Page 66 of The Play Maker

Maybe I don’t know her height or what color her eyes are. Maybe I’ve never seen the way her hair falls around her face. But I knowher.

I love the way her mind works, the way she says things that stick with me hours later. She feels like home in a world that rarely makes sense.

And God, I want to tell her that.

That if she were here, I’d hold her face in my hands and kiss her until every memory of the assholes who made her feel like she wasn’t enough faded into nothing.

Because to me, she’s more than enough. She always has been.

I want to ask her to meet me.

But I already know what she’d say.

It would ruin the magic.

And I can’t risk ruining anything between us.

Not when she feels like the only real thing I’ve got.

I look down at my phone again, scanning her messages.

But if she asked me to meet her right now, I’d go. I’d book a flight to wherever she is and run.

And that scares the shit out of me.

Because I don’t run for anyone.

Not since I was eight years old, standing at the edge of the driveway in my socks, running after my dad as he drove off for the last time, with tears falling down my face.

My mom didn’t cry in front of me. She comforted me and my sister, held us as we cried in her arms. But later that night, when she was in her room and thought we were asleep, I heard her sobs.

I saw the light go out of her eyes every time another guy left. Like she was learning to expect less and less every time. That’s what love did to her. And I swore I’d never let it do that to me. Or make anyone feel like that.

So yeah, I flirt, I hook up, but I don’t do relationships.

I don’t risk hurting someone, or being hurt by someone. I don’t want someone seeing me for real, then deciding I’m not enough.

Until now.

Until this.

Until her.

I blow out a breath and fall back on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. What the hell is happening to me?

14

MAISIE

Ishould be asleep.

My eyelids ache, heavy from a full day of classes, tutoring, and skating, but instead I’m curled up in bed, wrapped in my fleece blanket, watching the phone screen light up every few seconds.

No new notifications.

I should be used to it by now. I’ve never really been the first person anyone texts when plans pop up. Never been the one people lean on or want around. I’ve never been the best friend or the person people call first.

But with Six… I don’t know. I kind of thought our friendship mattered to him like it does to me.