Page 58 of Last Slice of Pie

She shrugs one shoulder. “I’ve had time to reconsider things.”

“Reconsider things.” I shake my head like she’s lost her mind. What’s there to reconsider? The problem now is, the more I think about it, the more I don’t know. I tried to be with him. I did—with our different lives, in different cities, with different life problems—and I don’t think we fit. I don’t think I fit, and after last weekend, I feel pretty confident I’m not what he needs.

In reality, he’s left me twice now, and I’m not sure I could handle it a third time.

When we were graduating from high school, I knew he and James were headed to college early, but what no one but Bryan and I know is that he didn’t even bother to say goodbye to me.

I thought we were friends—hell, he had to have known he was more than a friend to me, but even that didn’t matter. He had put the flashlight on, and like the lovesick girl I was, I went. After wrapping himself around me for the entire night, he was gone when I woke. He left a note in the kitchen and surprised all of us by deciding to leave a week earlier than James. GiGi seemed okay with his eagerness to get started. James just shrugged his shoulders; he didn’t care, because it wasn’t goodbye for him. But me—I was devastated. After all that time, all those years, clearly he didn’t think I was important enough to tell in person. A wave, a look, something . . . confirmation that he held me in some kind of higher regard—nope.

He broke my heart that day, and you’d think I would have learned my lesson. Sure, over time, the sting hurt less. I told myself he’d done it to make things easier, but it wasn’t easier for me, just for him—just like now. At some point I have to accept that this is the way things are. No matter how much or how long I’ve loved him, he’s never going to love me back like I deserve to be loved, and I have to tell myself that’s not okay. I deserve to get in return what I give, someone’s whole heart, because that’s what I’m offering. It’s who I am, and as much as it pains me to finally admit this . . . we just aren’t meant to be.

Kumquat Refrigerator Pie

THE PLANE IS loud as teammate after teammate boards and takes a seat. The conversations are animated, the laughter is boisterous, but as hard as I try, I can’t find it in me to feel even an ounce of what they are feeling. All I see in my head is her face after I broke her heart, and all I hear is her telling me she loves me.

I knew she loved me the way you do when you care for someone you’ve known for a long time, but I should have paid closer attention. Every day, whether it was something she did or something she said, she was wholeheartedly loving me, and I’m the dumbass who was too self-absorbed to notice. If I had, maybe I would have handled things differently, or maybe I wouldn’t have. I’ll never know. Instead, I pushed away the one and only person I’ve ever wanted love from.

She told me she loved me.

I shake my head and look down at my phone.

I’ve dreamt of hearing her saying those three little words more times than I care to admit, but not once did it play out with sad tears in her eyes, tears that were because of me, not for me. My heart aches, and I reach up to rub my chest.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to smile a little. After all, we just won our conference championship game and are headed to the Super Bowl. The. Super. Bowl,” Jack howls as he stops at my row, grins, and punches me in the arm. I wince at the slight pain he’s caused, which makes him laugh.

“I know we’re going to the Super Bowl—I’m just still in the zone. I’m thinking.”

He looks past me at the guys farther back, to the front at the guys horsing around, and then back at me. His eyes narrow and his brows draw down. Over the last week, I’ve caught him watching me curiously, just like at Reid’s for New Year’s Eve. He’s never asked or even hinted that he suspects something is up, but I’m pretty sure he does.

“Thinking about what, exactly?” He tilts his head.

Everyone is celebrating. It’s not lost on me that I’m the only one who’s not, and as he looks at me, he’s definitely seeing there’s more going on in my head than just the game, the win, and what’s coming up next. I haven’t told him about Lexi and me, but I’m certain he knows now, and as much as I know I shouldn’t be thinking about her right now, should be celebrating with my teammates, I can’t help it. My heart’s not in it like it should be.

“What’s coming next,” I semi-lie to him. Yes, I am thinking about the next game, the game, but I’m also wondering what’s next for her and me. After all these years, all this time of wanting her from afar, is this really how I’m going to let us end? I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know anything.

Well, except for the fact that I broke the heart of the only girl I’ve ever loved. Yes, I am man enough to admit that I love her, because I do; I’m just the idiot who never told her. Instead, I told her I loved something else more.

I am such an asshole.

Seriously, I’m as dumb as a post.

“Bro, tonight you just need to turn it off and enjoy this with your friends. This is everything all of us have ever worked for. It’s okay to be happy. You deserve it.”

“I will.” I look up at him. “I promise. I just need to decompress more.”

“Decompress.” He lets the word hang in the air between us and then flattens his lips together while shaking his head. “You’re lying to me right now. You forget I know you.”

I let out a sigh, break eye contact, touch the screen of my phone—which I’ve been gripping like a lifeline—and stare down at the photo of Lexi and me from New Year’s Eve. “Have you ever wanted something so bad you feel mentally and emotionally stunted?” I raise my eyes to look at him again. He’s watching me closely, and I don’t even care. “Well, that’s me right now. I just need to process, if you know what I mean.”

He nods, but his gaze is sharp and thoughtful at the same time. I can see he’s wondering the same thing I am: am I talking about the big game or her? I’m not going to clarify, so on that note, I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes, hoping he’ll leave me be and sit somewhere else. I want him to enjoy this. He should be enjoying it, and with me, he won’t be.

After a few seconds, the sound of him patting the seat in front of me twice tells me he’s leaving, and I let out another sigh . . . only the seat next to me wobbles immediately after, and this time I feel the impact as a heavy weight lands in it. I crack my eyes and see that it’s Reid. He tosses a homemade granola bar in my lap and proceeds to open one of his own.

“Oh man, do I wish Camille were here right now.” He leans back in the chair and sprawls his legs out underneath the seat in front of him while grinning from ear to ear.

I give him the side eye to let him know he’s officially crossing over into too-much-information territory, and he laughs. He’s so happy, just like the rest of them, and I desperately wish I felt the same.

“Not for that, asshole. Because I’m overjoyed, thrilled, and I want to share this with her.” He shoves a third of the bar into his mouth and starts chewing.