He smirks, shaking his head. “Well, the jealousy thing was the biggest issue. But also, we just didn’t reallyclick. She didn’t,” he thinks over his words for a moment, “getme, if that makes any sense. It’s like she was obsessed with the whole Doc, football persona instead of who I am as a person behind all that.”
I blink at him, surprised he’s willing to share something so personal with me, of all people. “Wow. That…that’s horrible, Wes.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t great.” He says it with a shrug, like he’s trying to downplay it, but his eyes tell a different story. I see a flicker of pain behind them, hinting at how much it hurt him to come to that realization. “She just liked dating the most popular guy in the room. Liked being the center of attention, you know? But when I was done with football, I wasdone.I’m ready to put all that behind me and focus on the rest of my life. The MCAT. Med school. My future’s in medicine, not sports. I don’t think she could wrap her head around the fact that those days were coming to an end, and she had a ton of opinions about it. She made me feel pretty crappy about the decisions I was making.”
I frown, hating the note of dejection in his voice. “I’m sorry.”
His mouth tugs up at the corner. “Thanks. It’s okay, though. On top of all that, we also had nothing to talk about, so it was never gonna be a long-term thing.”
“Youhaving nothing to talk about?” I tease, trying to lighten his mood. “I cannot imagine that. All you do is talk.” I thinkabout it for a second. “And smile. You smile more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
On cue, he grins at me. “I didn’t suffer through braces for three years to not show off these pearly whites.”
My brows shoot up. “You? Braces?”
“Can’t picture it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He tugs out his phone and starts clicking around the screen, pulling up a photo. He leans across the bed to show it to me. “Eighth grade Wes.”
I stare at the image. For some reason, I was expecting him to be scrawny and pimple-faced or something. He’s not. He’s just Wes…but younger. Still taller than everyone in the picture. Still broader than he should be at that age. Still lighting up the room, except he’s got metal in his mouth while he does it. He reminds me of all the guys I’d avoid in the middle school hallways.
I snort. “I did not look like that in middle school.”
“I bet you were cute.”
“I wouldn’t bet a lot. I had braces, too, but I didn’t wear them as well as you did.” I point to the girl beside him in the picture. “Who’s that?”
“My sister, Audrey. I think she’s a junior in college here.”
I examine the photo, studying Audrey’s face. She’s pretty, with dark, dramatic eyebrows and wavy, shoulder-length hair. She has a similar nose to Wes’s, though somehow a bit softer, and the same full mouth. “You two look alike.”
He nods. “We get that a lot.” He pulls the phone away, swiping through a couple more photos before turning it back to face me. “My nephew, Leo. He’s three.”
The toddler in the picture is beautiful, with curly black hair and wide, curious eyes. “He’s adorable. I love those blue eyes.”
“That was a shock,” he says, leaning back and tucking his phone away. “Micah, my sister’s husband, has blue eyes, but Audrey’s are brown like mine.”
“Do you see them often?”
“Not so much with school, but hopefully, I’ll have more time after graduation.”
I can’t help it. My stomach sours at the reminder that Wes is graduating at the end of the school year, and I change the subject, so I don’t have to think about it. Clearing my throat, I ask, “Should we practice?”
Wes nods. “Let’s do it.”
Before I know it, I’m standing in the middle of Wes Tucker’s bedroom with my speech outline poised between my fingers. This time, I’m able to make it past the first word, though I’m not exactly graceful about it.
“A-as an introvert, I sometimes feel guilty spending time, um, alone. The good news is that there are, um, benefits to spending it—I mean, to spending time by yourself.”
I cringe at my delivery, which is nothing like the way I practiced in my room, and glance nervously at Wes. He gives me a thumbs up and an encouraging nod. “That’s great. Keep going.”
Swallowing against my dry mouth, I stare down at my paper. “The, um, first positive benefit of alone time is an increase in neur—crap—creativity, I mean. A 2020 study found that social isolation actually led to an increase in activity in neural circuits related to imagination. Basically, when there’s, like, a decrease in social stimulation, the brain ramps up its, um, creative networks to fill the void.”
I finish off my first point, surprised that I’m able to recall the words I practiced over and over again. Moving on to the second point is easier. I stumble a little, I stutter a lot, but I startto establish a rhythm, muscle memory taking over after enough time.
I keep waiting for the walls to cave in and the floor to drop down and the air to suck out of the room, but whenever I meet Wes’s warm, supportive gaze, everything stabilizes. The walls stay firm, the ground secures, the air pumps through my lungs with relative ease. The tight ball of panic in my chest loosens, and my voice shakes less and less.
