Sure, we could talk about it all we wanted. Maybe we made the sorts of promises teenagers did when they were young and naïve and didn’t know that this world was a cruel one, that this was the kind of place that was out to wrench people apartinstead of bring them together. We promised that one day, we’d go pro, side by side, and that in this world that tore dreams to shreds, we wouldn’t let ours die.
But all of it was doomed to fail, anyway. Because Colt didn’t realize the luxury he had. The luxury I longed for.
As our teammates trickle into practice, and I head towards my bag to lace up my cleats, that old wound Colt left me with opens up again. Every stitch is plucked out until all I feel is an emptiness in the centre of my body. Just like before.
He’s going to leave again. That much is certain. But if I don’t get myself in order, he’s going to leave without knowing why I did what I did this morning. And if I let him go like that, I’m no better than he was five years ago.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Hell or High Water
Colt
Swish!
The ball impacts the back of the net effortlessly, from just about halfway up our scaled-down backward field. The field I’d made for her. What a shit turn of events. She got me back out of my head, back on the path to playing again, only for all of this to happen.
Swish!
With a swing bordering on sending my stick flying out of my hands, I chuck the ball straight into the net, the shot clipping the top of the goal before slapping the back of it so hard it sends the frame shaking. For a minute, the faint vibrating of the metal is all I can hear.
‘Top ched,’ says May from behind me.
On a normal day, I’d probably turn so fast I’d risk dislocatingmy neck. Today, I find any excuse for why I don’t look back at her. I hum in agreement instead.
‘So. Charleston next Saturday.’
May laughs nervously. ‘Right. Our first East Coast team of the season.’
The nerves aren’t a sound I’m used to hearing from her, but it makes sense. Two of her three past years on OKC, the Riders have fallen to an East Coast team in the quarter-finals of the playoffs. The girls have never made it farther than this.
‘Do you think we have a chance, this time?’
‘Don’t really feel like it matters what I think.’ I pick up another ball with my stick, tossing it and catching it back in the head. ‘You’re the captain.’
May says, ‘Sure. But we’re a team. And on teams …’ She walks right up in front of me, impossible to ignore, and sits down, cross-legged, in the grass. ‘We talk. Which I owe to you.’
‘What is there to talk about?’ I throw my stick aside, but I reluctantly sit down, too, running a hand through my hair. ‘You made it pretty clear how this is gonna go.’
‘Doesn’t feel nice, does it?’ The corners of her mouth tip up in a smile, but it’s one of sadness. One that weighs in her eyes and pulverizes my resolve to look at. ‘To be left alone with nothing but a shitty goodbye?’
She’s not wrong.
Well. That’s not really something I can say anything to. I blink, gulp. ‘May—’
‘As terrible as it is … I’m sorry.’ She clears her throat. ‘I shouldn’t have said the things I did without an explanation.’
‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ I stop her. ‘I’ve put you through enough. You have a right to take things easy.’
‘Maybe. But I also have a right to tell you that this fake thing we have going on …’ She gestures between the two of us. ‘This thing is not fake, Colt. It never was.’
Twin flames of relief and nerves fill my chest. I shake my head.
‘You know, I probably would have picked everything up and moved to Boston with you for college if you’d actually asked me what I wanted,’ May blurts.
It feels like someone’s stick just checked me square in the head.
She would havemovedwith me? To Boston? My parents would probably have rather trodden on hot coals for the rest of their lives than stay in New England. May Velasco would have moved?
