Page 106 of Where We Belong

Chapter 39

Finn

Imighthavemadea mistake.

Actually, I’m pretty fucking sure I did.

I didn’t sleep a second last night. Instead, I turned and turned, the sheets tangled at the bottom of the bed, all the while replaying my dumb word vomit. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that. It wasn’t supposed to come outat all. Not yet, at least. Especially not before one of the most important days of her life.

But after I saw those registration papers… How was I supposed to hold it in, as if she hadn’t just given me the most beautiful gift I’d ever received? It was impossible. She’d gone ahead and taken the step I was too scared to take, and fuck if that wasn’t the best thing anyone had ever done for me.

After scrubbing my face with water, I look up from the bathroom sink, finding my eyes sunken and my lips pale. “You’ll be fine,” I mutter.

That’s where I’m at: talking to myself in hotel bathrooms.

It’s barely 10 a.m., but already the hallway is noisy with gymnasts and attendees, all heading to the first day of the women’s individual event. Sunlight filters through my room, and as I look at the mussed bed, I picture what it would look like if Lexie had been here with me. After months of sleeping by her side most nights of the week, I’ve gotten used to seeing strands of brown hair on the pillows and untucked covers from how roughly she sleeps. I don’t like seeing this bed without those things. It seems…empty.

Yeah, I’m way too much inside my head.

After getting dressed in my Team Tuffin shirt—fucking cheesy, but it made her smile, and I’m not sure what I wouldn’t do to see her smile—I grab my wallet and key card, then open the door to go grab a bite before I head over to the stadium where the competition will be taking place. Lexie’s not up for at least two hours, so I’ll be able to get there on time.

Except I’m stopped in my tracks when I open the door and an envelope falls right onto my sneaker. It must’ve been tucked in the tight edge between the door and the wall. My knees crack as I squat to grab it, and when I see my name scribbled in Lexie’s messy writing, my heart stutters. Jaw tight, I fold the envelope and stuff it in my back pocket before exiting the room.

I can’t open it now. Whatever she needed to tell me the morning before her competition couldn’t be great. If it’d been good news, she’d have waited until after her performance, which means whatever is in this letter must be an easy letdown.

I try to stay calm as I fill my plate at the brunch buffet, but the simple sight of food makes me want to puke. I settle for an apple, which I eat three bites of before calling it a day and walking over to the neighboring stadium, all the while trying but failing to ignore the grenade in my pocket.

Fucking hell.

I knew there was a possibility she wouldn’t see me the way I see her, even though with all the nights—and days—we’ve spent together, I’d started to think that maybe, just maybe, the two of us could work. She’d agreed to go on a date with me at some point, after all, so would it have been that ludicrous to imagine she could one day fall for me?

I guess that letter will let me know, and because I have a bad feeling about it, I can’t get myself to read it.

In a daze, I go through security and pass photographers and reporters, then wade through the chaos of the stadium to find my seat. The previous competitions I attended were packed, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the World Championships. This is wild. Noise, people, media. Girls of all nationalities are spread out all around ground level, stretching and getting in one last rehearsal before go-time. Since this is the individual portion of the competition, no one is wearing team leotards, different flashes of color all around. Loud pop music is blaring through the speakers as attendees take their seats and all the competing athletes finish arriving and settling in.

It doesn’t take me long to find her. In fact, the moment I start looking, I know where to turn, as if she was calling to me all along.

With large headphones covering her ears, she does some jump rope, still in her sweatpants and SHGC gym sweatshirt. A presenter takes over the speakers for a moment, announcing that the first of the performances will start in five minutes. Lexie’s starting at the uneven bars, and even though she’s not the first one to go according to the schedule, she still stops her jumping and walks to her bag, picking it up and going to a spot closer to the bars to remove her warm-up clothes. Once she’s in just her leotard, a perfect ponytail high on her head, she starts scanning the stands while adjusting her chalky grips, and as if she too has that inner tracker, her gaze finds mine almost instantaneously. Even though I’m high and far away from her, I’d swear I can see a smile touch her lips before her focus returns to the competition ahead.

Lexie’s not a cruel person. She wouldn’t smile at me if she’d just given me the “let’s stick to friendship” talk on paper, would she? Unless that was an “I’m sorry I broke your heart” smile?

Fuck. I need to grow some balls and read that damn letter to get some answers.

Faintly, I hear the presenter announce the official start of the competition followed by loud jazz music that’s probably accompanying someone’s floor routine, but now that I have the letter in my hands again, I can’t bring my attention to anything else. In fact, if I continue like this, I might miss Lexie’s performances altogether, stuck staring at this envelope for an entire day.

Telling myself that Aaron, Lil, and Lexie would probably tell me to stop being scared and just open the envelope, I take a deep breath, then listen to their imaginary voices and do as they say.

Finn,

You didn’t give me the chance to talk yesterday, and while it was a very nice idea in theory to wait until after the competition to talk, I couldn’t imagine waiting an entire day to tell you my own truth, so I decided to write this. (I also didn’t want to risk having you do something dumb like ask me to stop talking again, so this way, you have no choice but to listen to everything I have to say. You’re really stubborn sometimes, you know? Maybe even more than me!)

Even with my hands trembling, I snicker at that. Not a fucking chance in the world, Lex.

As I’m writing this, I’m just about ready to leave my room and get to the stadium. And you know what I realized while I was getting ready an hour ago? That I’d never been this calm before a competition. Not even when I was a kid and the biggest prize to win was a high five and my mother’s smile. And that made me see that, for the first time in my life, winning is not my number-one priority. I have something else in my life I want even more.

I have you.

I pinch my top lip between my teeth as I try to keep the emotion in, because bawling like a baby in a packed stadium is not something I’d be very proud of, but hell if that ain’t a challenge.

---