my hair, pulling me closer. My mouth on hers felt familiar and brand new at the same time. Like I was finally where I belonged and like I’d never left.

Five minutes later—or maybe thirty-five, who really knew—her warm, gentle fingertips were at the back of my waist, tracing the skin right under the hem of my shirt. Heat was spreading, climbing higher, lower, deeper inside of me.

I pushed up and stared down into her eyes. “We’re still waiting until we’re married?” This is how it always went. I’d ask, hoping the answer would be different this time. Always hoping. She’d giggle and tell me yes, we were waiting. Then we’d go right back to kissing.

But that’s not what happened now.

Her body tensed under me. She turned her head to the side and her hands fell from my back.

“What?” I gently turned her face and pecked her on the mouth, trying to defibrillate the kiss. But she just lay there, rigid and motionless. I looked down into her nervous eyes. “Did I say something wrong?”

She struggled to slither away. I rolled off and turned on my side, my face hot, though I wasn’t sure why.

She started to get up off the bed, but I hooked a hand around her waist. “Hey.” Everything paused, hovered. Whatever she was holding back felt big enough to crack us in two. “Just tell me what I did.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, pain in her expression. “Yeah. We were going to wait.” I held my breath, waiting for her next words. I already knew they were going to hurt. “But I don’t think you did.”

The words hit me in the center of my chest, crushing my lungs.

No. I wouldn’t do that with anyone but her. We were saving ourselves for each other.

But the hurt in her eyes said I had.

I fell onto my back, staring at the ceiling, horrified. “If we haven’t spoken in four years, how do you know that?”

She lay back on the pillow but her arms were hugging her stomach. She stared up at the ceiling too, her chest rising and falling in the silence. “She was your high school girlfriend. You went to UK together. One time I ran into your mom at Food Lion and she told me you were…living together.” Her eyes closed on those two words.

“No.” I shook my head, my heart splintering into a million pieces. “ You were my high school girlfriend. I wouldn’t have done that. You’re confused.” But I knew it was true. You can’t fake the depth of betrayal that was in every line of her face, the clench of her fists, the way it looked like it hurt to breathe.

It felt like I’d cheated on her. Like I’d cheated on myself.

A tear slid out of her left eye and ran down into her hairline. She wiped it away. Then she sat up, reached over, and grabbed her phone off the table next to the hospital bed. She tapped a few times and then handed it to me.

Suddenly I was looking at myself, on my Instagram feed, with some blond girl who clearly had a tanning bed in her house. Because nobody was that tan without sleeping in one all night, every night. Like a reverse vampire, super-powered by UV rays. She was pretty but nowhere near Anna level. The look on her face, her smile…it all said smug . The kind of girl who asks, pounds, throws a fit for a new outfit, new phone, a Jeep, until her parents give in.

No way would I have been satisfied by her after being with Anna. And yet, the proof was there right in my face. Standing on a deck with sand, waves, and a magnificent sunset behind us. She and I were in swimsuits. Hers was a barely there bikini. Mine a pair of board shorts slung perilously low on my hips. Her hand was resting at the edge of the waistband, way lower than Anna ever would’ve put her hand.

It felt like someone punched me in the stomach. Only that someone was me.

Anna swung her legs off the bed and scooted forward, her elbows on her thighs. “I think her name is Lacy.”

“Anna.” I bent my knee into the bed, reaching for her.

She stood and moved away. “I think…I think I’m gonna have Ford pick me up. It’d be good if I slept at the hotel tonight. You’ll probably get better rest?—”

“No. I don’t want you to go.” I hurdled over the bed, blocking her way. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I needed to shut up. Because maybe that’s exactly what I’d meant. Maybe that’s why I’d done it.

Her head tilted and her eyes were wet. “It’s okay. I needed the reminder that I’m not fourteen.” She gestured between us. “I just keep getting pulled back to high school. But we aren’t those kids. We’re not in love anymore.”

Speak for yourself , I wanted to say. But I had no business making statements like that when I couldn’t even remember why we’d broken up.

I carefully put my hand on her arm. “Please stay. We can just hang out. Watch a movie. Remember the Titans is on.” I tried to smile. “It’s your favorite.”

She hugged herself, shrinking away from me. “I haven’t watched that in over four years. It’s your favorite. I just loved how you always got your dance on when ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ played.” She forced a smile. “Truly terrible rhythm.”

I had to make her laugh. I couldn’t stand the hurt in her eyes. So I stepped back and faked shock, stabbing myself in the heart with an invisible dagger. Then I fell onto the bed, which made my head throb. But I was committed. So I shivered and shook, kicking my feet spastically, until I closed my eyes, and played dead.

She reached over and pried one of my eyelids open. My hands shot out, pulling her on top of me, making her squeal.

Then I clutched her to me, looking up into those beautiful eyes. “Watch Titans with me?”

She rolled off and flopped onto her back. “S-sure,” her voice shook, but the hurt was still there. At least she wasn’t leaving. She scooted against the back of the inclined mattress.

My hands quivered but I picked up the remote and found the movie. Then I situated myself next to her, hopeful that in a few minutes she’d let me touch her again. It took me thirteen long minutes to find the nerve to hold the hand of the girl I’d just made out with. But I finally hooked my pinky around hers.

I shouldn’t have.

Her hand was limp, no sign of life anywhere.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispered. “I need to use the bathroom.” Then she got up and went. My gut hurt, it was clenched so tight.

As soon as the door shut, I scrambled for my phone. I’d hardly touched it since the accident. Between Anna, the doctors, my coaches, and my family here, I hadn’t had time or even cared to be on it. Who would I text anyway? I didn’t remember anyone. But now, I was a man on a mission.

There were more than fifty texts from all kinds of people whose names I didn’t recognize. There was Stilts. A bunch of guys who were maybe on the team with me. Lacy’s name gutted me. A bunch of other people I didn’t have time to figure out. But then I saw a Silas Dupree. I clicked on his messages since he shared the same last name as Anna.

Silas Dupree

Hey, Blue, I know you want to keep Anna there with you, but I’d like you to encourage her to come home so she can attend her classes in person.

“Yeah. Not happening, dude,” I muttered.

Silas Dupree

By the way, this is Anna’s uncle.

Sorry about the head injury. We’re all praying that you recover quickly.

I scrolled up. Okay. Weird. So Anna and I hadn’t spoken in four years. But a quick read-through told me her Uncle and I hadn’t lost touch. At all. And he liked me, watched all of my games, and had great feedback and encouragement.

The flush of the toilet reminded me why I’d hopped on my phone in the first place. I swiped to Instagram.

I didn’t like what I found.

The past year was pretty dead, but after that it was girls. Girls, girls, girls. With some football mixed in. But mostly girls. A different one every few weeks. At the very least. Who the freak was I? Not the love-sick fool completely twitterpated with Anna.

Farther down, that Lacy chick was interspersed with the other girls. Was I dating other people while I dated her? Had I entered a Who’s the Biggest A-hole contest? What was even happening?

I scrubbed a hand over my face. I could figure it out later. I kept scrolling—straight past two years worth of pictures of only Lacy and me. I looked low-key miserable in every one of them. In the middle was a picture of me signing with Knoxville. Even then I didn’t stop. Nope. I didn’t care about anything or anyone but finding Anna.

When I found her, my breath caught in my throat. I was right. I’d been crazy about her. Posted screenshots of our FaceTime’s at least once a week. The look on my face when I was talking to her told me I’d loved her. Intensely. Completely opposite of me with Lacy. I scrolled back up, looking at the dates. My last screenshot with Anna was dated December 4th of my Junior year of high school. Three days later, there was a picture of me and this Lacy girl.

Lacy and I were dressed up fancy. At some kind of hotel banquet. I was holding a trophy, wearing a suit. Oh, it was the end-of-the-season awards ceremony. She had on a slinky red dress, with a slit to her thigh. She was hanging on my arm, pressing a kiss to my cheek. I had my hand draped around her waist, too low, basically grabbing her butt. I was smiling but there was a hurt in my eyes. I was faking for the camera. For a guy who’d just received some kind of award, I didn’t look very happy about it.

Did I cheat on Anna? Is that the part she’d left out? My stomach churned at the thought.

I went back to the last picture of Anna and me and tapped on her name. It took me to her profile but I couldn’t see any photos or posts. I tried again. Still, I couldn’t get anywhere. I pounded my thigh in frustration.

Anna walked out of the bathroom. Dang it. Her eyes were red.

I frowned. “Did you block me on Instagram?”

Her hands shoved into the back pockets of her jeans. “Uh, yeah. A long time ago.”

“Why?”

Her chest heaved once. “Because I was mad and I didn’t want to see you on my feed.”

Again, “Why?”

She stared at me, lips pressed in a bloodless line.

I folded my legs, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Did I cheat on you?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek and I could see her editing the words before she spoke them. “No. Not technically.”

“But I went out with someone else three days after we broke up?”

“Actually.” She rocked back on her heels. “One day. Like the very next night. And then you posted it on all your social media and tagged me.”

And the hits kept coming.

“I tagged you?” I choked.

“Yes.”

I gripped my hair. “What kind of jackass does that?”

She sat on the end of the bed, facing me. “You were hurt, so you were trying to hurt me. I think.” Her forehead furrowed. “I don’t know. Maybe you just didn’t care that much.”

There was no way. “Somebody who doesn’t care wouldn’t have tagged you. That’s just…hateful.”

“Yep. I cried myself sick when I saw it the next morning.”

“Anna.”

She chortled. “Don’t worry. I wasted no time letting you know exactly how I felt. My momma raised me better than to take something like that lying down. I FaceTimed you and called you some nasty names. Told you thank you for destroying us. For tearing us all to pieces .” Bitterness laced the last three words. “Then I told you to never speak to me again and promptly hung up on you.”

“Did we?” I made myself look at her. Look at what I’d done. Her red eyes betraying the sobbing she must’ve done in the bathroom, the way her shoulders were slumped, her arms crossing her stomach like if she stopped holding herself together, she’d fall apart. “Did we ever speak again?”

Her head shook, almost imperceptibly. “I blocked your number.”

“And that was it? I didn’t try to contact you anymore?” There’s no way I gave up that easily.

She sighed. “No, you did. You texted my Uncle Silas for a solid week, begging him to convince me to unblock you. And you got a couple of your friends to let you use their phones. But if it was a California number, I didn’t answer. You left a lot of voice messages, which I deleted without listening to.” Her laugh was heavy. “When I didn’t respond, you just started posting more pictures of you and her. I know because people at school would send me screenshots. It was awesome.” Her lips twisted in thought. “So that sealed it for me. I hated you. To my core. Then when you kept dating her through high school and into college, I realized you must’ve liked her before we ever broke up.”

My chest felt like someone was standing on it. Someone very, very large. His name was Blue Bishop. “And we never ran into each other when I came home to see my mom and Colt?”

Anna leaned on her hand, her head hanging to one side. “No. I made it a point to hang at home if I thought you were in Seddledowne. Bye weeks, Thanksgiving, Christmas, pretty much all summer.” Her smile was sad. “I did hear them announce that you were visiting at one of the Seddledowne football games. Over the loudspeaker. I’d come home for the weekend during my freshman year of college. Jonah…” She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “That was my boyfriend?—”

“The one you just broke up with?”

She held my gaze. “The one who just broke up with me.”

“He broke up with you?”

“Yes.”

He’d broken up with her because of me. At least partially, because of the way I’d grinned when she was sobbing into my neck. I wasn’t sorry they broke up, but I could imagine what that guy must’ve felt like, watching his girlfriend cry into some other guy’s neck on national television. Was there a single thing about me that was decent? Or did I just live to hurt her?

She sat up. “Jonah and I had barely started dating. Anyway, we’d just paid at the gate when they announced you. I didn’t think that would be fun for him. Or me. So we turned around and went home.”

I sat there for a moment, watching her. The hurt in her expression, the beauty that she seemed to possess to her core. “All to pieces?” I asked. She’d hinted that it meant something.

She crinkled her nose like it hurt her to think about it. “We used to say that to each other. Like ‘I love you’ wasn’t enough. Maybe for other people but not us. We had to top that so we’d say, ‘I love you. All to pieces.’

The memory of our first kiss, the first time she’d said it to me, ripped through my mind like a meteor lighting up the night sky. Every part of it. The way she smelled, the softness of her lips, the argument I’d just had with my dad. All the emotions, like it was yesterday. She was right. All to pieces was our thing.

“Blue?” she asked, brow furrowed.

My head gave a small shake, bringing me back to now. How could I have ever been intimate with Lacy after loving Anna? How could I have gone out with anyone else, ever? It was making less sense instead of more.

I rubbed my temples. “Why did I move?”

A host of emotions crisscrossed her face before it settled on feigned indifference. “Football. Always football. Your dad and your uncle, who lived in California, found a spot for you at some fancy high school that was a feeder for the top ten football colleges in the nation.”

I shook my head. “Did I want to go?” I didn’t see how that was possible with the way I felt about her right now.

She shrugged, eyes on her lap. “I don’t know. You said you didn’t but…” She met my eye. “You went. ”

The way she said those two words told me exactly how she felt about me leaving her. She didn’t buy it. She believed I’d wanted to go. That football was more important to me than she was and she wouldn’t have gone if it were her.

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m going to fix this. I promise. You’re going to trust me again.”

She leaned back, pulling her hand from mine. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make promises right now. None at all.”

I leaned forward grabbing her hand again. “I don’t care. I’m making it anyway.”