Choosing You (Gravity Hill #3)

23. Chapter 20

M y head pounds. The sunlight pouring through the window illuminates our room.

His empty bed.

Hurt, shame, and anger swirl in my gut as I replay our talk last night. Fuck him. “Fuck him ,” I snarl out in a choked scream. He should have left me alone when I ended things years ago, moved on, and met someone new. We wouldn’t be here today if he had.

Jumping down from my bed, my knuckles connect with his bed frame before I can think better of it. The wood pops but doesn’t splinter, mocking me. Henry’s sturdy, he’s resilient. I’m the one who can’t move on, who holds everything so close to my chest now that it aches with pressure.

I need to move my body, or I’ll simmer in this rage and lash out at the first person who crosses me, feelings be damned.

Shoving my feet into the first pair of sweatpants I can find, I lace up my sneakers and throw on a t-shirt. My gym bag has everything I need, so I sling that over my shoulder and put my headphones on. I don’t want to talk to anyone, and I pray the headphones will be a deterrent.

Keeping my head down and my strides long, I make my way to the weight room I know will be empty on a Thursday morning. There’s no phys ed toward the end of the week, so the football players can use the equipment freely, and our coach can do whatever it is he does.

Walking into the weight room, I spot a Smith machine and decide doing squats until I can’t feel my legs is my best option. After filling my water bottle, I locate the proper weights and lift them onto the bar. Once they’re secured I set my stance and unlatch the bar, going down into a squat, holding for two, and coming back up. The burn in my quads feels nice, and my music plays absolute bangers to work out to.

After a few sets, I walk over to the closest bench and replace the weights with the ones I used on the Smith machine. I should probably have a spotter, just in case. The thought of death crosses my mind, but I close my eyes, lift the bar, and do it anyway.

Hands grip the bar after I’m a few reps in, reracking it. Running my tongue along my front teeth, I open my eyes and will the motherfucker to go away using only my death glare. Instead, he rips my headphones off.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Jax is pissed, and I guess if roles were reversed I would be too.

“Working out,” I answer as deadpan as I can manage through deep pulls of breath while I sit up.

“Yeah, without a spot? There’s no one in here, what if you dropped this on your neck? Huh?” He throws his hands up in the air and they settle back on his hips. “Do you think I want to call Pops Diego and explain to him how his only fucking child died on campus doing something stupid?”

“Don’t–” I warn, but he continues.

“You would do that to him? After Mama–”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Jax,” I stand up, crowding his space. He has no idea how my dad would feel if something happened to me. He doesn’t understand because he’s never been through a loss of that magnitude. He’s still got his parents and siblings. Nothing’s ever been taken from him.

Not the way it was taken from me.

He shoves me away from him and shakes his head, turning around to leave. That’s when I notice some of the other players are with him.

“You know,” he stops, turning to face me with his arms crossed. “I would have been there for you, but you disappeared. We could have gotten through it together. You were my best friend.”

“ You didn’t lose everything that night.” My voice rises with every word as I add, “ I did. You couldn’t have helped me.”

“I guess we’ll never know since you never gave me the chance, but don’t you dare say I didn’t lose anything that night.”

His words punch a hole straight through my chest because he’s not talking about my mother.

He’s talking about me.

He lost me.

What he doesn’t understand is, I lost me too.