Page 75 of For Three Seconds

That’s when I noticed that they seemed sober except for me.

“Did you guys get me drunk?” I asked. Audrey was texting, but she gave me a guilty smile.

“You weren’t opening up to us.”

“Friends take care of each other. Always.” Delia put a pillow on her lap and patted it.

I felt tired. A type of tired that was from years of running. I laid my head on her lap while she played with my hair.

When I woke up, I was in my bed, and I wondered how I got there. I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest, and thought about what Audrey said. I needed to clear my head, so I changed into running gear.

When I walked out of the room, a shirtless Ollie was in the kitchen, grabbing some juice.

“Hey,” he greeted me.

I waved.

“I put you to bed and you can’t say thank you?” he teased. When I stayed quiet, he kept going. “You’re coming to our game Friday?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should come. If we lose and people find out it’s because their wide receiver was moping over his girlfriend…well, things won’t be pretty.”

I shifted. “I’m not his girlfriend.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” he said before he went back to Delia’s room.

I watched him go. He had zero tattoos, and Delia looked like a work of art.

Shaking the conversation out of my head, I started to jog. I cleared my head, the same question on repeat.You keep punishing yourself for what?I wasn’t punishing myself. I wasn’t—but the more I told myself, the more it felt like a lie.

When I got home, I remembered the box Isaac had handed me yesterday at therapy and got it out of my car. I was walking into the house when Nick’s car stopped in the driveway. He was in running gear already.

“Damn, I came to see if you wanted to hit a trail with me,” he said by way of greeting. He came to me, hugged me, and kissed my head. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever. You’re good?”

“I’m okay,” I told him.

“What’s in the box?”

I stayed quiet, not sure what to tell him. For some reason I didn’t feel like lying. Nick motioned for me to sit on the front step of the house.

“You and Gavin, huh?”

I turned to look at him, shell-shocked that he knew.

Nick laughed. “Can’t say I’m surprised, you know. Saw the way he looked at you, but he was with Gigi—by the way, I’m sorry for giving her your number.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Gavin talked to me…” Nick trailed off, and we both just sat there in silence. “I miss them.”

I sucked in a breath because we never really talked about our parents. The pain was already immense. Why add to it, right?

“Me too.”

“Sometimes when I’m working on plays, I wish Dad was here so I could run it past him. Or for Mom to be here and talk about boy stuff with you.”

“Me too,” I croaked.

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