Jamar knew what would make him happy. Or rather, who.
He closed his eyes and breathed in a heavy sigh. He’d messed up so damn badly when it came to Taylor. What was he going to do? How was he going to fix this?
He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to fight for it anyway. He just had to figure out how.
He had so much to figure out. About Taylor. About this workout. Abouteverything.
“Jamar?”
He opened his eyes.
“Stop overthinking,” Andrea said. “Life isn’t as complicated as you’re making it out to be.” She pressed a finger to the center of his chest. “Let this, andonlythis, guide you. You got this.”
Jamar nodded, the corners of his mouth tilting up in a wan smile. “Yeah, I got this,” he said. He wrapped her up in a gentle but fierce hug and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “I couldn’t have chosen a better big sister if I tried. Love you, Drea.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Taylor increased the volume onThe Princess and the Frogas Ray the firefly started to sing about Evangeline, the evening star that he was convinced was his long-lost love. This part got her every single time. Poor Ray, putting all his hopes and dreams in an unattainable object that would never be what he needed it to be.
“You and me both, Ray,” she muttered. “You and me both.”
She reached for her phone, then quickly set it back, facedown, on the sofa. She’d done so unconsciously, but she was determined to break the habit of automatically picking up her phone whenever her mind wandered. Especially on a day like today, when she was actively avoiding social media.
Despite muting everything to do with football, she’d continued to catch tidbits about the biggest story in sports. It seemed as if the entire freaking Internet had gone wild after Hill Sports Management tweeted their announcement about “some big news” regarding Jamar “Diesel” Dixon. The chatter surrounding his attempt at a comeback had reached levels that made the viral video with Craig from a few months ago seem like nothing.
Taylor refused to be a witness to any of it. If Jamar thought performing for cameras was more important than his health, well, that was his prerogative. She decided it would be better forhermental health if she stayed off social media and avoided live TV for the next twenty-four hours. She would watch Tiana, Naveen, and the rest of the bayou crew on repeat as she strategized her own future.
Taylor grabbed the packet of materials she’d received from the assessment center. For the first time in forever, her initial reaction to the thought of going back to school was not accompanied by mind-numbing dread or baking a pan of brownies. She still wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the idea—she doubted she would ever feel excited by the thought of sitting in a classroom. But there was an optimism flowing through her that she hadn’t experienced in far too long.
This was a new journey, and she was eager to take that first step.
Taylor had been all but certain before ever walking through the doors of the assessment center that she would be diagnosed with an LD, as the diagnostician had referred to it. But she hadn’t expected to get a possible ADHD diagnosis as well.
Now that she’d had a couple of days to research it, she realized that she fit the textbook definition of someone who suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The constant restlessness, the abundance of energy, the inability to concentrate on one thing for any period of time; they were just a few of the many checkboxes she ticked off under the list of common symptoms.
During her assessment, both the diagnostician and the psychologist who sat down to discuss her diagnosis with her suspected she’d had the conditions all along. Because of the frequency with which she’d switched schools as a kid, she’d just fallen through the cracks. Her hyperactivity had been written off as her being a tomboy, and her underperformance on tests blamed on a lack of self-discipline.
It was reassuring to learn the true cause behind the issues that had plagued her for so long. The road ahead wouldn’t be easy, but at least she finally had a map to help navigate it.
She felt . . . hopeful. As horrible as these past few days had been since walking out of Jamar’s house, it had also been an awakening, giving her the motivation she needed to get serious about school. She’d started looking at area college programs again. And because karma had to prove that it was always the baddest bitch, the kinesiology program at Southwestern University in Georgetown—just minutes from Jamar’s house—seemed to be the perfect fit.
Taylor’s throat tightened as the sense of foreboding she hadn’t been able to shake flared up yet again.
She’d fought so hard to subdue all thoughts of him—a wasted effort if ever there was one. On a scale of one to five, her anxiety hovered at about one hundred.
What if he slipped while running the forty-yard dash or that tricky shuttle run? Those short sprints between the orange cones were hell on the knees.
It washisknee. He’d made his choice. It was no longer her concern.
It would be great if she could communicate those sentiments to the ball of trepidation rolling around in her stomach.
Her phone rang. She flipped it over to find London’s picture staring back at her. As she answered the call, there was a simultaneous knock on the door.
“It’s us. Open up,” she heard London say both through the phone and the front door.
What are they doing here in the middle of the day?
Taylor flung her head back and sighed up at the ceiling. She should have anticipated this after sending that vague text yesterday, telling them that she would be skipping tonight’s girls’ night out. Especially after avoiding all their other texts this week.
