by Maya Hughes
I stepped forward, ready to pound the shit out of this asshole. Kara wrapped her hand around my arm. “Heath, don’t.”
“Is this what you do now? This is how you get your rocks off? Fucking students.”
She tensed beside me, and I shook her hands off, closing the distance between me and this asshole in two steps. His eyes got wide, and he glanced around like he was looking for someone to help him out. Declan and Mak had been following behind us but stopped to talk to another teammate.
“Don’t you ever fucking talk to her like that again.” I stood at my full height, which was a few inches taller than this guy.
“Heath,” Kara said my name and put her hand on my back. I shrugged her off. This was the same guy from the night in the rain. The one who’d been so close to her. Who’d been giving her crap since she turned him down for a date.
That this asshole even thought about touching her made me want to explode. I wasn’t going to let him say a single thing about her. She was the most selfless, warmest, and most caring person I’d ever known. She’d been my rock for the past week, and there was no way I’d have made it through this without her. If this fucker wanted to say something about her, he’d be in for a rude awakening.
“I can say whatever the hell I want.” He puffed out his chest like he thought he could intimidate me.
“You can say it, but you don’t say it around me and you sure as hell don’t say it to her,” I growled and leaned down to meet him eye to eye.
His face went white as a sheet, but he kept his feet planted.
“Do you want to call off your attack dog, Kara? Or is he only good in bed?”
My hand shot out before I could stop it. His eyes got wide as my fingers wrapped around his neck and tightened.
There was a commotion beside me, but my tunnel vision meant I only saw one person. This asshole.
“I’ll have you expelled for this,” he rasped as his throat worked against my grip.
My blood pounded in my veins, and I lifted my other hand ready to take this taunting piece of garbage out. If I was getting expelled, might as well make it worth it. I balled up my fist, lifting it. I was ready for impact when Kara wedged herself between us.
My fist missed her by an inch. She jumped back, and shock reverberated through me. I dropped the asshole. He collapsed to the ground and scurried away on his hands and feet like a crab.
“Heath.” She reached for me, but I jerked away. I’d almost hit her. The scene around us came back into focus.
My mom looked back at me with wide eyes. Nausea soured my stomach. He’d pissed me off so much that I’d almost hit Kara. If she hadn’t jumped back, or I’d let myself continue to be blinded by the anger, I could have hit her. Intentional or not.
I leaned over, digging my fingers into my thighs. My chest was so tight, I could barely breathe. Everyone around me was in a tunnel, and I was at the far end of it, falling fast.
Kara ran her hand over my back, and I flinched. Snapping up straight, I stepped away from her. She stared back at me with a stricken look in her eyes. I couldn’t look at my mom. I couldn’t meet her eyes again. What would she think of me? The yawning hole I’d thought I was climbing out of got a hell of a lot bigger.
“Heath, it’s okay. He’s an asshole. Don’t worry about it.”
“No.” My voice came out harsh and gravelly.
“Heath.” She reached for me, and I backed up, banging into Declan. I glanced over my shoulder at him and Mak.
“He doesn’t matter. I don’t care what Jason says or who he tells. This is more important.”
My heart pounded. I couldn’t let her throw away her future on me. I didn’t even recognize myself at the moment. “No, it’s not. This was a mistake, and it was going to end one way or another.”
Her eyes got wide, and her lips parted. The ones I’d lost myself in night after night quivered.
“I’m ending this. You saw what happened with that guy. He’s one guy. What about when the rest of your department finds out and your advisor, like you were worried about? What happens five years from now and someone finds out you were with someone you taught? How does that affect you?”
“I don’t care. I’m not worrying about anyone else. I’m worrying around you.”
She reached out her hand, and I dodged her touch. “You shouldn’t. You don’t need to be involved in any of this.” Protect her. That’s one of the last things he’d said to me, and I couldn’t even do that.
“It’s not about needing to. It’s about wanting to.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to.” I stared at her and steeled myself around the way her eyes tried to peel away the armor I’d thrown on. Bouncing off Declan and Mak, who stared at us wide-eyed, I turned and stalked off. Turning back wasn’t an option. I’d see the look on her face, and I’d crumble.
This was stupid. I should turn around.
Protect her. His words echoed in my head, and I couldn’t escape them.
The only thing she needed protecting from was me. I was the train wreck, but she was the one getting derailed. The team would suffer for this too, if Jason said anything. I had to remove myself from the equation. Get my head on straight and hope that I could figure this out. Find a way out of the raging surf and back onto dry land.
My feet slapped against the street on the way to the house. Throwing open the front door, I grabbed my gear and went to the stadium. Maybe skating myself into oblivion, I’d be able to get to sleep without the gentle thrumming of Kara’s heart against mine. Maybe I’d forget I’d just cracked my chest open and taken out the only thing that was keeping me going.
29
Kara
I don’t know how long I stood there. Mak’s soft touch on my arm made me jump. My gaze whipped to hers. The sympathetic look in her eyes told me I hadn’t hallucinated what happened. That the disappearing figure in the distance was Heath and he had broken up with me. Not that we’d been together. We weren’t, were we?
A few days of emotionally wrought comfort after a death didn’t exactly signal this was a long-term thing. He’d been on board with us keeping our distance until the semester ended, but this felt different. Final. I sucked in a shuddering breath. Who’d blotted out the sun on the bright barely spring day? Or maybe it was the blindside that made it hard for me to see past the man who’d trailed his fingers along my skin every night for the past week and made my words flow freer than they ever had before walking away from me.
“Kara…” Mak’s words trailed off, and she glanced over her shoulder to Declan and Heath’s mom. I squeezed my eyes shut. Embarrassment, shame, anger warred for the front and center spot, but despair won out.
They couldn’t help this. No one else could. Everyone was already dealing with so much. I wasn’t going to add to everything going on.
I forced the corners of my mouth up the slightest bit.
“I’m okay, Mak. I’ll be okay. I’m wiped, and I’m sure you guys are looking forward to that pizza. Going home is probably what I need now. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Taylor.”
“Please, call me Theresa. I...he...” Words failed her, but they hadn’t failed me. They were fighting, clawing their way out of my chest, and I swallowed them down. With a quick hug, she ran off after Heath.
Mak wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me tight. I hugged her right back. It had been nice having a fellow outsider around while all this was going down, but there wasn’t a need for a comrade anymore. I’d be shut out.
“He’s upset. His head is a mess. I’m sure he’ll figure out what a moron he is being.” Mak leaned back with a gentle smile tugging on her lips. “Try not to go too hard on him when he comes crawling back.”
How did you make someone crawl when you wanted to run to them and jump into their arms? The tears I’d kept at bay during the service threatened to break free. Only now I wasn’t crying for their lost friend, I was crying for my tattered soul.
“I promise.” My voice wavered, and I blinked hard.
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She nodded and slipped her hand into Declan’s. Her head rested on his shoulder as they walked away from me. Seeing their closeness and support of each other was a stinging blow. A breeze rustled the leaves in the trees. I stared up at them and wrapped my arms around my waist. The walk across campus felt a hell of a lot longer than it usually did.
I stepped out of the cab and up to the front door of my house completely numb. It was like I was watching myself from above. My keys jingled in my hand, and I composed myself before opening the front door.
“Hey, stranger.” Mom passed by on the way to the kitchen. “Why are you in that dress?” She stopped in front of me.
“I was at a memorial service.”
“For who?” Her voice went up an octave.
“It was for a friend of a friend on campus. I went for moral support.”
She tugged me close, and I breathed in her soft cocoa-butter scent. “Why didn’t you tell me? That was so nice of you. Do you need to go back out?”
I shook my head when she let me go. “No…I think they’ll be okay now.”
“Did you want something special for dinner?” She held onto my hands and squeezed them. Concern was heavy in her eyes.
“No, I’m not really hungry.” My voice was dull and flat. Letting go of her hands, I climbed the steps, ignoring her looks of concern. Each step settled the weight of what I was about to do even heavier on my shoulders.
The soft carpet under my feet wasn’t like the hardwood in Heath’s. The faint smell of leather and sweat mixed with Heath’s scent didn’t fill the room. In my room, it’s comfortable familiarity filled me, but it felt off. Like walking into a cloned existence where everything was the same, but different.
My composition book peeked out from under my pillow where I’d left it. Digging into my bag, I grabbed a pen, uncapped it with my teeth, and dropped onto the bed. The words I’d been scrawling across his skin when we were wrapped up in each other came pouring out of me. Like a torrential downpour that couldn’t be stopped, my fingers flew across the page. My tears joined in with the words, melding them together and making them one as I filled each piece of paper with every emotion I’d held back until I hit the last one.
There weren’t any other books. No scraps of paper. My gaze darted to my laptop sitting nestled in the bag I’d barely touched over the past week. I slipped my hand inside and took out it out.
This wasn’t something I could hide from anymore. The words in these books were real. As real as anything else in my life, and locking them away wasn’t going to help. Baring my soul and writing until this well of turmoil was drained dry was the only thing that could help me now.
It wasn’t until the sun set that I slowed down. The words were still there in the background, but they weren’t so loud and unavoidable that I couldn’t even think straight until they were out in the world.
Mom wrestled me away from the computer for a little bit to eat dinner with the rest of the family. The darting looks of concern made me want to fold in on myself. After shoveling the minimum appropriate amount of food into my mouth, I excused myself.
Coming up the stairs, I stared at my desk. I closed my door, grabbed my computer and sat at the smooth, shiny wooden surface. My fingers shook as I opened the drawer and took out the pieces of folded paper I’d tried to block out of my mind. Smoothing them out on the desktop, I traced over the looping slant of her writing and opened up the hidden folder where I’d had the emails sent.
She hadn’t stopped sending them. I covered my mouth with my hand to choke back the rising emotion in my throat. Her monthly messages for me sat waiting on my screen. I clicked on the most recent one. The screen blurred as even more tears joined the ones I’d only stopped shedding. She was blowing out candles on her birthday cake. I glanced at the date. Less than two weeks ago. How had I forgotten that? It was like I’d made myself forget. Pretended until I hadn’t needed to pretend anymore.
She was surrounded by friends. There was a healthy glow to her cheeks and a twinkle in her eye that I’d never remembered being there before. And a sadness too. That I’d remembered well. I closed that one and went back to the first unread email she’d sent after I’d called off our meeting.
There was always at least one picture inside. Her own photographic journal or testament to the fact that she was in a better place. That she was a different person than the one I might remember. The numbness seeped out of my fingers, and I rested them on the keyboard.
If there was anything this week had shown me, it was that we could never predict the future. There were things that happened in life that blindsided us in any number of ways. The only thing we could do was try to live our lives so that our future selves would be robbed of the chance to what-if anything. A life without what-ifs.
That didn’t mean pain and heartache didn’t go hand in hand, but I wasn’t sorry I’d raced after Heath when he’d shown up at my classroom, and I sure as hell wasn’t sorry that I’d been there for him when he needed it. That what-if was taken care of, and my flayed wounds would heal.
Angie was another what-if. If something happened to her or hell, something happened to me… Preston’s death had shown me that age didn’t make anyone immune from the grip of death. This was something I needed to do to wipe away those doubts, those questions, and words I’d kept locked away for years.
The words appeared on the screen as my fingers danced across the keys, typing out all the things I needed to say. I needed to know that if we met, she’d know what I needed from her. What I deserved from her before we could start anything new. My finger hovered over the enter key. I closed my eyes and stared up at the ceiling and the constellations that came to life in the dim light of my room.
Heath...my heart ached thinking about him. I couldn’t process it. His retreating figure. The finality of his words.
I tapped send and closed everything down. Crawling into bed, I gave myself a pass. Tomorrow, I’d I started making plans for the rest of my life. It would be one without a single what-if. But for now, I buried my face in my pillow and cried until my breath was ragged and my throat was raw. Crying tears for the guy who’d helped me see who I really was and what I could become and then left me behind.
30
Heath
The skating didn’t work. I could barely feel my legs, but it didn’t help. Exhaustion didn’t do anything to blank my mind. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely unlock my car door. I wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit.
My phone vibrated across the dashboard. Declan. Again. His worry was the only thing that compelled me to answer. That cold tendril of fear that snaked itself around your neck when someone you cared about went missing wasn’t anything I’d inflict on anyone.
“Hey.”
“Jesus, Heath. Where the hell have you been?” The worry in his voice sent another barb into my stomach.
“I’m at the rink.”
“Still? I checked there first.”
I’d figured he would, so I’d stayed away for a while to make sure I didn’t run into him.
“I drove around for a little bit first.”
“Are you coming back to the house?”
“I—I’m going to go for a drive.”
“I don’t think you should be driving, man.”
“I need to clear my head.”
“We have a game tomorrow.”
“I know. I’ll be there. The bus doesn’t leave until noon. I’ll be there and ready.”
“You sure you don’t want me to meet you wherever you are?”
Mak’s low voice murmured in the background. I’m sure she thought I was the biggest douche to walk the planet after what I’d done to Kara.
“Nah, it’s fine. I need to handle this on my own.”
“Do you want to talk about Kara?”
“No.” I ended the call and threw the car into reverse. The headlights washing over me got fewer and farther between as the hours ticked by. Refilling my tank in the middle of the night,
I drove with no place in mind. Only away. Running away from the raw ache that threatened to crack my chest wide open.
And then I was at the spot I should have known I’d come to. A place I hadn’t been in a long time. The beach. The last time I’d seen the crashing waves and heard seagulls cawing, it had been clear across the country. A night where I’d curled up in a ball on the sand and prayed my mom and I would survive. I hadn’t been to the Jersey Shore, ever. I’d been close a few times, but usually the drive was enough to ward off whatever demons were chasing me. The respite of the wide-open space and nature’s soundtrack hadn’t been needed once we moved. The memories were too strong there, but now I needed something strong enough to push away the fresh ones. The ones where I’d repeated the same mistakes all over again and hurt the one person I was supposed to protect.
Shifting gears, I let the hum of the engine create the soundtrack of white noise I needed to block everything else out. Across the Ben Franklin Bridge, I kept going, needing the rolling waves to calm me. The signs for Shore Points was usually where I turned around going back home, but I couldn’t this time. I needed to lose myself in the oblivion of something far larger than me.
I don’t know how long it took me to get there, but I got there, and sitting on the hood of my car, I leaned back again the thin, warm metal. The crashing waves over the dunes brought me back to California. When I hadn’t been at the rink, I’d been at the beach. Anything to get out of the house. Whether it was a board or ice under my feet, I could race toward the waves or the net and feel like I was safe.
Moving across the country meant I’d left the beach behind. That was where I’d gone in the middle of the night when the yelling and shouting got to be too much. When I was seven, I’d climb out my bedroom window, take my bike and ride to the beach. Sitting out there as the waves crashed, I’d watched the sun rise more times than I could count.
Tugging my shoes and socks off, I set them on the hood of the car beside me and rolled up my pants. Kara’s face when I’d told her it was over would be etched into my brain forever. The sand came right up to the edge of the street, and I hesitated before taking that next step. The small, coarse texture scraped against my feet. I walked the path leading over the dune to the water.
