“I love you,” Freddie blurts out at the same time.
The world goes strangely dull around me, like everything is wrapped in cotton. I can’t move. All I can hear is my own stumbling heartbeat. “Pardon?”
“It’s true,” Freddie says. He’s not looking at me and I’m strangely grateful. “I wish it weren’t. I know we can’t, but—fuck, Mar. I’ve missed you so fucking much and I can’t stop thinking about you, about—aboutus, and you’re?—”
“No.” I wish I could sound more decisive, more like I mean it, but this is the best I can manage. “Don’t.”
“No? What do you mean,no?”
I shouldn’t smile, but I can’t help it. His tone is soFreddie—all emotion, no thought. Confused and upset and not ready to back down. I know it’s impossible but it looks like even his hair is standing even more on end than it usually does. I want to hug him, make it all better. Return the favour of finding comfort in his embrace.
Instead, I shrug, helplessly. “It’s not fair. I’ve just gotten over you.” Lies. Blatant lies. I’m so not over him it’s embarrassing. But I can’t tell him that. “Don’t start again now.”
Freddie looks so confused. So helpless. Like he thought he’d come here, tell me he loves me, and we kiss. Cue the happy music, the end. Sweet, wonderful Freddie, with his heart on his sleeve and his actions so instinctive.
Everything inside me tells me to go wrap him in my arms, hold him tight, tell him everything will be all right. But how can I do that when I don’t mean it? When I know it can’t be true? I clench my hands so hard my short fingernails leave marks on my skin.
“It’s different now,” Freddie says, after what might have been an eternity or the blink of an eye, I’m not sure. He looks right at me, determination in his eyes. “Mar, fuck, I know we screwed up.Iscrewed up. But I mean it. For real. I’m in this, one hundred percent.”
It’s all I ever wanted him to say, it’s all my dreams come true, but in this moment, I can’t accept it. I know it’s not true. “The photos made it look like you were in this zero percent.” There. I don’t even care if I look stupid right now, bringing up press photos. They were the only thing I had all summer, so they are what I’m going with.
Freddie looks at me, furious, determined, sad, tender, all at once. A confusing whirlwind, Freddie Bloom as he lives and breathes. The most perfect man I’ve ever encountered. And thenhe opens his mouth. “Is this about Hadidja?” he asks and has to audacity to sound incredulous. “Mar, she doesn’t matter!”
“How dare you.” Real fury courses through me now, because it’s one thing to disrespect me, leave me hanging, ghost me, whatever. But DJ, who is innocent in all this? How dare he talk about her like that?
He laughs, clearly confused. “What the fuck?”
“I swear to god, Bloom, if you talk smack about your girlfriend ever again I will personally?—”
He laughs again and before I can punch him, he puts his hands up to placate me. “How are you so perfect, god damnit? You utter gentleman, Marlon Rothe.”
Freddie is being way too nonchalant about something so important and I take an angry step forward. “You think this will make me feel better? Disrespecting Hadidja, when all she has ever done is support you? How can you even think that would be a good start to a—”Relationship. The word is right there, on the tip of my tongue, and a couple days ago I would have killed for it to be true. Now, though? I don’t want it. Not like this. Instead, I gesture helplessly between us. “This,” I finish, lamely.
He stares at me, blinking slowly, visibly processing what I just said. Then a smile blooms on his lips, happy and wonderful and so damn beautiful. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, fuck, you’re such a good person, oh my god. I love you so much. You are—” He clears his throat. “Look. Yes, we were playing it up during the tournament, but it was intentional. We wanted to make sure everybody saw us together. Because DJ is on her way to getting herself a girlfriend, and I—” The happiness drains from his face.
“You?” It shouldn’t, but my heart is racing. I shouldn’t, but I’m hoping. I want to tell myself it’s nonsense, but at the same time I’m desperate to hear what he has to say.
His chest heaves with a deep sigh. “I deserve this,” he says, more to himself than to me. “I—I was hoping I might be on myway to a relationship, too.” He immediately raises his hands in defiance, completely misinterpreting my gasp. “No, no, I know. Stupid of me. I fully get it. I was stringing you along and kind of, well, expecting you to wait for me until I have my shit ready, which I know is a massive dick move. I would happily grovel and try to make up for it until the end of time. But I understand I’ve lost that chance and I’ll do the right thing this time and respect your choice.”
Relationship. He said it. I heard it with my own two ears. The word I couldn’t bring myself to say, Freddie put it out there. My hands flex at my sides and my mind is whirring. I don’t think he realises how monumental his little speech was. How much it changes things between us. He said the quiet part out loud, always between us but never acknowledged. Feelings. Hearing him say that he wantedmorewith me hits me harder than the confession of love.
All of a sudden, it’s real. A possibility.
No longer a pipe dream, a hypothetical. Now it’s something Freddie wants. Something Freddie thought we could have.
For the first time, I’m letting myself think what I’ve known to be true from our very first night: I love him, too. I didn’t want to, and I refused to let it be true, but I do. I’m afraid I’ve loved him since the first time he smiled at me with so much tenderness it turned my world upside-down.
There could be an us.
Maybe.
We could at least try if we can make it work.
My toes tingle and that’s so new and unexpected it makes me laugh. Mytoes?That’smy body's tell for when I’m excited and ready?
Freddie stares at me with a hangdog expression and I can't blame him. It’s pretty rude of me to laugh after he just made himself so vulnerable. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I wish I couldunfuck this whole thing. Do it right. Treat you the way you deserve.”
Our eyes meet for the briefest moment and the tingling spreads up my calves to my knees. I’m tempted to laugh again but manage to keep it inside. It’s probably an overreaction anyway. I still don’t know what to say.
