It’s a fear that’s been rooted deep down for days, and I need to talk it out before the weed grows.
Maddie drags the jersey over her head, getting stuck in the shirt’s hole, and I rescue her. “Who taught you how to take off a shirt?”
“I’m not good at pulling things out of holes. Sue me,” she huffs. She meets my stare when she’s freed, and her lips twitch at her joke. But I don’t have it in me to return the smile, the anxiety roiling deep inside growing too strong for much of anything. I’m a statue of fear. “Seth, what’s going on?” she whispers. “You won. I thought you’d be happy. I thought you’d want to celebrate.”
“This isn’t me,” I manage.
“What do you mean?”
“What happens tomorrow? When I’m just Lumberjack Frasier?”
“Oh, is that what you’re worried about?” With an incredible gentleness, Maddie cradles my face with her hands. “I promise, I don’t care about this whole football thing Seth. I loveyou.You’re the one who takes great care of me when I don’t feel well and is secretly way funnier than I want to ever admit out loud. And I know that you’re also smart, kind, loyal, and fiercely protective. Is any of that going to change tomorrow?”
“Well, no.” I breathe out, my lungs expanding a fraction with her reassurances.
“Then you should cross that worry right off. I’m not going anywhere as long as you want me.” Her finger comes up, and she traces the swirl of the ink on my chest. “I will miss these just a little, though.”
Tattoos that exist on my body in the real world, too. Tattoos she won’t understand if I don’t tell her the damn truth. I don’t want to start tomorrow with her finding out that I hid a significant part of my past from her. It’s now or never.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Oh, yeah, what’s up?” She bounces on her toes, and yeah, taking the jersey off to have this conversation was a bad idea because Maddie’s perfect breasts are so close, and I’d much rather have my mouth wrapped as far as it’ll go around them instead of having this deep conversation.
“Maybe we get a shirt on you first.” I blush.
“Right. Right.” She giggles, walking over to her daisy duffel bag and pulling something out. She tosses it over her head and sits on the bed with her legs crossed, wearing the Nar Wars shirt she wore the night I went to her house. “I thought I'd wear it tonight where you liked it so much.” She shrugs with a timid smirk.
“It’s my favorite.” I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. “Maddie, I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” I rub the back of my neck, pacing the length of the room, counting the squares on the carpet print with each long, quick stride. “It’s just… there are things…about my past…”
“What about it?”
“Uhm. Do you remember when Connor swore he played football against me at the store, and then I started acting weird?”
“Yeah, you dropped a ton of books and were weirder than normal. What gives?”
“Connor was right. We did play each other a few years ago. And it’s not a part of my past that I like reliving, or it wasn’t until all of this.” I gesture to the room around us.
“Wait. Are you telling me Lumberjack Fraser played college—collegiately?”
“Um, yeah. And I was good too.” I smile, remembering the constant high from my four-plus touchdown games, letting the ball soar through the air and nail one of my teammates forty yards down the field. It was a feeling I soaked in today, never taking a single moment of that time on the field for granted because, for once, I knew it would be my last. “Ellie didn’t embellish much of anything. This is how my life should have been.”
“What happened?”
I rub the back of my head and exhale. “I got hit by a truck.”
“I’m sorry. You, what?” Maddie shrieks, jumping up from the bed. “Oh my god, are you okay?” She grabs hold of my arms, twisting and turning them like she’s inspecting for bruises like I’m telling her the accident just happened.
“I’m mean, you’ve seen me, Mads. I’m fine now.” I cradle her cheek in my hand, trying to quiet her own sudden spiking anxiety. “I promise. It’s just that I lost everything when it happened. My future career. My scholarship. My girlfriend I was going to propose to—you ever heard of Kennedy Spruce?”
“The influencer?”
I nod with a blush. “That was my girlfriend.”
Maddie blinks. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t have heard you right. Are you saying you, Seth Aarons, the man who nicknamed me Satanic Barbie, datedtheKennedy Spruce?”
“Mhm, for five years, and when it was pretty clear I couldn’t play anymore, she dumped my ass.”
“And I was a Kennedy clone.” Maddie gently grasps my hand and rubs a circle into my palm with her thumb. “No wonder you were hesitant to get to know me.” She massages the tendon on the inside of my wrist, tracing the black ink there. “Wait, so are these real?”
