Page 85 of The Trouble with Players

“I miss you,” Crew said.

“I’m right here,” I said.

“Yeah, but you feel miles away now.”

A million miles away.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“Find a good therapist?”

Silent laughter escaped us. It was all we could do to stop from being leveled by the weight of our new reality.

“I’m not sure your mother knows…” he said.

My mother. My poor mother.

“Are you going to tell her?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I think I need to wrap my head around it first.”

“Fuuuuuuck,” Crew roared, dropping his head back against the wall we leaned on.

I had the same urge to curse the universe that was currently having a field day with us. Why couldn’t we have just stayed enemies? “Have you talked to your mom since you found out?”

He shook his head. “I needed to be away from her. She’d kept that from me my whole life. Even this summer, when she knew I was staying at his house, she said nothing.”

“Did you talk to my—” I winced. “Our father?”

“Don’t call him that. A father doesn’t pay a woman to get rid of his kid.”

I met his eyes. “He did that?”

Crew nodded. “He was furious when he found out about me. He asked her what she used the money for.”

Tears slipped from my eyes. “I’m glad she didn’t do it.”

Crew lifted his thumb and wiped away my tears. “Me too.”

It was wrong of me to rely on him for comfort. But I couldn’t not let him do it. I needed him to. “This sucks.”

“That’s one word for it,” he agreed.

Not wanting to prolong the inevitable, I stood on shaky legs. “I should go.”

Crew stood and followed me to the exit. As soon as we got outside, I knew I’d need to say goodbye to him. To what we’d once been. To my short bout of happiness.

I grasped the doorknob.

“It was real,” Crew said.

I paused.

“Everything between us,” he explained. “It was all real.”

Tears glazed my eyes. And, despite every part of my body yearning to stay there with him, I opened the door and walked out. I prayed my wobbly legs would not give out on me as I made my way toward the parking lot in the darkness.

Once I was inside Gina’s car, I dropped my head to the steering wheel and sobs tore out of me.

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