by Maya Hughes
“Mak! Stop!” His heavy footballs thudded behind me as I flew down the stairs and out the front door. But I didn’t stop. My name carried on the wind as he called after me.
I took off down the street and kept going. My legs screamed as I pushed myself harder, trying to get to my apartment as quickly as I could. Cutting through campus was easier than waiting for a taxi, and I wasn’t going to stand outside his house, waiting for one to arrive. I hadn’t even remembered until I was halfway across campus that my car and keys were at his place. My mind was a mess.
Sliding on the frosty grass, I skidded across the lawn. Running over the syllabus for the class in my mind, I tried to figure out the percentages. Maybe I was wrong. But the longer I ran, the clearer it became. There was no way. There was nothing I could do to get a B+ in the class.
I’d be kicked out of the joint program because I let myself get sucked into this college crap. Have fun! Don’t worry so much! Make mistakes! Well, I had, and they’d led me here. My heart was hammering against my ribs like I’d run a marathon. The panic overwhelmed me. How would I tell my parents?
What would I do now? I could apply to a med school not in the program in a year. It meant losing that time and the extra money. How could I let Daniel down like this? I was supposed to be looking out for him. I was supposed to be able to give him this dream. I’d failed so many times before. I had to stop in front of the library and fell onto a bench, my tears blinding me.
Sticking my head between my knees, I let the sobs overcome me. They broke free of my chest like everything inside me was cracking in two. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have left Stanford. I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Declan in the first place. Every warning arrow and signal all pointed to stay away, but he had been too irresistible.
“Hey, are you okay?” Someone walked up to the bench. I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands and nodded. A sharp gust of wind shot across the open area, and I tried to keep the tremors running through me at bay.
Mom and Dad were home now. I’d have to tell them I’d let them down. Let them and Daniel down. Picking myself up, I made my way to the apartment. I was pretty sure there were multiple reports of a sobbing woman racing across campus made to the campus police.
Bursting into my apartment, I startled Fiona and Tracy, who sat on the couch.
“Hey, Declan came looking for you,” Fiona called out as I strode into my room and gathered up some stuff. I uploaded the paper and clicked submit on the webportal, even though the giant red warnings said that the paper was late. Slamming my computer closed, I squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to pack a bag. I’d take a taxi to my parents if I needed to. The bus also got close enough.
He would be back. I needed to leave and go home. See Mom and Dad, let them know everything that had happened. The only thing worse than facing them was having any conversation with Declan. I couldn’t do that now.
With my bag over my shoulder I hurried to the parking lot, stopping short when a tall, green-eyed monolith stood in my way, leaning against my car. He pushed off the black metal and stalked toward me.
I dropped my eyes and charged forward. He’d driven it back, so he had my keys.
“Mak, where are you going?”
“Away. I’m going away. Can I have my keys?” I held out my hand.
“Why are you running away?” He followed me back to my car.
“I’m not running away. I’m going somewhere I can focus. Somewhere where I’m not distracted. Can I have my keys please?” I couldn’t look at him. He set the keys gingerly into my hand. I jammed them into the lock.
“Somewhere without me.”
“Somewhere without you,” I parroted back to him.
“You can’t just leave, Mak. Don’t run out on me.”
There was a tremble in his voice, but I didn’t turn around to look at him. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain in his words. Each pained inhale like a razor to my heart.
“I’m sorry about the alarm. I didn’t think we’d sleep so late.”
“Neither did I.” I shook my head and tugged the door open. “I’m sorry I blew up at you back there. It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have gone out last night. You didn’t make me drink and you didn’t make me oversleep.” I wasn’t going to touch on the land mine of the other thing he hadn’t made me do the night before.
Declan’s hand wrapped around the top of my door.
“Let me help you fix this.”
I peered up at him, and my heart squeezed at the crestfallen expression on his face.
“There’s nothing you can do. I…I’m not going to be around as much and I know you’re busy with the team and stuff now, traveling all over the place, so I think it’s best if we just focus on our futures and don’t let ourselves get distracted.”
I stared into my car, shifting my bag on my back.
“I’m not going to let you run away like this. We can figure something out.”
I dumped my bag into the passenger seat. “Don’t worry, Declan. I already turned the paper in, not that it matters.” A weight settled on me that made it hard to breath.
“You think I care about the paper? Mak, look at me.” The pain in his voice made me slam my eyes shut.
I couldn’t look at him. If I did, I’d break again. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and let him tell me it would be okay. When I was in his arms, it felt like that might actually be true, but I knew it was a lie. It was a mirage, and I’d fallen straight into it headfirst. “It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for fixing my life.”
“And you’re not responsible for fixing other people’s. You can’t think that if you can be that perfect girl, you’re going to fix all the broken things in the lives of the people around you. You still think you have that kind of power and you don’t. All you can do is hold onto anything you need to be happy.” He stared down at me, his gaze searing the side of my face, but I kept my eyes straight forward, sticking my key in the ignition.
“Thank you for the advice.” My voice cracked, and I jerked my door. His hands dropped away from the top of it as I slammed it shut. Throwing my car into drive, I sped out of the parking lot, unable to keep myself from looking. I glanced back in my rearview mirror. Declan stood in the middle of the lot, staring after me. He stayed there watching me go until he disappeared from view.
The sharp sounds of my sobs punctuated the crisp, silent air in the car. I had to pull over after fifteen minutes. Squeezing my hands around the steering wheel, I punched it as tears flowed down my face.
Why can’t I just be normal? Why can’t my mistakes be no big deal? It seemed when I screwed things up, I had to be as thorough as I was with everything. And I’d managed to implode two of the best things in my life, but it seemed like they couldn’t coexist together. Declan McAvoy wasn’t compatible with my life plan because he made me think I deserved to be happy, and I knew that was a lie.
28
Declan
Standing in the middle of the parking lot watching Mak leave was like watching a part of my soul run away from me. The best part. My vision dimmed, and it was hard to breathe, like someone had sucked all the air out of my world. The temptation to chase after the car warred with what little pride I had left when it came to her.
I don’t know how long I stood there, but it was long enough that the midday sun didn’t sting my eyes anymore. Long enough for at least two people to come up to me and ask if I was okay. No, I wasn’t okay, not even a little bit.
My heart just drove off in a Honda Fit.
I’d fucked up, and she shut me out.
Like she could snap her fingers and everything that had passed between us melted away.
Like she could wipe away the feeling I couldn’t stop having for her.
Every mile she put between us was like another barb sunk into my heart.
I walked back across campus in a fog. She’d left me. I’d asked her not to go, and she had.
Grades were important to Mak.
Anyone who met her knew that as a fact, but she acted like every missed mark was a reason to hate herself. Like if she enjoyed life too much, it was wrong.
It wasn’t until my fifth missed goal during practice that the looks shot my way. I gritted my teeth, ready to tell them both to fuck off, but the look in Preston’s eyes shut me up.
Mak left. The way she drove off…once the numbness wore off, it left behind a raw, angry spot. One I kept needling by staring at my phone.
By the time the two of them flanked me on the ice, I didn’t even fight it. I was playing like shit. Not even with the worst hangover in my life had I ever been this screwed up on the ice.
We had a game in a few days, and I couldn’t get my head on straight. I swore Heath must have gotten me geared up and on the ice, because I didn’t even remember doing it.
When they dragged me to the bench, I didn’t even try to pretend to be okay. I shook my gloves off.
“What happened with Mak?” Preston shoved my shoulder, so I dropped down onto the bench. I jerked my head back and stared at him.
“How did you know it had something to do with Mak?”
“Only she could have you pouring off waves of sadness, frustration, and anger to the point that your game play is shit. Do you need to hit something?”
My hands were balled up in fists, and I unclenched them, running them along my padded legs.
“No, he doesn’t need to hit something. He needs to get this shit out in the open so he can feel like he can breathe again.” Preston and I peered over at Heath. He shrugged. “You do. You came home like a freaking zombie after racing out of the house and screaming Mak’s name down the street this morning. Seems to me that you probably need to talk it out.”
Why does he have to be so infuriatingly right so much of the time?
I dragged my hands through my hair, tugging on the strands. Giving them the CliffsNotes version of our wake-up call from hell, I ran my hand over my forehead.
“I don’t understand her. You saw her last night. She almost never lets herself have fun like that. She’s never that relaxed and smiling and laughing, at least not as long as I’ve known her. And now with this, she’ll never let herself go again. It’s like she thinks every time she laughs or is happy, a puppy gets murdered or something.”
“Maybe she likes being that way. She likes trying to do her best and doing well,” Preston said, resting his head on the top of his hands, propped up on his stick.
I shook my head. “It’s not like that. She doesn’t enjoy it. How can you have a life where you’re never allowed a few hours, even a few minutes to enjoy the things around you?” The tight-chest feeling was back, and it had nothing to do with the sweat pouring off me from the drills on the ice.
“Like she doesn’t think she deserves to have fun and go a little crazy. She’s the only one holding herself to a standard that high. She’s the only one thinking everything she does is never good enough. It hurts for me to see her punishing herself for living.”
“What can you do about it?” Heath leaned against the boards inside the box. The rest of the team whipped around the ice behind him.
“What do you mean?”
“Can you change her? Can you make her do anything?”
I squeezed the back of my neck and came to the heartbreaking conclusion, shaking my head.
“No. I can’t. But I can try to make her see that there isn’t a way for her to fail. It’s not in her DNA, but that doesn’t mean she should shut everyone else out.”
“Shut you out,” Preston added. I shot him a look, and my shoulders slumped.
“Yeah. She shouldn’t shut me out.”
“This thing with Mak is the real deal, huh?” Preston sat on the bench beside me. “I mean, she’s got you knuckling down to wrap up school. You don’t even go out and party after away games.” Preston sounded impressed.
“No interest, man. Not even a little bit. Those away games suck because I don’t get to crawl into bed with her after. I don’t get to wake up beside her.”
Heath laughed and pushed off the wall, sitting on the other side of me. “I never thought I’d see the day.” He clapped me on the shoulder.
“Shoe’s on the other foot, huh?” Preston knocked his shoulder against mine.
“It is.” Only this angry burning in my chest wasn’t how I wanted it to be. It helped push down the fear. The fear of what would happen if she didn’t come back to me.
We always gave him shit for not going out to party, but he had his girl back home. He told us we didn’t get it. Now I did. More than I ever thought possible, I completely understood what it felt like to have no interest in anyone but the person who walked around brightening up every room they walked into.
As much as I loved her. The words, even in my head, were like a boot to my heart. I loved her. Those feelings that bubbled up at night when I watched her sleep or when I sat beside her studying were exactly what scared the shit out of me. I loved Makenna Halstead, and she’d left me.
As much as I loved her, she might not love me back. Not like I loved her. Maybe I was a playful distraction, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I finished practice only moderately terribly. The coach was ready to intercept me on the way off the ice when Heath and Preston intercepted him. I owed them both a beer.
“Should have known it was a fluke.” Archer’s gruff voice bounced off the walls in the tunnel as I almost made it to the locker room.
As if my fucking day couldn’t get any worse. My hand clenched into a fist as I whipped around to face him.
“What the hell do you want?”
“You thought you were hot shit after that game, but I knew you’d find a way to screw things up again.”
The fire in my gut that had been burning since that long walk across campus dissolved. Poof, just like that it was gone. I looked at him with new eyes. He was a sad shell of the all-star he’d once been.
“You know what? Part of me was doing all this so I could stick it to you. Show you that I didn’t need you and that I could be a better player than you.” I jabbed my stick in his direction. “But you know what I just realized?” A calm settled over me, even though Mak had ripped out my still-beating heart. She’d also shown me that I could win even with him watching. If I didn’t care about him one bit, he didn’t matter.
His chin jutted out. “What?”
“I don’t give a shit about you. I’m not doing any of this for with you. I’m doing this for me.” I jabbed my finger into the center of my chest. “I’m doing this because I love being out on the ice and I love being with my team and I am a hell of a player. I’m done trying to prove anything by comparing myself to you. You’re nothing. A sperm donor who fucked his career and is hoping and praying that he can relive those glory days forever. Have at it, but I’m not going to let you rule any part of my life ever again.”
As the words fell from my lips, a weight lifted off my shoulders, and I knew Archer’s cloud wasn’t going to follow me over my career. Whether I got his number or not, it didn’t matter. Because he didn’t matter. This was about me. I was doing this for me.
He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t even care what it was. I backed into the locker room and let the door slam right in his face. Because fuck him, that’s why.
By Monday the calm I’d felt walking away from Archer outside the locker room was long gone. I didn’t care that she’d walked out on me. She was hurting, and I needed to help her fix it. She’d helped me figure something out in more ways than one. I couldn’t do what I did for anyone else but me. I needed to do it or I’d always be wrapped up in what happened in someone else’s head. But just because I was doing it for me didn’t mean I didn’t want her by my side every step of the way.
I was ready to go out of my head. Even Heath snapped at me to just call her or see her because I was driving him up the wall. Like I was walking into the fiery pits of a volcanic eruption, I crossed campus to the library.
The old musty smell wasn�
�t one I’d appreciated before, but now it reminded me of her. Jabbing my finger into the button out of muscle memory, I pushed back the nerves that almost forced me to turn around. The only thing worse than not finding her there would be finding her there. The distance in her eyes the last time I saw her still clawed at my heart.
The ancient elevator groaned and shook until it dinged, the doors sliding open to her study room floor.
It wasn’t as quiet as it usually was. Every table and chair was covered with books, notebooks, and laptops. This was why Mak had freaked out about getting a study room. Being stuck outside with so many distractions would have driven her crazy.
My shoulders slumped as I peered into the small glass window beside the door to her room. It had been a long shot. I’d missed her after every one of her Monday classes because of my exam times. Her roommates hadn’t seen her either. Leaning against her door, I banged my head back, trying to think of a way to see her. The dull thud reverberated through the wood.
The door beside hers popped open, and a bright head of hair poked out, followed by a big smile. Anna? No. Angela? No. Angel. Yes, maybe she’d seen her.
“Angel, right?”
I swore her smile reached all the way to her ears. All teeth. I felt like I should be practicing for a dental exam.
“Yes.” She nodded and took the two steps between us in a rush, nearly colliding with me. I stepped back.
“Have you seen Mak around in the past few days?”
“Why? Has she disappeared on you?” Her face morphed into mock sadness, and she rested her hand on my forearm.
Her flirting had been fine before because I liked it when it pissed Mak off, but I wasn’t even a little interested in her. Pointedly staring at her hand, I took a step farther away.
