Page 88 of The Art of Catching Feelings

Randy made occasional comments like that, which Chris tried to respond to in the casual way he would if it were just a teammate teasing him about a crush on the sideline reporter with nothing else behind it. Normally that was enough to get Randy to drop it, until a week or so later when he’d hit him with another one.

But this time, Randy apparently didn’t feel like letting up. “You were pretty worried about her that night,” he said. “Kept asking where she was.”

“It was unusual,” Chris said. “That’s all.”

Randy gave him a long, considering look. “When are you just gonna forgive her, man?”

Thatcomment wasn’t easy to form a casual response to. Chris racked his brain to figure out what Randy could even mean by it. Did he know? But how could he know? Had Daphne said something? He couldn’t imagine her having that kind of conversation with him.

Randy reached up into his locker for some lotion, applying it to the new ink on his forearm. Chris had gone with him as he got a tattoo of his mother’s initials when they’d had a little extra time in San Francisco, and for the first time Chris had wondered if he should do the same thing for Tim. Get his initials, an image that reminded him of his brother, something.

Randy seemed to understand Chris’ silence, because he capped the lotion back up and said, “You told me all about it that night you came over. You were pretty drunk, it didn’t always make sense, but I think I pieced it together. Something about how your text girl and your real girl were the same girl? And then therewas a bit about Daffy Duck. It wasn’t hard to figure out that you were talking about Daphne. Anyway, you wereneverin your hotel room anymore, and you might think you have game, but you don’t have woman-in-every-city type of game. Unless it’s the same woman in every city.”

He tapped his head, like he was Sherlock Holmes for cracking that one. Chris could only stare at him, completely taken aback.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

“Why didn’tyou?” Randy shot back. “Look, clearly you were going through it. I know you don’t always like to talk about stuff, like your brother, and the game. I figured you’d come to me with it when you were ready.”

Once Chris had talked to Marv, it was easier to slowly open up more with the rest of his teammates, let them know what had been going on with him. They’d all been supportive and cool about it, which wasn’t really a surprise. His reticence to share before hadn’t really ever been aboutthem. Several actually shared their own stories of losing family members or friends to suicide, and he had been a little surprised by that part, just how much more common it was than he’d ever realized.

He’d shared even more with Randy, generally about how his weekly therapy sessions were going, how much better his relationship with his dad had been lately. But he’d never talked about Daphne, because she worked with the team still, and he didn’t want to risk making anything awkward or uncomfortable.

At least, he thought he hadn’t talked about her. Apparently that wasn’t true.

“What exactly did I say?” he asked. “When I was drunk.”

“Like I said, it was all garbled. But basically, that she’d lied to you and you didn’t know who she was.” Randy paused, as if considering his next words. “And that you really, really loved her. You said it hurt, how much you loved her.”

Chris closed his eyes. He wished he could say that didn’t sound like him, but…he still loved her.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, I wasall in. And then I found out that she had all this information that I didn’t have, that she hadn’t seen fit to share with me. If I’m being honest, I was embarrassed. I felt like such a fool for not seeing it before.”

“I get that,” Randy said. “But isn’t it just as foolish to throw it all away, just because you’re mad? If you love her, then you should be with her. This isn’t reason enough not to be.”

“I’m not even mad anymore,” Chris said. He hadn’t fully realized it until he said it aloud, but it was true. He hadn’t felt true anger about the situation in some time—weeks, maybe months. Maybe not since those first few days after. “I’m just…I keep thinking about what her plan could’ve possibly been. You know? Eventually the truth was going to come out. We couldn’t have dated forever without me ever getting to see her place, or know her phone number. How far would it have gone? Would she have gotten a brand-new number, just so I never had to know? What about her cat? She wasn’t about to rename her cat, or get a new one. So what’s the only other option? Maybe she never thought we’d make it that far. We’d break up before any of it had to come to light, and she could walk away with a nice text relationship that lasted for a while and a nice friends-with-benefits arrangement that lasted a little while longer.”

“Or maybe she didn’t have a plan,” Randy said. “Maybe it wasn’t that deep.”

Chris sat slumped over, his forearms resting on his knees, while he thought about that. Maybe it wasn’t that deep. Maybe she’d just made an error, a series of errors on the same play. Maybe he’d fucked some stuff up, too. He thought of the way she’d told him she loved him, how open and vulnerable her face had been, the way it had crumpled when he’d thrown the words back at her. He’d made her cry, and god, he hated seeing her cry.

He’d told her then that they were done, not to talk to him except inasmuch as she had to as the sideline reporter for the team. She’d helped lay out the ground rules for their arrangement, and she’d been flawless in following the ground rules he’d set for their breakup. So then why, perversely, was he bothered that shehadn’tfought it a little harder? Why did it make him worry that one of his fears was right, that it was just a sign that she hadn’t been that invested to begin with, that she’d been playing by the rules that they’d set for themselves while he’d gone completely rogue?

“Just think about it,” Randy said. “You don’t have to make any big decisions tonight. Or even before the end of the season.” He leaned down to whisper in Chris’ ear.“Magic number is three.”

Chris laughed, flinching at the way that tickled as he swatted Randy away. “Get outta here with that shit,” he said. “I told you, I don’t want to know.”

—

That night, Chris sat out on his balcony with a beer, looking out over the water. When he’d told Daphne that he barely used his balcony, she’d been appalled. “If I had a view like this, I’d be out here every single morning,” she said when he’d shown it to her that one time she’d stayed over. “And every night. Maybe sometimes in the middle of the day, too, except if it was super hot.”

“And when,” he’d said, pulling her onto his lap, “would you be withme?”

Now, he wasn’t around during the early or middle parts of the day much, but he found that he did like sitting out there at night. And most of those times, he thought about what Daphne had said. He thought about Daphne.

One moment he kept going back to, for whatever reason: the way she’d looked fixing her hair in that hotel room. Wrapped in the white robe that was a little too big on her, her bare feet peepingout, the way she’d had her hands in her hair while she talked about taking more care with her appearance as a way to take more care of herself. There had been something so domestic about that moment, sotender, that he just couldn’t get it out of his head.

He’d read through their text message chain so many times by now, he felt like he could quote parts of it word for word. It was almost unthinkable to him now, that he hadn’t known she was Duckie. Sometimes he wondered if on some level hehadknown, although he knew that was a stretch. He just could hear her voice so clearly in those messages, could fill in all the blanks from both sides of her that he’d wondered about at the time. Her dickhead ex had made her feel insignificant and unworthy of his notice, and she still carried that with her. And then Chris had thrown that back in her face, too, telling herI’ll tell you one thing, though, you’re not boring. Whatever else this was, it was a hell of a ride.He felt sick to his stomach when he thought about saying that to her.

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