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Hostile Attribution

May

T he second I get back in the house, over to my temporary room in the fortunately generously finished basement, I think I’m probably going to explode from my repressed feelings. Because what just happened? What just changed? Or did nothing change, and that had been happening all this time?

I stay up all night thinking about it, staring up at the ceiling until I fall asleep because my eyes are literally tired of being open for so long, and the next day, I bring all of it to Jordan.

We start out in the backyard, at the brand-new field, slapping shots into the nets, and eventually, as all things do, it turns into lounging in the folding chairs and drinking sweet tea with just a hint of vodka.

‘So, let me get this straight.’ She waves an arm at the entire backyard, goals and all. ‘He made you all of this. A new field. This was all him?’

‘Is it some kind of outrageous, like, unconscious method acting?’ I grumble around a sip of tea. ‘I mean, we laid the rules for this. We have a game plan. What, is this part of it?’

‘Oh, honey.’ Jordan sets her Mason jar down and shoots me a matter-of-fact glance that tells me she’s seen right through my layers of infinite BS. ‘You know this was always a part of it. As much as you love to deny that you’re affected by Colt coming back … not to mention by having to pretend you’re in a relationship with him …’

I nearly choke on my drink. ‘I’m not – well, I am unaffected. I’m not affected!’

‘It makes it easier to believe when you say it, right?’

And she’s got me there. I plop my jar down next to Jordan’s with a thud. ‘Jor, but why? Why is the universe trying to bring us together like this, like whatever is happening between us right now, if he’s just going to leave again? Because we’re going to plough towards the end of the season, sooner or later, and poof, CJ Bradley tears right out of town like he was never here.’

‘I get the feeling that’s what’s on his mind, too.’ Jordan raises an eyebrow. ‘I get that you’re worried about him leaving. But May, every second, even when you’re not on the field, when he doesn’t have to be looking, he’s looking. And I’m willin’ to bet he’s thinking about how he’s gonna make this thing work without hurting you again.’

An uncomfortable feeling – that I am heavily wrong and Jordan may just be right – squirms into my chest. I think straight back to the emotional minefield from that night in Albuquerque, and then to the confession in the kitchen after family dinner. And, of course, everything Rod told me about Colt’s time in New Haven, his injury, and the photo. My team picture in his locker.

As if she reads my mind, Jordan adds, ‘I’m also putting my money on the fact he’s probably been brainstorming ways to come back home and make it work with you again since the second he got up there, for the record. But it’ll take you a few years to wrap your head round that thought, if you ever do.’

She just sits back and stares straight into my soul, the way friends do when they’ve just read you up and down so hard you want to shrink into your shell out of embarrassment, arms crossed, legs kicked up, everything. As light-hearted as Jordan is, she has that down pat.

‘You saw what he did, though.’

My friend shifts in her seat, moving to sit cross-legged in her chair. It’s how I know she’s getting real. ‘I did, babe. I saw every bit of it, trust me.’

‘And,’ I forge on, ‘isn’t it right of me to be pissed at him? For making me think there was some hope for us, and then just up and heading out for years? You’d be pissed, wouldn’t you?’

‘That’s the thing, my lovely May.’ Jordan smiles wryly. ‘I’d definitely be pissed. But eventually, you have to look at it this way. He might not be all that different from you.’

‘Different from me ? I’m not the one who—’

‘Who left, I know,’ Jordan finishes with a helping of stink eye. ‘I’ve heard it, girl. My point is, yes, he left without saying anything.’

‘Just some mom’s strawberries bullshit.’

‘Yeah. That. Which, I agree, worked against him, in any case.’ She rolls her eyes before clasping her hands and placing them in her lap intently. ‘But what if Colt was runnin’ scared? What if he was scared because he didn’t know what the future held, and he thought not saying anything was better than saying something and taking the gamble? And then, what if he’s still scared?’

Oh.

‘That’ – I pick up my jar and take a great big swig of sweet tea – ‘sounds delusional.’

It does not, actually, sound delusional. It sounds remarkably similar to some of the things I allowed myself to think for a fleeting second before I pushed them away because, for my own sake, I had to move on.

‘I’m afraid it’s the explanation that makes the most sense to me.’

‘It sounds like we’re excusing his behaviour.’

‘It might.’ Jordan fiddles with the straw in her jar, still holding her therapist expression. ‘But it also sounds like we’re growing up. May, for God’s sake, he made you a lacrosse field. He’s definitely trying to mend something. Not just the relationship between the two of you, but I think he’s also trying to mend his sense of self. As an adult .’

An adult. In my mind, I’ve always thought of him as someone who ran away and put more than a couple of kinks in my story. I forget to think of him as himself.

‘Give yourself space to hate the guy,’ Jordan finishes. ‘Just don’t forget to give him space to grow.’

She leans back in her chair and finishes off her sweet tea, satisfied. I feel like I can barely touch mine any more. Not with the thoughts running around my brain screaming the way they are.

Yes, he’s the guy I hated for years. He’s the guy who had me staying up all night tossing and turning and thinking the way no other man ever did. He’s the guy who annoyed the hell out of me when he shot me that smarmy smile across the field at high school practices and then challenged me to go one-on-one.

But Jordan is right. He’s also the guy who always understood how much lacrosse meant to me and made me a new field when the old one got torn up out of the ground. He’s also the guy who gushed about my yearly rodeo appearances to anyone who’d listen at dinner. And he’s the guy who made sure his tie matched my pantsuit stitch for stitch. No one else has ever put my photo up in his locker, or walked me to class despite not actually having any classes, or honestly, just sat and listened.

He has, in his own Colt way, been sealing the cracks he left behind. No blame, no excuses. Just actions.