Page 56 of Catching Kyle

I shrug, unable to process the bomb that Kyle just decided to drop at the end of dinner. “Yeah, I think it’s best that we go.”

Chapter 22

Kyle Weaver

Aswetakethehighway back to my place, the sun is setting. Oranges, pinks, reds, and purples dance across the sky. God, I love sunsets. I want to talk to Michael about what I’m seeing, but he’s acting all depressed like Eeyore. He’s just slouched in his seat, staring away from me like I’m the last person he’d like to see, giving me one-word answers.

“Are you upset?” I ask.

He straightens a bit, adjusting his hot pink shorts that make his legs look goddamn perfect. “No. Why?”

Finally, a two-word answer. “You’ve been acting all sad ever since I told you what management’s making me do,” I say. Making me find a girlfriend. Sheesh. My new therapist, Neeti, agreed that it’s bullshit. Business, but bullshit all the same.

He doesn’t answer. He’s just playing with his fingers.

“Hey,” I say. “I asked you a question.”

His head whips toward me. “Is it not obvious?”

I get that anxious feeling in my chest. Neeti says this is normal. I just gotta breathe. “Obvious how?”

He scoffs. “You have to find a girlfriend to keeping playing for the Tigers,” he says. “And you just took me on a date. Don’t you see how those two things are at odds?”

I take another deep breath, the pain in my chest getting worse. “I told you I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“But you want to play football again next year, right?”

I tighten my grip around the steering wheel. I told Neeti, my therapist, everything—how my dad asked me to continue on the family name. How I compromised and decided to win the Championship Game instead. That was the only way I could think to honor him then, and that hasn’t changed.

“I do,” I say. “I made a promise.”

He shakes his head and folds his arms, looking out the window again, his gaze as far away from me as possible. “Seems like you already made your decision.”

I huff out a breath. “I haven’t made it fully yet,” I say. “Michael, I like you. I wanna keep seeing you. Isn’t that enough?”

He lets out a sharp breath this time. “Okay, let’s say we continue seeing each other. In secret like we just did. What happens when you decide you need a girlfriend so you can continue playing? What happens to us? To me?”

I release one hand off of the steering wheel and press my aching chest. I gotta keep remembering to breathe. Neeti said that the choice was mine, regardless of the pressure from outside. Regardless of Dad.

“I don’t want to let you down,” I say. “But this is all new to me.”

“It’s great that you came out,” Michael says, wiping his face. “But I can’t be a casualty of the process. I’ve been hurt enough.”

I picture his douchebag ex and tighten my grip even harder around the wheel ‘til my knuckles get white. “I won’t treat you like him. I promise I’ll be better.”

He sighs. “I don’t think that’s a promise you can make.”

The rest of the car ride home goes in silence. Because he’s right. I can’t promise him that I won’t hurt him. And out of all my problems, I think that I hate that the most.

Storm clouds come out of nowhere, blocking the fading sunset and giving us a light drizzle. The patter on windshield begins to loosen my tightened chest.

When we make it to my house, I see Michael’s dented up little Acura, and the pain returns to my chest. This might be the last day I see it in my driveway.

I park in the garage, and Michael can’t get out fast enough.

“Careful,” I say before he shuts the car door. “Don’t want the rain to—”

But he slams it before I finish.