Page 84 of Nothing Like the Movies

You’re responsible.

Because I was. It was just a fact.

I leaned my head back and remembered that phone call like it was yesterday. It’d been two days before the exhibition game, myfirstfreshman year, and I’d told him, “I don’t think you should come.”

“Save it, Wesley,” he’d said dismissively. “Your mom and I are leaving in a few hours. The car’s gassed up and everything.”

I remember taking a deep breath and powering through the words, forcing myself to do it. I didn’t want to hear him lose his shit, but I needed it for my mental health. I’d said, “Please don’t come. It’s just an exhibition game, Dad—I don’t want you to spend the money for a game that doesn’t count.”

“A game that doesn’t count?” he’d come back with, sounding agitated. “Do you know who you sound like right now? Like a pitcher who’s gonna blow it in the exhibition game. This game counts themostbecause it’s your first time on the mound in college.”

I’d been so stressed at the time, so nervous I was going to let everyone down, that I kind of snapped.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” He wasn’t even there yet, and he was making me more stressed about a game that I was already out-of-my-mind stressed about, and it’d been too much. “I’m just saying you guys don’t need to drive twenty hours for it.”

“If I don’t make the drive, kid,” he’d insisted, “who’s going to make sure you’re ready? Not your coaches. They’ve got you doingyoga and writing in goddamn journals instead of throwing the baseball.”

“Dad—”

“And not you. No, you’ll be playing grab-ass with the redhead instead of focusing—”

“I don’t want you to come,” I’d blurted, yelling over the phone even though I’dneveryelled at him. “Okay? I’m already stressed about this game, so the last thing I need is you in my head. Just stay home for this one.Please.”

“Listen, kid, you’ve got to channel that psychological nonsense and stop being a pussy. Do you think—”

“Just stay away, okay, Dad?”

I rubbed the back of my neck and stared into the fire, still able to hear the argument like it’d just happened. I’d sounded exactly like him when I shouted, “You’re the worst part of baseball for me, and I dread seeing your face in the stands—is that what you want me to say? Because it’s the truth. I don’t want you there.”

It was dead quiet after I said that, and my heart had been pounding out of my chest. He was going to go apeshit on me for talking to him like that.

But… he didn’t.

He didn’t sayanything. I could hear the TV in the background, so I knew he was still there, but he didn’t say a word.

And then the call was disconnected.

“Screw this.” I stood and poured water on the fire, my gut roiling as sweat beaded on my forehead in the cold breeze.

I didn’t drink anymore, not really, but tonight was an emergency.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“I’m the exception….”

“You aremyexception.”

—He’s Just Not That Into You

Liz

“I promise I’ll come back sooner this time.”

I sat beside the mums, wiping away my tears. The tears that wouldn’t stop.

I’d never meant to stay away for so long.

After I’d come home for Christmas my freshman year and everything terrible happened with Wes, I had jumped at the chance to go on spring break with my roommate a few months later. The thought of seeing Wes had been unbearable, and thankfully my parents had been cool with the trip.

---