Page 17

CHAPTER 16

I shifted restlessly on the couch, the TV flickering in the dark living room. I wasn’t even watching it, just letting the noise fill the vacant space in my head. My foot tapped an uneven rhythm against the coffee table leg, making the abandoned water glass there ripple and catch the light from the screen.

Every so often, my eyes moved to the door, waiting for it to open. Waiting for him to come home.

Midnight came and went.

Fuck him , I told myself. He can stay out all night for all I care .

I wasn’t his boyfriend. I wasn’t even really his friend. Just the teammate he fucked when the lights went out at night.

As the neighborhood grew increasingly quiet, every sound from the street made me flinch. Every car door slamming made my heart jump into my throat.

You’re pathetic.

The TV droned on, filling the room with a low, meaningless hum. I couldn’t even remember what I’d put on. I just needed the noise to keep me from thinking.

It didn’t work.

Every few minutes, I picked up my phone and checked it. Nothing—no text, no call.

I thumbed over to TikTok and swiped mindlessly, not seeing a thing.

Eventually, I tossed my phone onto the table and scrubbed my hands over my face. Flopped down onto my back and draped my arm over my eyes.

Where the fuck was he?

When the door finally clicked open, I pushed up onto my elbows and forced a smile onto my face. But the second Ethan stepped inside, that smile dropped.

He looked wrecked. His shoulders were tight—well, tighter than usual—and even from twenty feet away, I could smell the reek of alcohol wafting off him.

I stayed where I was, simply watching him. I didn’t know what to say. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was even allowed to say anything at all.

I might be young, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew what was happening.

No one had any proof we were hooking up, but even the speculation had gotten to him. Shaken him in a way I wasn’t sure he even knew how to process.

I’d had years to build up armor against that kind of shit—to learn to let it roll off my back. But for him, it was different. It was new. Raw.

It makes sense , I told myself. He needs space. Time to process .

But none of that stopped the hollow ache in my chest. No amount of logic or reason stopped the part of me that wished he had trusted me enough to say that he was scared.

We were supposed to be in this together. Or at least, I’d hoped we were.

Maybe I’d been wrong.

I swallowed hard and pushed up off the couch.

Ethan still hadn’t looked at me as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door, his movements stiff and mechanical.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “You okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low and careful. Despite that, it came out sounding loud in the quiet house.

He simply grunted in response.

I shifted my weight, suddenly feeling naive and so incredibly stupid. I’d never done this before—never had these big emotions—and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Nothing had prepared me for feeling helpless like this. For helping someone else who felt that way, too.

“It’s bullshit, E,” I said at last, my throat feeling tight. “No one knows.”

He finally turned his head, just enough to let me see the shuttered look in his eyes.

I took a step closer even though my instincts were screaming at me to stay the fuck back.

That was when I smelled it, under the sharp tang of beer and sweat—men’s cologne. Not his, and certainly not mine. Something expensive and sweet and cloying, like overripe fruit left out in the sun too long. It made my stomach heave and my throat close up as if I was going to be sick.

It doesn’t mean anything , I tried to tell myself even as my stomach sank. It’s probably not what you think .

Even though the rational part of my brain was trying to keep my mouth in check, it was already moving. “Have fun tonight?” I asked, my tone as sweet and cloying as the scent filling my nose and making me see red.

His jaw ticked, but he didn’t answer.

I laughed, the sound coming out sounding brittle and a little bit mean, and waved my hand in front of my nose, my face scrunched up. “Smells like you did.”

Still nothing. Still that blank, frozen mask I hated so much.

I took another step toward him. “Hope he was worth it.” I tilted my head and studied him when he continued to stay quiet. Why wasn’t he responding? What was he waiting for? “Did he make you forget all about the needy little slut waiting for you at home?”

Ethan scrubbed his hand over his beard. “We’re not doing this,” he said finally, his voice clipped.

“Doing what?” I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Why these words were coming out of my mouth. Maybe he could tell me.

I felt sick.

“Bell.” His voice dropped into warning territory.

But I was past caring. Way past caring.

I closed the distance between us. “Go ahead,” I said, crowding into his space. “Tell me how good it felt to spread some stranger open. Tell me if they begged like you begged me. Tell me if they cried for your cock like you cry for mine.”

His nostrils flared, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Grow the fuck up.”

I shoved him hard enough that he rocked back a step. “Oh, I’m plenty grown ,” I snarled.

He didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Just stared at me with that cold, closed-off expression that I hated more than anything.

I shoved him again.

“Or have you already forgotten that I’m the only man who’s ever made you beg for it? The only one who’s made you come so hard you couldn’t even fucking breathe.”

He caught my wrists before I could shove him again, his grip tight enough to hurt.

I didn’t care. I leaned in closer, breathing hard.

“You think someone else is gonna hold you down and fuck you the way you need? Think they’re gonna stuff you so full you can’t think straight?”

His breath stuttered. His grip tightened.

I smiled, feeling a surge of triumph coursing through me.

“Nah,” I whispered against his mouth. “I’m the only one who can do that for you.”

For a second, I thought he might crack. Thought he might grab me and kiss me and admit the truth we were both choking on.

Instead, he dropped my wrists like he’d been burned. “That’s enough.”

I stood there staring at him, practically hyperventilating and wondering how the fuck we’d gotten here.

Ethan took a step back. Then another. And then he turned and walked away.

I should’ve let him go, but I didn’t. Couldn’t.

“Right,” I said, my voice raw and shaking as I threw my last bit of pride onto the fucking fire. “Run away. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?”

He froze halfway across the room.

“Pretend nothing’s wrong,” I pressed, bitter, unhinged laughter bubbling up from my chest. “Pretend you didn’t just ruin everything .”

Slowly, he turned to face me, and for the first time since he had walked in tonight, there was something defiant in his expression. He was pissed off—at me or the world, I didn’t know.

But that was good. I could work with anger.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

I stalked toward him again. “No? Enlighten me, then. Tell me what I’m missing. Tell me why it’s so fucking easy for you to pretend there isn’t something between us. That I’m nothing to you.”

“You think this is easy ?” he snapped, his voice cracking on the last word.

I didn’t back down. Couldn’t. I was too deep in my feelings. Logic and reason had ceded control, and now I was all messy, broken heartache.

“No, I think it’s cowardly . I think you’re so fucking terrified of someone seeing you want me that you’d rather tear us apart before they’d ever get the chance.”

His hands fisted at his sides, and for one insane second, I thought he might hit me.

At this point, I’d welcome it. At least then I’d know he felt something for me—even if it was only hate.

“Fuck you,” he said hoarsely.

“Already did,” I said, smiling like I wasn’t breaking apart inside. “And you loved it.”

He flinched like I was the one who’d taken a swing instead.

Good. Let him hurt, too.

“You think I don’t know what this is?” I kept going, relentless, reckless. “You think I don’t know I’m just a convenient mouth and hole for you?”

“That’s not—” he started, but I cut him off.

“Not what?” I demanded. “Not true? Then prove it.”

He stared at me, his chest rising and falling with hard, labored breaths.

I pushed him again, not with my hands this time, but with my words. “Say it. Say you want me. Say you don’t care that others know about us. Say I’m worth it.”

He shook his head once, sharp and brutal. “I can’t .”

The words fell like dead weight between us.

I should have seen this coming. Had seen it coming from the moment he’d first kissed me in that hotel room after our win against Washington. I’d known exactly how this story would end, had rehearsed this moment in my head a hundred times, promising myself I’d be fine when it finally happened. That I wouldn't break.

Well, I was breaking now, wasn’t I?

My throat closed up, a hot, tight pressure building behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached, fighting to keep my face from crumbling.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” I said, feeling completely hollowed out.

“I’m not like you, Bell,” he forced out. “I can’t just … just shrug it off when people start talking. I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I can’t lose everything.”

“Lose what?” I spat. “You don’t have anything, Ethan. You’re alone and miserable. You don’t have any friends. You don’t go out. You’re too afraid to talk to your family for more than ten minutes at a time because God forbid they should see you for who you really are.”

Ethan’s face went blank … so blank it was like watching a door slam shut behind his eyes.

“You’re standing there, looking at me like you think I’m the fucking problem here, but I’m not. You’re the one who’s so goddamn scared of being happy it makes you sick.”

His hands were shaking as he raised them to tunnel through his hair. He gripped the strands at the roots and yanked, a ragged noise tearing free from his chest. For a second, he stayed like that, breathing hard. Then he dropped his hands. They hung limp at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“And do you want to know the worst part?” I continued, my voice barely above a whisper. “The worst part is I could have made you so fucking happy, but you threw it all away on someone who smells like that .” I flung my hand toward him, the sticky, sweet scent still burning in my nostrils.

Ethan flinched, then opened his mouth like he might say something—might tell me I was wrong—but no words came out. His hand twitched once, halfway lifting, before falling back down uselessly.

I stared at him for a beat, my chest heaving, my heart breaking open wide, silently begging for him to fight for me.

To fight for us.

When twenty seconds passed and he hadn’t moved or spoken, I stomped away, slamming my bedroom door behind me. The sound reverberated like a gunshot, the finality of it settling in my bones.

I grabbed my bag out of the closet and stalked to my dresser, pulling the drawer open with so much force that I heard the sound of wood splintering, the sharp crack vibrating up through my fingers. For a second, I almost felt bad about the damage, but then I snorted and shook my head. Ethan was lucky I hadn’t ruined more of his stuff. Hadn’t torn his whole fucking house apart.

I started shoving clothes into my bag, not really seeing or caring what I grabbed. A few T-shirts. Socks. A pair of sweats. It didn’t matter.

All I knew was I couldn’t stay here another minute.

I zipped my bag up halfway before realizing I didn’t actually know where the hell I was going.

Miller was my only real friend on the team, but he lived with Lathan, and I wasn’t about to show up on their doorstep with all my messy baggage. My teammates didn’t need to know what a fucking mess I was.

“Shit,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair, my fingers getting caught in the knots.

I reached into my pocket to grab my phone, only to find it empty.

Of course. Of fucking course.

It was still out in the living room, abandoned on the coffee table.

I stared at the door, trying to work up the courage to move toward it, but the thought of walking back out there—of running into him—made my chest tighten until it hurt.

I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t survive another round tonight.

I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, then flopped back against the mattress. The ceiling spun above me, dizziness blurring my vision.

I needed to get my shit together.

Needed to find a hotel.

A shitty motel.

A fucking park bench.

Anywhere but here.

I would’ve given him everything.

The thought hit me so hard that it felt like a physical blow.

I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing against the lump in my throat, and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to block out all my pain. Trying to make sense of it.

Why? Why had he done this to me?

I’d asked myself that before, once. A lifetime ago.

And the answer had destroyed me back then, too.

The memory slammed into me unwanted and unwelcome, like it had just been waiting in the shadows for the perfect moment to strike, its claws sinking deep into the scar tissue I pretended had healed over completely.

I was fourteen again, standing in the middle of the living room, tears streaming down my face, begging my parents to tell me why.

“Why are you doing this?” I sobbed, my whole body shaking. “Why can’t you just love me?”

My father’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “Because you’re sick,” he spat. “Because you’re not the son I raised. You’re weak. You’re soft. You’re wrong.”

My mother just sat there, staring at her hands like if she didn’t look at me, I might disappear.

“You’re a disappointment,” my father continued coldly. “An embarrassment.”

I remembered the way the walls had closed in. The way the air felt too thick to breathe. The way my chest ached so bad, I thought it might actually split open.

I shoved the memory away with a violence that made my stomach turn.

I wasn’t that kid anymore. But right now, it sure as hell felt like I was.

Logically, I knew this wasn’t the same. Ethan wasn’t my father. He wasn’t sitting me down and telling me I was an abomination. He wasn’t sending me away to be “fixed.”

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking matter.

The way Ethan had looked right through me tonight felt exactly the same.

The hurt whispered that I wasn’t enough. That I’d never be enough.

Not for them.

Not for him.

Not for anyone.

I rolled onto my side, curling in on myself, my whole body shaking with the force of trying to hold myself together.

The first sob escaped before I could stop it.

I buried my face in the pillow, biting down hard to muffle the sound. Ugly, broken sobs shook my whole body.

I cried for the fourteen-year-old kid who’d just wanted someone to love him.

I cried for the man I’d become, still chasing the same thing.

And still failing.

I cried until my chest ached and my throat burned, and there was nothing left but a shaking wreck of a person lying in the dark.

I cried until there was no more fight left in me.

Some time later, I rolled onto my back, staring blankly up at the ceiling, my face wet and my heart hollowed out.

My duffel bag lay half-packed on the floor, forgotten, just like me.

I wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

I couldn’t.

I was too broken to move.