Page 16

Chapter

Thirteen

The study room in the North Centre still smelled like chalk and vending machine coffee, and I was grateful for it. I needed every ounce of intellectual stimuli available to do what I was about to do.

I’d done some thinking over the weekend and realized a few things about myself.

First, I couldn’t skip breakfast. Second, that blowup in Chase’s truck?

It was ninety percent about Melody Sanchez.

Yes, I was annoyed that I hadn’t gotten credit, but it wasn’t about the academic props. It was that I wanted him to notice me.

It sounded pathetic, but that moment in the entryway?

That knot in my throat? It unlocked something I didn’t know about myself.

It turned out, I wasn’t immune to the immature longings that my friends always complained about.

I wanted a guy to notice me for what I had to offer, just like they did, but what I brought to the table was my brain.

I didn’t have musical skills like Shar or a tiny, petite body with big boobs like Crystal—not saying that’s the only thing she had to offer, it was just a very noticeable thing, considering the men constantly knocking on her door.

I wasn’t going to pretend I wasn’t beautiful.

I was pretty, but I was also different. As much as guys pretended they liked unknowns, it wasn’t true.

They liked to feel comfortable, safe, just like women did, and I was an unknown.

Different skin, different hair. Add in high achievement, and that was a recipe for intimidation for most guys.

I thought I’d accepted that years ago and then re-accepted it when I broke up with Colin, but deep down?

I wanted someone to notice me. I wanted to be loved for who I was and not for who someone wanted me to be.

What better way to prove that I was worthy than for the guy I’d always been secretly obsessed with to want me? It was psychologically predictable.

I pushed open the door just before six, my heart tapping out its own nervous little rhythm in my chest. My bag slid off my shoulder as I stepped inside, and my heart sank. Tim and Nick were already there, hunched over their textbooks.

I walked in and set down the tray of chocolate-covered Rice Krispies treats I’d made. Probably another bid for acceptance and attention on my part, but I was taking baby steps.

Tim wolfed down the rest of his banana. “Eeeey! Maddie!” He waved me over to sit across from them.

Okay. I was hoping to catch Chase alone to get all of this off my chest, but it could wait. “Hey.” I dropped into the chair.

Chase sat at the far table, brows furrowed, scribbling in a notebook. A calculator rested at his elbow, and a mess of game notes was spread across the table. He looked up and gave a small nod.

I smiled, then turned back to scan Tim’s assignment. Something about probability distributions and binomial functions. I could do this in my sleep, so while I walked through the steps with Tim, my brain ran its own internal lecture series.

Planning 101. Your poetry response is due on Thursday. Right. I’d been avoiding that one. Not that I couldn’t write it, but the poem we’d been assigned was . . . unsettling. I read it once and hadn’t been able to go back to it.

The Rhodes applications open up in June with a September deadline. You need to start preparing your essays— I shut that one down straight out of the gates. I had to wait until this experiment was over anyway, so I wasn’t going to focus on that until classes were out.

Communications 101. When you talk to Chase, say it how it is. He already knows you had a crush on him, it won’t come as a surprise. He’ll probably appreciate the honesty, and then none of this will be awkward anymore.

“Okay.” I tapped Nick’s page. “That’s your mistake. You’re squaring n , but you should only be squaring the variable.”

He blinked. “You sure?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Right. You’re sure.” He scratched it out.

Ten minutes later, both guys packed up, thanked me, and grabbed a treat.

Then it was just me and Chase.

I hid my balled fists under the table. “I need to talk to you about something.” Better to get it over with.

Chase looked up. He was in a pale-green button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled. It brought out the flecks of tourmaline in his eyes, and that wasn’t helping. Rip off the Band-Aid.

“I told you I had a crush on you. At Ranchman’s.”

Chase’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You did.”

“Well, I think my biology is still attracted to . . . your biology.” His mouth quirked, and I swallowed hard.

“Just a purely physical thing that I can’t control, and because of that, I think I’ve been trying to—” I paused, trying to catch my breath.

“I wanted to impress you, I think, not you specifically, but really any guy.”

“Okaaay.”

I pressed my palms into the table like I was flattening a ball of dough. “Like I was helping other people in the hopes that you—or someone—would notice me and make me feel accepted. Worthwhile. You know?”

Chase blinked.

“Again, that’s a me problem. So I was feeling used by you, but really I was trying to use you. As proof.”

“That . . . you’re lovable.”

“Yeah, or like, hot or something. Because I’m smart, which I know isn’t a thing?—”

“It’s a thing.”

I scoffed, my cheeks so hot that I thought they might burst into flames. “Not a thing. Maybe for guys it is, but for girls it’s better to be funny. Or . . . happy.”

Chase fought a smile. “Happy?”

I nodded. “You know those girls.”

“I do know those girls.”

“Like—”

“Melody.”

I wet my lips. “Exactly.”

Chase leaned back in his chair, flipping his pen between his fingers. “You know that doesn’t always mean they’re happy. For real.”

I shrugged. I didn’t know because the only girl I knew like that was Sharla and she was indescribably happy. Now. I considered that thought. She hadn’t been fully happy with Logan. “Maybe not, but they’re more attractive.”

Chase rubbed his chin. “Maybe.”

I gave him a look. “Maybe? Those are the only girls you date.”

An exhale of breath, a drop of his eyes, and that smile split his face. “You don’t know who I date now.”

“I mean?—”

“I’m not dating Melody.”

“Well. You met her after.”

Chase gave me an amused look. “Yeah.”

My heart sped. I leaned over to pull my binder out of my bag, then flipped to my literature section. “It doesn’t matter, I already explained what was happening there, so I just wanted you to know. That’s why I got weird.” I grabbed a pen and flipped to the poem handed out in our last lecture.

The Fire Sermon from The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot. Barf.

“Because of the biology thing.”

I glanced up. Chase stood next to my table. Pen between his teeth. Papers and calculator in his hand. He kicked out a chair and sat, spreading his work out next to mine.

“Right. But I’m working on that.” I looked back at the poem, the words blurring in front of me.

“How?”

I chewed my lower lip. That was an excellent question. “By acknowledging it and saying it out loud.”

“And that gets rid of it?”

Hell, no. I was starting to sweat. “Mmhmm.”

“Huh. Well that’s good to know.”

I underlined the title on my page.

“Should’ve used that in high school.”

I snorted. “Whatever. You got whoever you wanted. You didn’t need to make anything less awkward.”

Chase didn’t answer right away. I moved on to underlining the poem, hoping he’d gone back to his work.

“Maybe I was looking for proof, too,” he murmured.

The rush in my veins slowed to a deep, rhythmic pulse. I drew a breath and looked up. Chase’s brow was furrowed. He was reading my poem.

“Don’t—”

“This is about sex.”

I pursed my lips, heat flashing up my neck. “Yep.”

Chase made a face. “Terrible sex.”

I laughed, then felt a swoop in my stomach when I realized that probably meant he knew the difference. What had Shar said that night she slept at my house? Good sex happened when you could talk about anything?

I stared down at the page.

“‘The time is now propitious, as he guesses,

The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,

Endeavours to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved, if undesired,’” Chase read aloud. “So . . . the guy’s a creep.”

I nodded, my eyes still glued to the page. It was the next lines that did me in. His vanity requires no response . . . one final patronizing kiss . . . Well, now that’s done, and I’m glad it’s over.

“Hey, you alright?” Chase’s hand dropped onto my shoulder.

I stiffened, blinking to clear the haze in my vision. “Sorry.” Was I crying? In front of Chase Wilson? How embarrassing?—

“Zero connection. They’re both in their own worlds.”

I froze, staring back at the page as something inside of me broke open.

“Exactly.” He was trapped in his selfishness, but she—she was trapped in her head.

Not even noticing when the man left. Feeling nothing while he was there.

And yes, the poem was talking about trauma, but that wasn’t what gut-punched me.

I’d been her with the guys I dated. I’d thought those words.

I was always trapped in my head. So how was I supposed to let someone in when I couldn’t even figure out how to escape myself?

Chase’s hand still sat on my shoulder, and it didn’t feel wrong. More like it belonged there. I stared at my notes. There were lines everywhere. Little comments in the margins. Arrows between stanzas. But no thesis. No opinion. No argument that didn’t feel like peeling back skin.

I reached for Chase’s game notes, but he pushed them out of the way. “Nope.”

My head snapped up. “I was going to help?—”

“No. You’re not.” He tapped the paper in front of me. “I’m going to help you write this response.” He plucked the pen from my hand and started writing.

Carbuncular is a perfect name for this asshole because ? —

I laughed out loud and stole the pen back. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I’m kidding.” He tried to take it back, but I gripped the pen tight, and his hand circled around mine.

As I turned to get leverage, his hand slipped from my shoulder to my neck, and my head tilted back and?—

My lips found his.

My arms went limp.

My soul may have left my body.

Because I, Madelyn Taylor, was kissing Coach Chase Wilson.