That decision would be dangerous.
Hesitating on what to say to that, I steer back to neutral territory, when what I really want to do is peel her back layer by layer and figure out exactly what it would take to make her mine.
What are you doing?
There’s a pause before the dots appear again, but they disappear just as quickly.
You mean who?
A metaphorical bucket of ice water practically drowns me as it’s tossed over my head. I choke on the lump that immediately forms in my throat.
I can’t tell if she’s serious or not.
I’d rather swallow battery acid than think about Indy with another guy. I haven’t touched another woman since that mistake of a night after she rejected me—after I rejected her?Fuck, who even knows. After we drew the damn line between us with a Sharpie.
The vibration in my hand startles me. I hadn’t realized my phone went to sleep. When I look down, Indy’s name’s on my screen.
That was a joke.
Wasn’t. Funny.
Just at home. Nothing special or fun.
There’s a dull ache inside me, and for a second I consider changing my mind and going to meet my friends. Texting Indy may have been a mistake. Everything about this feels off, awkward almost.
Still I find myself saying the dumbest thing I could possibly say.
I miss you.
It feels like I just took a knife and cut myself open, exposing every vulnerable piece of me, but I’m proud of myself for not writing her a damn love letter instead.
What I wanted to say was:Indy, I miss you so much. All I want is you in my arms, every second of every day. I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up with your hair fanned out over my pillow. I want to bring you to ruin every night and worship you until you don’t remember where I begin and you end. Being away from you physically hurts.
But I don’t.
I can’t, for so many damn reasons.
If there’s anything baseball’s taught me over the years, it's patience and discipline. Indy is my person, but it’s just not the right time for us. I recognized that when I was just fourteen years old, and I still know it to be true now.
One day, Indy Archer will be mine, but if the unanswered message is anything to go by, it’s still not our time.
Closing the door on our conversation for tonight makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but I know it needs to be done. Her silence is deafening.
Have a good night, Trouble.
Powering off my phone, I toss it across the bed and pick up my TV’s remote instead. It hums to life, flooding the room with the cackling of a live TV audience from an old game show re-run. I click the up arrow on the remote until I find ESPN and settle in against my pillow while the sportscasters talk in circles about game stats and players.
The familiarity of it all does little to ease my racing mind, and I drag my hand down my face, the ache in my chest only more intense since turning my phone off.
Patience and discipline, I remind myself. Caving and texting her again won’t do anything to speed up the process. I just need to trust that with time she’ll find her way back to me.
I shouldn’t have told her I missed her. It was a moment of weakness—one I should have kept to myself.
The memory of the first time I kissed her creeps in uninvited, torturing me as though I haven’t tortured myself enough in the last hour. I remember feeling like I truly had her back then, even if for just the night.
We closed down the fair, laughing and kissing like all of our problems were solved the second our lips touched. Another hour passed with us just sitting in my car a block away from her house, just in case Dylan were to look out the window in the middle of the night. Laughing until tears prickled the backs of our eyes. Kissing until our lips were swollen and sore. Then I walked her to the front door of their respectable four-bedroom home, kissing her one more time, not realizing it’d be the last time I’d kiss her for nearly a year.
The next day it was like our time at the fair never happened. A fever dream. That piece of our story erased from that chapter of our lives. She never brought it up, and neither did I. We wentback to the friend-zone, and Dylan was put back on his pedestal, slipping back into the number one priority spot.
