Page 271 of Heartache Duet

Without discussing it, we settle in for the evening, his arm on the couch behind me as we watch a stupid amount of true crime. I ask, “How’s basketball going?”

He shakes his head. “Last season was kind of a shitshow, to be honest. I wasn’t really motivated, and it showed. My agent was pissed. He kind of dumped me.”

“Dumped you?”

“Yeah, as a client,” he says, nodding. “I’m trying to fix it, though. I spent the summer getting extra training.” His eyes lock on mine. “I think this season will be different.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “I got my passion back.”

I bite my lip, break our stare. “Is that why you didn’t declare for the draft?”

“How do you know I didn’t?”

Shit.

I point to the TV. “Oh, look. Blood!”

CONNOR

“What?” Ava whispers, her eyes narrowed. “Why are you staring at me?”

I can’t stop smiling. “No reason.”

She goes back to watching another person get murdered, and it feels like the first time. Like the time she was in my car and she called me a good-looking jock. Back then, what I’d felt for her was nothing more than a crush. I never thought that we’d end up here, that I’d be in this deep.

Because I’m still crazy about her.

Hopelessly.

Endlessly.

Crazy in love with her.

Her eyes are wide, unblinking, as she stares at the TV. Loose strands of curls curtain her face. I reach up, pull one aside so I can see her more clearly. I’m ogling, fascinated by every inch, every curve, every quiver of her lips when she inhales a breath. Then she turns to me, slowly, and I can tell that she’s nervous, that whatever is going through her mind right now has her hesitant. “So… this place where my mom is…”

I swallow. “Yeah?”

“Um, the doctors and therapists there—they’re really great.”

“That’s good, right?”

Nodding, her gaze drops, her voice quieter when she says, “It only took them a couple of weeks to diagnose Mom with bipolar disorder and mild schizophrenia.”

My eyes widen, my breath catching in my throat, but I try to hide my reaction. “Well, at least they know now… it means she can take the right medication and get the right kind of—”

Ava’s nodding cuts me off. “Yeah. They suspect that the head trauma caused a lot of it; add that to everything else she was already experiencing…” She inhales a huge breath, lets it out slowly. “It kind of explains a lot, especially with how quickly her moods could switch.”

“Yeah,” I breathe out, thinking about all the time I’d spent with her, all the different versions of her I’d witnessed. “But she’s good now, right? Like, stable?” I don’t know if I’m using the right terminology, and I hope it doesn’t offend her or take away from her mother’s mental health in any way.

Ava nods again, then lowers her gaze. “They also diagnosed me with PTSD...” My chest tightens at her words, a lump forming in my throat. I open my mouth to speak, but she beats me to it: “I just thought you should know, because… because you’re looking at me a certain way and—”

“How am I looking at you?”

“The way you used to,” she says, her voice strained. “And maybe you shouldn’t be doing that, because I’m not the same person I used to be, Connor. I’m not that girl you fell—”

“You’re right,” I interrupt. “You’re not that same girl. Not even a little bit. Because you’re so much more.” I lift her chin, force her to look at me through her tear-stained eyes. “Ava, a label isn’t going to change who you are, and it’s not going to change how I feel about you or how I look at you,” I tell her, sitting taller. “But a label is going to help me understand you more… and, really, it’s not that surprising.” I shake my head. “I mean, after everything you went through and everything you saw, you witnessed…”

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