by Dean, Ali
I also wanted to be closer to Kick. She was drifting away from me, and it was killing me. When we’d started out after StageFest, I was around most of the time. Kick seemed to be getting comfortable with our relationship. It seemed cool the first couple weeks I was on tour, but after the L.A. show is when I felt her really pulling away. It could have been for one of a million reasons. Swim season and school were back in full swing, and she was busy and focused on that. But it also happened to be shortly after I told her I loved her, so that fucking hurt. She didn’t have to feel it back, but she needed to know as I went on tour and we had to do long-distance, that I was all in.
Phone calls were getting shorter, text messages less frequent, and it had been over a month since I’d seen her. The last time was L.A., and I thought we’d left things okay, but I was getting anxious as hell. I needed to see her, touch her, look at her. I couldn’t fucking wait to get back home tomorrow.
“You still with Kick?” Nolan asked, sitting on the couch next to me and kicking out his feet on the coffee table. He handed me a beer.
“What do you mean? Hell yeah I’m still with her, man. Don’t think I forgot you hitting on her back at StageFest.” I kept it light, but let him know I wasn’t going to tolerate him looking at her like he had.
Nolan had been fine, didn’t get fucked up and didn’t create drama. I didn’t necessarily bond with the guy but he wasn’t a problem. He took full advantage of the women who bombarded us after the show, and I was a little surprised he wasn’t off with them now. I was happy enough for the guys to hook up and leave me be after shows. It probably kept the groupies happy, since I certainly wasn’t doing my part.
“You guys really exclusive? I know you’re not messing around, but you sure about her?”
I stiffened at his question. “What the fuck, man? What are you trying to say?”
“Chill, dude, just having your back. Kick’s a man-eater and she’s after musicians. You’re the real deal now. Keep your eyes open.”
I sat up on the edge of the couch and put the beer down on the side table, turning to look directly at Nolan. “Don’t fuck with me, Nolan. You got something to say, just say it.”
“Look man,” he started, “you’re a good guy. You deserve a sweet wholesome chick. Kick’s not that.”
My arm twitched with the urge to throw a fist in Nolan’s smug face. He threw his hands up. “Hey. Kick and I have a history, all right? I wasn’t gonna say shit but I see you sitting back here after every show, pining. There are hundreds of sweet asses out there begging to meet you, who would get you off and show you a good time in a second.”
Ignoring the rest of the trash spewing from his mouth, I focused on the words that made my heart stop. “You have a history with my girlfriend?” I gritted the words out.
“It wasn’t serious. I played at the Happy Hollow by the Cal U campus about a year ago. I was out smoking in the alley afterward and she came by, all alone. Was looking for a good time, we hung out, hooked up. That was it.”
I wanted to throw that punch now more than ever but I couldn’t. Because the dude could be telling me my own story. About a year ago, in the alley of the Happy Hollow, Kick and I met the exact same way.
I didn’t say a thing, not trusting myself to talk. Standing on stiff legs, I made my way out of the backstage area, walking numbly through the throngs of “sweet asses” lingering around the hallway. I didn’t even know how these girls got back here, but I was like stone as hands brushed up against my arms and stomach, words were cooed my way. I went straight to the tour bus and headed to the back. I got to share this bus with a guy who hooked up with my girlfriend. Sleep right next to him. Awesome.
How many others were there? I knew she was a good-time girl when I met her, and I couldn’t change her past. I couldn’t even be mad at her for that, even though it felt like I’d been stabbed in the gut. It was before we started dating. Despite Nolan meaning to imply she was a cheater, I didn’t buy it. I knew my Fireball, and she wouldn’t do that. But she was pulling away. Why?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kick
It’s Thanksgiving Day and after a three-hour morning practice, we’re free until Saturday. In past years, we’ve stayed on campus and I’ve orchestrated a Thanksgiving meal with the girls on the team. It’s not enough time to go home for the holiday, even if most of campus is gone. Today, I’m ditching festivities with the team to join Jack and his family.
As I pull up outside his house and see him sitting on the swinging bench out front, waiting for me, my stomach churns. I’m more nervous than I was for summer nationals. It’s been over a month since I saw him in L.A. and things have been weird. I didn’t tell him about my freak-out at my first meet, and I haven’t really shared much of anything with him as I work through it all. I’ve been talking a lot to my girls, Shay, Bea, and Coco.
I’ve finally realized I have to tell him about Nolan. The girls helped me see that if he really loves me like he says, then I can trust him with this piece of me. And as I’ve watched things deteriorate, our relationship go backward instead of forward the last few weeks, I see that if I don’t open up, we’re going to blow up anyway. I can choose to break things off with Jack because I’m scared, or tell him and hope it makes us stronger, that he understands.
I’ve been going back and forth, thinking maybe I would rather have him love part of me than see all of me and walk away, but now that I look at him in the flesh, I know what I have to do. As I get out of the car and walk toward him, his gaze on me isn’t welcoming, and that makes me slow my pace. He gives me a tight smile, but his eyes don’t soak me in with the adoration and curiosity I’ve grown to revel in. No, he’s downright distant.
Shit. Maybe the last few weeks we’ve grown further apart than I realized.
He doesn’t get up to wrap me in a hug or kiss me. He just looks at me warily.
“Jack?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”
“You look really fucking serious,” he tells me. “And scared. You’ve never looked scared before. And now I’m fucking terrified you’re about to do something I really don’t want you to do.”
I pause a few feet away from him. “You think I’m going to break up with you?” I ask. After not returning text messages or calls the past few days, except to arrange to meet today, it dawns on me that he might think this. The truth is, I did actually think about it. Mainly because I thought it might be less painful than telling him about Nolan. But I wouldn’t be able to do it. I could never walk away from Jack. He’d have to be the one pushing me out.
“You said it,” he says, voice totally monotone. “We’ve hardly spoken since L.A. Fireball. I miss you so bad it hurts, and I feel like you’re not there with me. I know this is still new, that relationships are new for you, that you’ve got a whole life at college and can’t come to all my shows. I don’t expect you to. But I feel you pulling away. I want to pull you back. I’ll be home and around from Christmas until summer. But now you’re looking at me like something terrible is about to happen and I’m not sure you’ll give me that time with you, no matter how bad I want it.”
Before I can chicken out, I say, “I’m not breaking up with you. But I have something to tell you.”
Jack tilts his head. “Okay.”
I remain standing, too wound up to sit. “It’s about Nolan.” I take a deep breath. “I met him a couple weeks after I met you.”
Jack pushes off the bench, fists clenched. “Stop. I don’t want to hear it. Nolan already told me.”
“What?” The blood drains from my face.
“Nolan told me you met up with him in the alley after the show and you guys hooked up. If that’s what you’re going to tell me, I really don’t want to hear about it.” He sounds pissed. Maybe even a little disgusted, though it’s hard to tell because I’ve never heard Jack so upset.
“But Jack, it wasn’t what you think,” I start to tell him.
He cuts me off. “It’s okay, Fireball. We weren’t together th
en. When we first met back then, you made it perfectly clear what you wanted from me, okay? I get it.”
Now he definitely sounds disgusted. I try to recover from the shock and hurt and attempt to explain what really happened with Nolan but he just cuts me off again. I know I wouldn’t want to hear about him hooking up with one of my teammates either, but can’t he see I’m trying here?
“Can I just explain – ” I try again, but he interrupts me again.
“Have you been with anyone else since StageFest?” The harsh question has my throat closing up. How could he ask me that? Does he really think I would cheat on him?
Afraid I’ll cry if I try to speak, I just shake my head.
“Then we’re good, okay? You don’t have to explain shit that happened before that.”
I blink a few times, my heart wound so tight I don’t think words would come out if I tried.
Jack, on the other hand, seems ready to move past the blow he’s just hit me with. I thought I was the one who was going to deliver a punch, but he beat me to it.
“Look, I don’t want to ruin Thanksgiving. Mom’s got the turkey in the oven and we’ve got a lot of sides to cook. You said you were bringing a bunch of groceries to cook stuff, right?” He starts walking to my car, opens the trunk and pulls out a couple of paper bags filled with food for cooking the sides I’ve planned for Thanksgiving dinner.
I can’t move. My feet are glued to the front porch. My stomach twisted in knots. A cold hand wraps around my heart and clenches with a maniacal laugh. Black spots popping in and out of my vision. I should be running after him, smacking him in the face for being an asshole. Yet I understand his reaction. If Nolan told him we hooked up, he’s not going to want to hear any details from me. He doesn’t know what I’m trying to tell him. Jack thinks I’m just trying to explain it. He doesn’t want to be reminded of my slutty ways, that I used to sleep around before I met him. If I haven’t been cheating, then he doesn’t want to hear about what happened in the past with Nolan.
Holding on to the rails as my body sways and that fuzziness threatens to suffocate me again, I’m able to stop another fainting or panic attack by sitting down before it overtakes me.
Jack’s bare feet come into my line of vision. “I’ll just bring these in and be right back.”
I hear the front screen door open and shut, but even as my vision clears, the tightness in my chest remains.
I find myself standing on shaky legs and walking slowly to my car, slightly dizzy as I open it and slide into the driver’s seat. What was I thinking? Jack isn’t going to want to hear about that night. God, I’m so stupid. I keep thinking about how I used to pretend to fall in love. Maybe that’s what Jack was doing with me.
Sometimes I feel like a shiny toy. It’s exciting when it’s new but after a few times playing with it, the novelty wears off and can’t hold the kid’s attention anymore. You know the kind of toys that are so durable and interesting that kids never stop playing with them? Yeah, that’s not me. And Jack’s finally figured it out, he’s just too nice to turn me away on Thanksgiving Day.
I turn on the ignition and pull away, glancing in my rearview mirror to see Jack standing there, hands at his sides, watching me go. I feel bad I’ll let down Gracie and won’t get to apologize, but this is for the best. I never should have hoped it could turn out differently.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jack
Kick was driving away, just like I’d feared she would. I’d tossed and turned all fucking night, scared as hell that she’d push me away permanently when we saw each other. That she was waiting to see me in person to do it. Then she showed up looking all nervous, and I fucking knew it. But then, she started trying to tell me about Nolan instead. What was that about? I figured she only wanted to push me away like she’d been doing for weeks, slap images in my head that would drive a wedge between us. She didn’t want to straight up break up with me, she wanted to make me do it by pissing me off.
Only, as I watched her go, I didn’t feel crushing pain in my chest like I’d expect, like the ache that had been building with her distance from me. No, I felt a distinct sense that something was off, that I’d read the situation wrong. It didn’t make sense for her to just take off like that on Thanksgiving Day, leaving not only me but my sister and mom too. Kick wasn’t one with a flair for dramatics, at least not emotionally charged ones like this. She’d belly-flop off a high dive for the fun of it, but she wouldn’t peel out of here like that, with no explanation.
And then it hit me. I hadn’t let her explain. I ran back in the house, grabbed the keys off the kitchen counter, and called to my mom I’d be right back as I flew out the front door again and into the minivan. As I wound through the neighborhoods, trying to catch her before she hit the freeway, I almost missed her car parked in the elementary school parking lot. Swinging into the lot, that crushing sensation in my chest hit when I caught a glimpse of Kick in the driver’s seat.
Her head was on the steering wheel and her chest was heaving, like she was sobbing or gasping for air, or maybe both. She didn’t seem to notice me pull up beside her. I hopped out and opened her door. She startled, her head coming up and showing red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. I crammed myself halfway into the seat and gathered her in my arms, accidentally causing the car horn to go off.
Kick didn’t protest as I unbuckled her seat belt, scooped her up, and plopped her down in one of the bucket seats in the minivan, kneeling in the space between the seats and refusing to let her out of my arms.
“Hey, hey,” I tried to soothe her. “I’m sorry, Fireball,” I said softly, stroking her hair. I didn’t understand her reaction. Not really. I’d been a little harsh, sure, but Kick wasn’t fragile.
“What’s going on, Fireball? I’m sorry. I was an asshole. I was upset. You’d been closing me out and when you showed up looking like you were about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear, I panicked. I thought you were trying to push me away permanently and I didn’t want to let you do it. And yeah, I’m upset about Nolan. That hurts. But you weren’t mine then, so I don’t have a right to be mad. I only found out last night so I’m still raw about it. I’ll get over it.”
Kick’s breathing started to slow to normal, and the tears stopped flowing down her face. “I had another freak-out panic attack thing,” she said. “Just now, while driving.”
“Another one? Like at the concert?”
She nodded. “Jack, please let me explain about Nolan, okay? I think that’s why I’m having them.”
A new fear washed over me at this. She looked out the window, away from me, and started talking.
Chapter Thirty
Kick
I tell Jack everything. I want him to have enough details to judge the situation on his own. I start out confessing that I was wrapped up in him, that I drank too much because my encounter with him made me question everything, that I’d even been thinking about calling him, and how much that had scared me. I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip him or blame him, I just needed him to know where my head had been at to get me into the situation with Nolan that night in the first place. And as I explain everything leading up to how I ended up in the alley, a pain I didn’t even know I’d been holding onto starts to ease. I start to forgive myself as I begin to realize that no matter how I ended up in that room with Nolan, and the feeling I couldn’t escape, what he did was his fault, not mine.
I can’t look at Jack as I speak, too afraid of what I might see. Finally, I get to the next morning and the disaster that was the swim meet. And then I tell him what happened at my first meet of the season this year, a secret I had kept from him even when he asked me about the meet on the phone later that day.
“I’m scared I ruined my shot at going pro now. And when I think about that, and how fucking sad it makes me, I know that’s what I want. It’s like I had it in my hands and it got ripped away, and now I know how much I really wanted to keep it. I’m such a fucking mess,” I add, as if it even needs to
be said.
I’m tempted to keep rambling when Jack doesn’t respond after several long seconds. When I hear him take a ragged breath, I finally glance into his eyes and find them wet.
“Fireball,” he croaks. “This is all my fault. Why didn’t you say anything? If Nolan hadn’t shown up again in your life, you wouldn’t be having these panic attacks. God, I’m such an idiot. I should have noticed your reaction to that little shit back at StageFest. I’m so sorry.” He repeats the sentiment over and over until I finally put my finger to his lips and pull him to me so his head rests on my chest. My hand runs through his hair, and a calmness I haven’t felt in a very long time settles in my bones.
When I realize I’m the one comforting him, a light giggle escapes my lips. Jack raises his head. “You’re laughing,” he says in wonder.
“It’s just,” I say on a sigh. “I was so terrified to tell you. I thought you’d be disgusted with me. But instead you think it’s your fault somehow. I think I might be in love with you, Jack Kingston.” The words come out so easily, so playfully, neither one of us appreciates the weight of my confession for a few seconds.
When it sinks in for Jack, his mouth is on mine, his hands in my hair. An overwhelming desperation to have him completely and immediately takes over, and I reach for him, touching him over his jeans.
He stills, and the absence of his tongue in my mouth has me whimpering pathetically. “Please don’t stop,” I breathe out.
