She nods. ‘You moved so easily. Went pro so easily. Left it all behind so easily. So yeah. I guess you could say I was jealous. You still move so easily, you know. I’m still jealous.’
‘You’re …’ I trail off as the pieces start to float together. I’m positive May can probably see a lightbulb going off over my head. ‘So youdohave lacrosse dreams.’
‘I guess. You remember all the stuff we used to shoot shit and talk about. I guess at some point I really wanted to play box, you know, for Team USA or in the Olympics or something. But that was before the weather. And before the ranch. That,’ she says, the word a punctuation mark that abruptly ends a moment of hope, ‘is for the ones like you. The ones who have the courage to do whatever it takes to chase their dreams.’ She shrugs, and that little shrug, the gesture of giving in, breaks my heart. ‘I appreciate everything you did, you know, Colt. To keepthis narrative up all season. But I suppose, at the end of the day, declaring won’t be on the cards for me.’
May Velasco is supposed to be nothing short of a quickly burning fuse. Always running hot. Refusing to back down from a fight. That’s May.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she puts in with a raised finger, scattering my thoughts. ‘I’m nevernotgoing to be upset about it all. At least to an extent. But … I recently had someone tell me that as much as I need to give myself space to hate you, I need to give you space to make amends.’ May props her chin up on her hands, and she gives me this smile that’s distilled with regret. ‘All those years, I was so caught up inresentingyou that I forgot to stop and look at you. Really look at you. At how well you’ve done for yourself, Colt.’ When she leans back, the smile on her face this time is no longer just sad. It’s still melancholy, but it’s layered with something new – pride. She’sproudof me. ‘I used to play in makeshift fields behind farms with you, CJ Bradley, and you’re a Major League Lacrosse captain now.’
My heart swells with the look in her eyes, that of admiration, but it falls when I grasp the implication of her words. That she’ll live out her days watching. Thatshe’llnever become a Major League Lacrosse captain.
‘I’ll make sure you enter that draft,’ I try, my voice weak. ‘Know that I’ll do that shit for you.’
‘How will you make sure I enter it?’ Her smile falters slightly, and when it returns, it’s forced, her eyebrows drawn upward. She looks tired. Resigned. ‘You won’t be here.’
She’s not wrong.
‘You’ll leave again.’
Yeah, I’m leaving again. I don’t know when I’ll be back.IfI’ll be back. I’ve already overstayed my time off.
I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly. ‘Training camp starts—’
‘In two weeks. I know. We watch the MLL.’ Maybe it’s supposed to be teasing coming from May, but it comes out dejected. ‘If we win the quarter-finals, if we move on to the semis … you won’t be there.’
‘May—’
‘Colt. You won’t be there if somehow, some way, wewinthe damn thing.’ She uses her palms to wipe the last of the tears from her cheeks. Erasing the evidence. ‘And you won’t be there when I make the decision. So …’ She sniffs, pushing herself to her feet. ‘Maybe the way I left things earlier in the week was for the best. You know?’
‘May – no. There’s no way.’ My words come out running together, feverish and desperate. I take her hands in mine when I stand up with her. ‘Please, May. We can’t just be right person, wrong time for the rest of our lives, can we? How do we live with that?’
May pushes herself up to her tiptoes and presses a kiss to my cheek. ‘Still such different destinations,’ she whispers, her hair brushing my skin. ‘You’ll have to live with your destination. And I with mine.’
She picks up her stick from beside us. I watch her retreating as she heads back up to the house through the sliding patio door.
Chapter Forty
Painless Pain
May
Orchestrating the fine details of a fake breakup is much harder when it feels awfully real.
‘You ought to make sure you shed a few tears. Make sure that after the match, even if we lose—’
‘By God, that won’t happen,’ I cut into Jordan’s musing.
‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘Make sure that you do a dramatic little pull-him-into-the-tunnel with you for a very important conversation. And then after, sprinkle some tears. I guess. I’m not sure how movie stars do it. But seeing as you’re making the objectively wrong decision … it shouldn’t be hard.’
My best friend’s usually light voice has a new kind of bite to it. It’s that kind of upset someone gets when they spend hours giving you handcrafted advice, and then you go and flip them the bird by ignoring it.
‘Forget the guy.’ The corner of Jordan’s mouth twitches angrily. ‘I can’t believe that after all these years, you’re letting me declare for the draft alone.’
‘Jordan …’ I start softly, placing a hand on her arm, but she shrugs me away. She’sdefinitelypissed, not to mention very disappointed.
‘We had plans, May. Lots of them. And you have so much potential. I’m just struggling to understand …’ She shakes her head with a sad scoff. ‘It’s whatever. We’ve got a game to win right now.’
Jordan trains her sights on the roaring crowd all around us in the bleachers. Bigger than the first rounds, and more riled up, the crowd is primarily Charleston. It makes sense. They’re a fantastic team. They were seeded much higher than us. Their fans are terrifyingly loud when their team is announced, rushing the field with the spirit squad shaking pom-poms nearby.
