Hearing Amara’s feet padding down the hall, I turn, only to find her frowning.
Alarm bells immediately sound in my head as I examine her expression. “Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods, sitting down. “We just have a really big decision to make here soon.” We do. I let her continue. “I’m just nervous, Cooper. This is a really big commitment, and I just—I don’t know. I want you to want it just as much as I do.”
I’m confused. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t even know.” She tosses her hands up, and they land at her sides with a thump. “I just don’t want to feel like I did before ever again.”
I can see the anxiety swirling in her brain, and I want nothing more than to kiss it all away.
But I can’t.
I also just don’t know how to explain?—
“I was just thinking back to when I saw the obituary. And how hurt I was that you didn’t even call. You gave me nowarning. And I didn’t even know that you were officially going to college. And I didn’t even know that you were drafted here until you were, well, here.”
Her voice grows louder as her thoughts become more jumbled. Unfortunately, mine do too.
“I just think—” I start, but she continues on, the same old talking points we’ve been discussing forever.
I don’t think I’ve explained it well enough, and part of me is angry that it’s even a question in her mind. But I remind myself that this is a legally binding agreement.
She’s entrusting me with a part of her. It’s a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
And through all of our history, I get that a good portion of it was soured.
My thoughts spin in my head as she talks, and I eventually can’t hear anything but a loud rushing in my ears, my thoughts screaming in my head. All of them come at me at the same exact time.
“I just think?—”
I hold up my hand, immediately regretting it as her face flashes with hurt.
I run to the door, grabbing my running shoes. I don’t grab a jacket, not even thinking about how cold the rain is as I head down the building.
The ice-cold air hits me like a wrecking ball, and yet somehow, I can breathe better.
I just need to get my mind right.
I jog around the harbor slowly before heading up Federal Hill, running along the path Leo and I usually take.
There’s something about looking over the harbor that calms my nerves and quiets the world.
When everything is too loud, I have this little spot.
But there comes a time when the cold air starts to suffocate you. My shirt is soaking wet, and I know for a fact I’m going to be sick tomorrow. Coach is going to be pissed as hell.
I stop, my hands on my knees as the rain crashes down around me.
“Cooper!” a voice calls.
I turn slowly, watching as Amara runs over to me with a new shirt and my heavy coat. “Do you have a death wish?”
All I can hear is the rain, my head still rushing. But the second her warm skin grabs my hand, it all vanishes.
“Cooper, what’s going on?”
A tear rolls down my face, quickly washed away.
