Monday nights, I had nothing to do. The NFL hadn’t started yet, so I wasn’t gonna watch a game, and girls’ night was tomorrow. My ass could wait on this bench until Ivy marched home. She’d totally stomp a little bit too, her way of throwing a fit. God, I forgot how much I loved her Ivy-isms. I tried not to let myself think about her the last three years, and in doing so, it prevented the weird achy feeling in my chest but also the joy that surrounded my memories with her.
In way, my life felt like it spiraled the last couple years, where I couldn’t find a place to land. I had my team, Lo, and Mack, and they were great. But the itchiness, the need to do something rash had always been settled by Ivy.
I crossed one leg over the other and watched her and Abe whisper-shout. They were not quiet, at all, when Abe said,“Go speak to him!”
“No! I have nothing to say.”
“He does, clearly. You’re being a fool.”
“Okay, so?”
“He is Callum O’Toole! How are you not wanting to talk to him? I know you said he upset you once… I can go with you?”
“No,” I said, joining their conversation with a smirk. “She doesn’t need you there when I speak with her. Now are you done pretending like you’re not going to talk to me, Ivy Lee?”
She sneered, red blotches covering the upper part of her cheeks. “Let’s gonow,O’Toole.”
“Happily!”
I stood up and almost skipped toward her, reaching for her bag and grabbing it without asking. “Walk or drive?”
“What?”
“Want to walk to your place or drive? I know you like to walk to help ease the tension in your muscles, but I also know your arms have to be killing you after hoisting all that water all day. Happy to follow your lead.”
“Callum, I don’t—” She pulled at her hair, letting out an animalistic sound. “Stop this, please. I got over you, and it hurt, but this… it’s bringing everything back, and I don’t want to feel it. I’m doing fine.”
She’s doing fine. Without us? Unacceptable. You’re not doing well.
“Maybe Idowant to everything to resurface. I don’t want you over me,” I said, not caring that my insides screamed at me to shut up. Or that I also didn’t want to feel all these things. Or that my heart beat twice as hard hearing her say she got over me… like I was a sickness or an ex she could discard. “Life works out in weird ways, Ivy, we both agree with that, so maybe us reconnecting is part of a greater plan.”
“No.” She crossed her arms as she turned a sharp right out of the stadium, indicating she wanted to walk home.
Home.
I had no idea where she lived, and I didn’t like that.
I understood the hypocrisy that I hadn’t worried about her the last three years. I knew it. But now I couldn’t stop the worry and concern and the desperate need to know everything about her. Esmerelda was her best friend, and her parents moved away from our hometown to chase another college coaching opportunity, but that was it. I mean, I knew she volunteered at Miss Paige’s, but my friend had changed, and it hit me that I’d missed it.
“Which way are we going?”
“Callum.” She stopped and faced me with moisture in her eyes. “Can you leave me alone? Please.”
I shook my head, ignoring the weight that suddenly formed in my feet, rooting me down to the spot. Panic only happened to me on the field, where I knew a hit was gonna come and I couldn’t stop it. But to feel a burst ofholy shit, noin real life, off the field, made my pulse race and sweat form. “I can’t leave you alone, Ivy. Call me selfish, but since you started with the team, I’m off, and you’re clearly still harboring some anger toward me. I think its best we hash it out.”
“You want tohash it out?” Her voice rose an octave. “After three years, you finally want to have a conversation about how you broke my heart? How instead of us following all our college plans we made together, you ghosted me and tossed me aside? How you said the cruelest words to me, knowing they would hurt, and then never spoke to me again? Sure, let’s hash it out and never speak to each other because you are not worth my time,” she said, emotion clawing out of her.
She didn’t yell the words, but she whispered them. And that was somehow worse. I took it. I deserved it. But my dumbass couldn’t just listen. “You hurt me too.”
“No.No.” She tried to take the bag off my shoulder and yanked, a desperate cry coming from her. “Give me my bag. Give it to me now!”
“I’m walking you back.”
I deserved a Heisman for how calm I remained externally, seeing her freak out and lose it on me. She swatted at me and dug her nails into my arm, trying to get her bag before she gave up.
“I don’t care. Keep it. Just… keep it.” She sniffed, wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve, and marched ahead of me. “Do not follow me.”
“Ivy, you know I don’t take commands well.”
