Page 119 of Game Changer

I’ve been ignoring social media. I don’t have notifications turned on because I don’t want to see anything Mari might be posting about the team, and ditto for Brooke or Chloe, whom I've followed since the wedding.

Except one night when I was out for a double date one of my old friends set me up on. We went to a sports bar, and the Kodiaks game was on. My date asked if I was into sports, and I said no.

“Wade’s a beast, but he’s overrated.”

“No way, he’ll come back this year,” the other guy retorted. “You seen the numbers he put up last week? He’s a machine.”

“I heard he’s a prick.”

“He can be whatever he wants. Still gonna have the entire world lining up to suck his dick at the end of the night.”

With every mention of the star player, my appetite faded away.

Clay didn’t break my heart. He couldn’t have, I reasoned, because we were never together.

But his letter is still buried in the back of my drawer.

It wasn’t meant to be.

I’m not who you think.

We couldn’t have been anything.

Clay’s note passed through Harlan felt crueler than Brad’s letter in the mailbox because I thought Clay and I understood one another. I hated that he wouldn’t tell me to my face. I hated that he let me in, then slammed the door.

He made me feel stupid and gullible in a way I swore I wouldn’t again.

On my way home from the double date, I searched his name.

Still nothing about a trade with LA, though there were low-level rumors the way there are about everything.

Why hasn’t it worked out?

I shove down the question. His situation isn’t my problem.

In between the news articles are images of him in his uniform, in press conferences. I came across one of him with a woman who looks a lot like the one who sent him naked pics in his car.

Damned Kodashians.

I like crunchy peanut butter.

Now you know something they don’t.

Being angry is easier than being crushed.

So, I let myself be pissed for a few weeks in that hard, brittle way that covers up the fact that when it’s late at night and I’m staring at the ceiling, I miss him more than I ever missed the man who offered to put a ring on my finger.

But each day, it’s a little better.

I’m figuring things out. I’m moving on.

“You’re her,” a well-dressed woman says as I finish wiping down at the café.

“Excuse me?”

“I saw your art in a magazine. Your name was listed, and so I looked you up on social and saw that’s who you were.”

She pulls up her phone and shows me.

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