Page 61 of Faking the Play

I left without waiting to hear if they had anything to say to that. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care, not about anything. Not when I hurt like this. Before, it’d been a breaking of my heart, but this was more than that. It wasn’t even a shattering. No, this was like my entire heart had been ripped from my chest, leaving a raw, bleeding hole that I could only hope time would heal.

I somehow made it back to my dorm room without anyone stopping me. When I saw that Megan wasn’t there, I threw myself onto my bed, buried my face in my pillow, and sobbed. I let it all out because when I was done, I wouldn’t cry for them again.

I wouldn’t feel anything for them ever again.

Chapter thirty-three

Ethan

When I dropped the second pass in thirty minutes, I let out a scream of frustration, followed by a string of curses that would’ve done Samuel L. Jackson proud. I didn’t need to see everyone looking at me to know what they were thinking, because I was thinking it too.

I was fucked.

What made it worse was that I knew why and couldn’t do a damn thing to fix it.

It’d been nearly three weeks since Amelia walked out of our apartment, and I hadn’t smiled or laughed since. Even if I had, it would’ve been faked. The only thing I’d felt since then, besides misery, was anger. Anger at myself, at Amelia, at Ryan and Logan. At Jason fucking Hunn. It was all I could do to get through classes and practice without breaking something. If Hunn were still at school, I probably would’ve beat the shit out of him already, and that wasn’t how I usually handled things.

“What the hell, Blake?!” Terrick shouted. “Get your head out of your ass!”

I actually took a step in his direction, like I was going to do something stupid, but then Ryan was in front of me.

“Don’t.”

He just said a single word, but it was enough to turn my attention from Terrick to him.

“Why not?” I snapped. “I’ve been playing like shit, so it’s not like I have anything to lose. I’m one fumble away from being benched.”

“Because Terrick’s a good guy and you’ll hate yourself if you take out your anger on him.”

Ryan sounded reasonable, but his eyes had the same hopeless look to them that I knew mine did. And for the same reason.

All of that rage emptied out of me, leaving me feeling deflated.

“I don’t really think I could hate myself more than I already do,” I said quietly.

Before Ryan could respond, Logan was there. He clapped a hand down on my shoulder. “Come on, Ethan, we need to focus.”

“You’re one to talk, Carter.” Otto came up behind us. “You’ve fucked up more plays this practice than you did at our last game, and that’s saying something.”

Logan’s face flushed, but he didn’t argue, because Otto was right for once. The game the other night had been bad, but instead of pushing us to do better, all three of us had gotten worse. Forgetting plays. Getting distracted. Dropping the ball.

Literally in a lot of instances.

“We need to get our shit together,” Logan said. “We have to move past Am—past what happened. We had plans before, and we let…thingsget in the way. We can get back on track. Get back to what matters.”

“Signing with the NFL.”

Ryan said it like he wanted to be sure what Logan was talking about, but I didn’t need the confirmation. Logan had made it pretty clear that he wanted nothing more than to pretend likeour time with Amelia hadn’t happened. The dark circles under his eyes and the shit way he’d been playing said that he hadn’t managed to convince himself yet.

“Carter, Blake, Thompson!” Coach Hobkins shouted. “Get your asses over here! We need to talk!”

“Fuck,” Logan grumbled. “What now?”

Ryan and I kept our mouths shut as we followed him over to the coach. We seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Keeping our mouths shut and following Logan’s lead. Actually, we’d done it since we were kids, because we trusted him.

Except it had been his leading that took us away from Amelia the first time, and I couldn’t help wondering if things would’ve gone differently if that hadn’t happened. If one—or all—of us would still be with Amelia.

Thinking about her and our childhood together brought back the last words she’d said to us.

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