Page 42 of On Merit Alone

The slow shake of her head might as well have been a punch to the gut.

I didn’t know until that moment that I really wanted to tell her.

Not just so that I could talk it out with someone like me, but because I thought she’d care.

Because I wanted her to. The striking truth that she didn’t was sitting in my stomach like oil sat in water.

Swallowing, I tried to understand this. “Mer, I?—”

“I can’t do this,” she said, cutting me off. Turning her shoulders, she yanked open the door and all but stumbled out of her side.

Anger rushed me. Anger and hurt as the girl I thought I was feeling something for stomped on those feelings and was now trying to run away. It was that anger and hurt and confusion that brought me rushing out of the car after her.

She was parked in the third level parking garage of Ryan’s office building.

It wasn’t totally vacant, but not many people were coming and going in the middle of the afternoon either.

I wished my voice didn’t project through the entire structure as I rounded the hood of the car to cut Merit off.

I could hear it echoing like we were on top of a mountain.

“Are you seriously mad at me right now?” I asked, disbelief rolling off my tongue.

She shook her head, trying to get past me. “I don’t know what I am.”

I stopped her path with my arm. “I can tell you what you’re supposed to be, Merit. Supportive. When someone tells you a big decision they are trying to make, when someone confides in you, you’re supposed to be supportive.”

She shook her head, flinching away from my touch again. “I can’t support this.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Ira!” she said, sounding almost panicked. “Because.”

“Because what, Mer?” I scoffed, confused. “You’re not making any sense. You’re just blubbering around like normal. Do I really have to pull everything out of you? Even when you’re insulting me. Or are you ever just going to be straight up and tell me what you feel?”

Her face got hard, her eyes narrowing. “Because you’re healthy, Ira! You’re healthy and you’re good and you still have your whole life ahead of you! Why would you give that up?”

“Yes, Merit. My whole life . Basketball isn’t my life. It’s a part of my life, but it’s not everything,” I said.

“You want to throw everything you’ve ever worked for away?” she asked harshly. Unrelenting. “You want to give up your life?”

I stepped forward. “Not my life. Just a part of it,” I clarified again.

Under her breath she muttered, “I can’t believe this.”

“ You can’t believe this?” I asked. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you . What the hell was I all this time, huh? Just somebody to shoot around with?”

“Shut up,” she whispered raggedly .

“No, really Merit. What am I, some mule with no other purpose than throwing a ball through a hoop? Is that what you think?” I asked, heated.

“I said stop, Ira,” she croaked.

I stepped toward her, crowding her space and bringing us chest to chest. “Were you just here to use me? Get my advice? Get my help and then get on your way? Is that it, Jones?”

She shook her head, her breath hitching on the way in. My eyebrows creased, breaking through my anger. I was so confused. Hurt. Yet somehow, she was the one who seemed the most hurt. She seemed stunned.

Sighing, I felt the weight of my heart heavy in my chest. Hard with regret and rejection.

Trying to salvage what I could of the situation, I reached down and picked up her hand.

I looked at it, toying with her fingers between my own as dejection set in.

“I thought you cared, Merit. I thought after you came over and we talked and you said all those things, that you cared about me—not just my game and what I could do for you. For Denver. Everybody else cares about that stuff. But I thought you cared about me .”

She lifted her chin, looking up into my eyes. Her own were broken. Wet, with unshed somethings, she looked at me in a way that had me believing I had been the one to do something wrong.

In a gravelly voice she said, “ You thought I cared? Yet you’re the one walking away. Classic.”

She turned around trying to walk away. Done with me, just like that. Aside from confusion, panic slipped in at the sight of her retreat. Enough to have me reach for her again. She didn’t even let me touch her. Who knew that could hurt so bad?

“Where are you going, Mer? Your car’s right here.”

She glared over at me. “Just leave, Ira. Like you were going to all along.”

What? Was she serious? “Merit?—”

“No!” she said, stepping away from my every advancing step. I stopped, miserably getting the message. “If you won’t leave, I will. See you never, I guess. Bye, Ira.”

I wanted to reach out to her, but at this point it was strikingly clear that she no longer wanted anything to do with me. So I just watched as she grabbed her keys and locked her car.

It was before she walked away, when she paused and stared over at me like she couldn’t quite believe her eyes, that I caught the one and only tear she let slip down her face.

As the moisture touched her cheek, she blinked at it, scoffing like she didn’t even know it was there.

Then she shook her head and turned away mumbling, “You’re such a fucking idiot, Mer. You should have known.”

My stomach hurt.

An aching feeling of anxiety, depression, and the dread that something bad would happen. As if something bad didn’t just already happen. As if my sprouting heart didn’t meet the untimely slice of a blade before it fully bloomed.

I was so confused. One second, I was picturing her sweet, smiling face, craving her calm, reassuring words. And now I couldn’t get that terrified look out of my head—couldn’t quite stand that she was crying as she walked away.

And not for the first time with her, but maybe the worst, I was left there wondering what the hell had just happened.