Page 158 of Catch Me
“You felt something,” I insisted.
“I’m not heartbroken, if that’s what you think. You showed me who you are, and that’s that.” He shrugged. “We live and learn. It was my mistake.”
My heart shouldn’t have felt like it stopped working. It was lead in my chest, heavy and lifeless. I refused to let him see how I felt, so I fashioned a casual expression and stepped to the side.
“Yeah, I guess it was just some dose of nostalgia when I saw you yesterday,” I said. “We don’t have to avoid each other or anything crazy like that. Things are straight now.”
He looked at me for another moment, then he strode to the door. When he stopped, I thought my heart was going to leap through my throat. But as soon as I opened my mouth, I found myself at a loss for words.
Nothing had changed. It hadn’t done any good. He hadn’t even let me say any of the things I’d agonized over this entire time. He just didn’t care, or if he did, he’d never tell me.
Leaning back against the wall, I closed my eyes and begged my heart to beat again, begged my lungs to work so that I could breathe.
I remembered those two months when I was desperate for him to respond to me. Desperation was something I’d been used to my whole life, and I’d always managed to smother it. Even when I had moments of weakness, I could bottle it all back up and turn it into anger. It felt better. It hurt people, but that was easier to deal with than what was inside of me.
The desperation I felt in those two months hadn’t gone away. Not until I forced myself to let go. I was an idiot for coming here, because that was exactly what I felt all over again, and it wasn’t good for me. I could probably deal with the anger and find a way not to give into it. This ache, though, wasn’t something I could control.
After the first week in January, I Googled if it was possible to start falling for someone in three weeks. That was a bad idea, because apparently, you could. The connection could form immediately. Some people said they fell in love during their second date and were still married twenty years later. That pissed me off.
It wasn’t just three weeks, though. I was intrigued the first time we met, then I reached out to Til to get Travis’ number, telling myself it was to ask for an update, but I was too nervous for that to be allit was. There was one night at his house and a meeting with Pete. Texts that just said ‘hey’ because all he had to do was respond, and suddenly, breathing felt right again, as crazy as that was.
I wanted it gone. I thought itwasgone, or maybe I’d just found a better way to lie to myself. It didn’t feel like that would work again. I could solve every puzzle in that escape room, but I was beginning to understand that there really was no solution to this one.
The door creaked, so I opened my eyes and stared at his back. “You asked me why I drew you so much.”
He stopped with his hand on the door, but he didn’t say anything.
“I draw you because something inside you calls to the parts of me I spent my whole life trying to kill.”
“And my eyes? Did you ever figure out what was in them?”
“Yes.”
He stayed there for a few seconds. When he accepted that I wasn’t going to say anything else, he left the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, I slid down the wall and took a breath that felt wrong. His scent was in here, and I knew that it didn’t belong anymore, but I wanted to capture it and never let it go. I wanted to do what I should’ve done ten months ago. I wanted to fall apart all over again, just like I had that day, but this time, I wanted to let him catch me.
Yet, here I was, shattered on the floor again.
Chapter 52
Travis
I threw my glove at the wall and dropped onto the bench. Hanging my head, I gripped my hair tightly and tried to breathe.
“Hey, we can still do this,” Jude said.
“In two innings?” I scoffed and looked up at him. “No use being positive.”
“You’re always positive.”
I dropped my gaze to the ground. Coming in here today, I was. Losing the first game wasn’t that big of a deal and we could make up for it. With every inning, though, I felt annoyed, and it was turning into anger.
“We’re at bat next,” he noted. “We can finish out the seventh strong and keep them off the bases next time.”
“McKinney,” our coach, Spencer, called. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
“I think his arm is sore today,” Anthony taunted. “Too much of...” He made a jerking motion with his hand, and I leapt to myfeet.
