Page 157 of Can't Always Get What You Want

Focus.

Focus.

Easier said than done.

I walked out of Nova’s apartment three days ago, and it hasn’t stopped eating away at me since.

She didn’t say she loved me. She didn’t stop me from walking away. Stood there, arms crossed, mouth parted and let me leave like I hadn’t laid my whole damn heart at her feet.

For a second time.

Whatever.

I don’t need a woman like that.

But what I really did was leave her standing in a room full of unspoken nothings—the things she was about to say before Gio barged in. Yes, we had it planned but I hadn’t gotten to hear what she was about to say and now I never will.

Every play is muffled.

Every bruised rib I gain from being slammed into the boards—they’re all punishment for what I already know deep down:

Nova Montagalo doesn’t love me back and it’s been destroying me.

Eating me up inside.

Parker slaps a pass my way. I fumble it. Again. I can feel Coach’s rage like a heatwave against my back. Gio actually swears from the goal.

“Jesus Christ, Luca!” he barks. “Get your shit together!”

I want to. God, Iwantto.

The buzzer blares and we head off the ice for intermission.

The locker room is tense.

Coach is red in the face. Skaggs throws a water bottle at the wall and it ricochets like one of my passes, not quite making it to the trash.

No one looks at me, but I feel the weight of their judgement.

Gio’s the last to come in, yanking off his helmet and wiping sweat from his face with the hem of his jersey. He walks right past the bench, right past the whiteboard, and drops onto the seat beside me like a boulder falling from a cliff.

"Hey," he says, low enough that no one else can hear. “You alright?”

I don’t answer.

No,I’m not fucking okay. I’m a wreck pretending to be a guy pretending to be fine but not hiding it well.

Gio sighs. “She call you yet?”

I shake my head.

"You think she will?"

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

He studies me. Bumps his shoulder against mine like he’s my big brother, too. One who doesn’t know how to say the right thing, but will give you shit regardless of how you feel.

“You’re playing like total garbage,” he says.

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