Page 95 of Dirty Chorus

“But what?”

“I’m not trying to be the bad guy here. I want to be with you... it's just...”

“What are you saying?”

That I like you more than anything I’ve liked before. Maybe I like you more than music. But I’m not going to be good enough for you. I can’t give you a life you deserve, and in the long run, there is no way I can make this work. “It's...” I pause.

“What is it? The last time this happened to me was when...” She bites her bottom lip and her eyes are glistening. “You’re avoiding me... just like...”

“I thought I could date,” I take a deep breath and my hands clench down on my truck keys. “...and if I did date it would be with you but this is just too much for me. This is just something I do with my Gramps once a month. And you even showed up here. It’s not that I don’t want to see you or hang out with you, but you can’t show up out of nowhere. I need to focus on him, and my music, and you should focus on school.”

“Right.. Yeah... sorry.” She ruffles her hair and she swallows hard. “All I wanted was to spend time with you... but I get it. I’ll go.” She points a thumb behind her.

“Wait...” I reach and grasp her hand before she can book it. “We can be friends.”

“So this is real... this is really what’s happening. So what have we been doing for these past few weeks? Was this just sex? I thought you couldn’t open up to anyone, and now on some random bingo night you wanna end it?”

Fuck no... Shit. I don’t want to end it, I just have to. I'm coming off as that guy. I say nothing. Maybe if I leave her with that impression she’ll get over me sooner. We’ll stop talking on a random Tuesday morning, and become strangers. “I gotta go. I’m sorry.”

Chapter 44

Charlie

The stadium lights still burn behind my eyes hours after the game. My throat aches from shouting and my legs are like jelly from all the dance moves I did on repeat, entertaining the crowd through every transition. My mouth hurts so much from smiling through every damn second of it. I gave it everything tonight – like maybe if I cheered hard enough, I could drown out the last conversation I had with Noah, or Payton will have her “coming to Jesus’ moment” and tell me about Ryder.

But the Uber ride with Payton was already tense as it is. She’s been off since we started arguing, and I haven’t seen her smiling ear to ear every time she drops her gaze to her phone anymore.

“Do you think he still has feelings for her?” Payton asks.

“Who?” I ask and turn my gaze out the window, watching the streetlights passing.

“Ryder and Brittni...”

I scoff and rest my elbow against the door panel. My thumbnail wedged between my teeth. “Why are you even thinking about them?”

“Just curious.”

“I dunno. If he does, who cares? Let him make stupid decisions, he’ll win another stupid prize if he crawls back to her.”

“I’m serious.”

“And so am I. Seriously Payt, I don’t give two shits about my brother and Brittni right now. Just thinking about it is exhausting.”

“What’s up your ass?” she asks.

“Nothing... I just want a drink.”

The Uber drops Payton and I off at an afterparty for our away game, and even walking up the porch stairs, the tension between us is a match being thrown into gasoline. It’s going to blow up any second now. We’ve never been this distant before. We’ve always been attached at the hip, she knows all my darkest secrets, and I know hers. Yeah, we would have fights about makeup or my missing clothes she stole, but this is different. What hurts even more is that her brain is so attached to Ryder at this point.

I can see it in her eyes when we stroll into the madhouse. She isn’t eyeballing the other guys on the football team, she's watching my brother get himself a beer. She’s invested in watching how he pops off the beer cap with the edge of the counter, the way he sips the foam, and how Brittni is invading his space, grabbing his biceps as she leans over him to grab a red cup.

Payton looks like she is swallowing her own heart and lungs that are threatening to come up her throat. I can’t deal with this. Not when I can’t even sit down next to her and cry about Noah. I haven’t been able to share much of anything. She can’t even study French with me anymore.

I push through her shoulder, and snag a seltzer from one of the coolers and head outside, where orange lights are strung across the yard and the grass smells like it was just tortured this morning. The condensation drips down my fingers, but I stand idly by the beer pong tables, watching a game go back and forth. I’m not much for playing, but I like seeing how competitive the cheer team gets with the beefy football players.

As the ping-pong ball clinks against the cups, Noah’s voice just seeps back into my ears. We can be friends.

Friends.