Page 96 of Playing Games

She’s made it clear she doesn’t want to be with me, and yet, here I am, still trying to chase her down.

“Boden!” someone exclaims from behind me, and I turn around to find a few guys from my team walking toward me.

“What the fuck you doing out here?” Ron asks, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“Just catching a little fresh air,” I mutter, but my eyes are still glancing around the sidewalk and the street in search of the girl who got away.

“Pfft.” Ricky laughs. “Let’s get you back inside, QB. We’ve got some partying to do! Coach gave us tomorrow off, and I’m going to make damn sure we have a good time.”

He doesn’t even give me a moment to respond. Instead, he pretty much drags me back toward the front door, and before I know it, I’m inside the building.

The music is still pounding from the DJ’s speakers at the back of the house. And everyone in the place is laughing and chatting and dancing and partying. They’re carefree and happy and living up the notorious college experience with everything they have.

And everything inside me wants to go to Lexi. Wants to talk to her. Wants to get on my fucking knees and beg her to realize how goddamn good we are together.

My phone is still in my hand, and the urge to text her, to check on her, is too strong to deny. I want to say a million things. But I settle on the simplest option.

Me: Are you okay?

Lexi: Yeah.

Her response is succinct, but it feels like complete bullshit.

Me: You didn’t seem okay, Lex. You seemed upset. I’m worried about you. And I fucking miss you like crazy.

Lexi: Blake, I’m sorry to say this, but you need to stop texting me. I’ve moved on, and you need to move on too.

There it is again. She wants me to move on.

And I’m going to have to learn how to do just that with the giant hole inside my chest I fear will never heal.

Lexi

I stare down at my phone, my last text to Blake the final entry in our chat. I wait for him to respond. I wait for him to call me out on my bullshit.

I wait and I wait, and it’s all useless because I’m the one who just completely pushed him away.

I reread my words, and I hate how cruel and unemotional I sound. It’s the worst form of irony to tell someone to move on when you’re sitting on the subway with tears streaming down your cheeks because of the fact that you just witnessed them moving on right in front of your face.

Blake told me he missed me. And I’d be the ultimate liar if I didn’t admit that I miss him too.

I miss his laugh and his smile, and I miss the way he makes me feel whenever we’re together. I miss his cheesy jokes and the way his face always brightens the room, and I miss how comforting it feels to be in his arms.

I miss our late-night chats and our documentary binges and how he’s probably the only person who could get me to eat pizza that was made in some dude’s dorm.

More tears stream down my cheeks, and even though I’m not alone on the subway, I’m silently thankful that I live in a busy, fast-paced city like New York so that I can blubber in peace without some random stranger asking me what’s wrong.

That’s the thing about New Yorkers; they can certainly be kind, but for the most part, they mind their own business. They don’t even blink an eye if someone decides to take their clothes off in the middle of a busy street and start shouting about the world ending. They simply go about their day and let that person do their thing.

There’s beauty in that. But there’s also pain. Because what I need now more than anything is the exact opposite of what I’d expect or normally want.

Existing as someone with a propensity for being a loner doesn’t bode well during times like these. I’m stuck inside my own head, aimlessly walking through my thoughts and replaying every single moment I’ve spent with Blake over the summer.

I think about all of our conversations and our special moments, and it feels like the worst kind of torture mentally reliving all the highs when I’m currently sitting at what feels like the rock bottom of my lows.

I’ve never felt this sad or confused or upset. And the fact that I don’t have control over my emotions, that I can’t analyze my way out of my feelings, is the biggest kick in the ass. It makes me angry and scared and anxious, and the mere idea of going back to my apartment so I can just sit in my current state of misery by myself is the very last thing I want to do.

There’s only one stop that makes sense for me to even be on the subway, and I stay rooted to my seat, my eyes downturned to my lap, until I get there.

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