Love and Other Goals (Love and Other #1)

Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

J ust a couple of hours later, Mateo is scheduled to pick me up to go to The Hangout together. As upset as I feel, I won’t bail on my girls at the last minute. I spend the two hours trying to think of every possible explanation for this being a giant misunderstanding, but I can’t construct a convincing argument.

Mateo pulls up in his truck, and I climb inside. Maybe he’ll tell me himself on the drive over, I think. Inwardly, I feel nauseous, but I fight to keep my composure outwardly.

“So, what did you do today?” I ask as casually as possible. I must be acting weird despite my best attempts, because Mateo glances over and looks at me a little funny. Darn it, why did I never sign up for those poker lessons??

“Uh, the usual Tuesday. Bible study, class, worked out and scrimmaged with the team,” Mateo answers, flipping on the blinker before turning into the parking lot.

“Oh, nice. You still seem to play a lot with the guys,” I respond, leaving what I feel like is an open invitation to explain why he keeps playing soccer so much.

“Yeah, it’s been good to keep hanging out with everyone. We should finally schedule that rematch between us and Chris and Andrès,” Mateo says with a smile, putting the truck in park.

“Sure, that’d be fun,” I respond without much enthusiasm, hopping out of the truck. I’m saved from further conversation by Sofia running up to me in the parking lot exclaiming there’s big drama at school to fill me in on. I give a half-hearted wave to Mateo as I follow Sofia inside, grateful for someone else’s drama to distract me from my own.

When the program ends, we’re back in Mateo’s truck driving home. My mind is sprinting circles around variations of the same central question. Why hasn’t he told me anything?

Mateo parks down the street from the AOPi house in the first open spot. The car is still running when he pivots toward me. “Are you okay, Lana? You’re not acting like yourself.”

I bark out a laugh. I’m not acting like myself — yet you can keep acting perfectly normal while hiding something colossal from me, my brain silently retorts. Aloud, I reply, “Actually, I’m not okay. There’s something we need to talk about.”

Mateo clicks on the interior light, then looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak. Normally, his patience in giving me space to process is comforting, but right now it just makes me more upset.

“When were you planning to tell me that you’re going to play professional soccer after graduating?” I ask, while mentally begging for this to all be a big mistake, for Aaron to have been making it up, for it to not be true.

Mateo’s eyes widen with shock momentarily, then narrow. “How do you know about that?”

A tiny grenade goes off in my heart, painfully splintering it into a million fragments. It’s true…It’s true…Why didn’t he tell me?

I swallow hard. “Well, I guess that confirms it. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Jaw flexing, Mateo’s eyes close for a beat before he looks back at me. “I was planning to tell you when I knew something for certain. It’s all still up in the air right now, so I didn’t want to worry you if it wasn’t going to pan out. ”

This is really happening. It feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the interior of the truck. I open the door and stumble out onto the curb, slamming the door behind me. In a flash, I hear the engine turn off and Mateo’s door closing. He’s around to my side of the truck, blocking me from walking away in the time it takes me to coordinate my feet to start moving.

“Lana, stop. Listen to me. I was going to talk to you about all of this once I had some concrete information,” Mateo says, trying to take my hand. I yank it away.

The thread of logic in his reasoning only serves to feed my frustration, making me dig my heels in further. “You don’t think information that potentially impacts my future is something I would want to know about right away?” I throw at him angrily. “Exactly how long have you been pursuing this?”

Mateo purses his lips, and tears sting my eyes. His hesitation is not a good sign.

“Coach Anderson called me about it at the end of winter break,” he finally answers, guilt flashing over his face.

“Two months?” I whisper. “You’ve been planning this for two months?”

“It’s not a done deal, Lana!” Mateo says, voice slowly rising with his own frustration. “It was the beginning of an idea when Coach called. He’s being recruited by a couple of USL teams as an assistant coach, and if he gets hired, he wanted to make it a condition that I get accepted onto a League Two team this summer and bumped to his team next year if I play well. But nothing is set in stone yet—I don’t even know if this is really going to happen.”

“When will you know, huh? Exactly how much notice was I going to have that we may be parting ways after graduation?” I demand.

“This was never going to mean we’d be parting ways, Lana. I would have figured things out,” Mateo fires back.

“But I don’t get to be part of that conversation? I don’t get to decide if I want to figure it out? How long till you know, Mateo?”

He draws in a breath and blows it out. “Over spring break I’m traveling to work out with a few teams. I’m hoping to know something definite after that.”

This is real. They wouldn’t bother to fly him out if they weren’t seriously considering him. I watched him play all year, and I know how good he is. He’s good enough for this. My stomach heaves as my mind races to process.

“I don’t suppose these teams are in Sacramento, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” Mateo admits. “They’re?—”

“I don’t care where they are,” I interrupt. “I just care that apparently you thought I was going to give up everything I’ve worked for the past six years of my life if we were going to stay together.”

“ Lana ! I would never expect you to give up UC Davis. I don’t know exactly how we would make things work. I couldn’t plan that out until I knew where I might be playing, if I would even say yes to playing. But I would never expect you to give up your goals for me.” Mateo runs his hand through his hair to his neck. “I can’t believe you’d even think that I’m capable of that, after all the ways I’ve supported you and proved that I believe in you.”

I start walking away again because looking at the mix of hurt and frustration in Mateo’s eyes is starting to break through my defenses, and I don’t want to let go of my anger right now. He quickly cuts in front of me.

“You didn’t answer my question either, Lana,” Mateo says, eyes narrowing once more. “How did you find out about this?”

Heat springs to my cheeks, and I’m enraged by the embarrassment I feel over finding out from Aaron. Mateo’s jaw ticks as he stares me down. “I can’t believe this,” he mutters.

“Well, I didn’t find out from you, and that’s the point,” I spit out defensively.

“That’s not the only point here, Lana,” Mateo says, rubbing his temples. “I knew I shouldn’t have shared about this with our Bible study.”

“So you’ll share about it with Kent’s group but not with your girlfriend, whose life it directly impacts?”

“I just wanted to have some people praying for me to have wisdom to know what to do, Lana. I already explained why I hadn’t told you yet,” Mateo grits out through his teeth. The muscles in his forearms flex as he clenches his fists. This is the closest thing to angry I’ve ever seen him. “My gut told me not to risk telling Adams about this, and I should have listened.”

“It’s your own fault that I found out from Aaron and not from you!” I exclaim, tightly clutching my fury.

“You’re defending him now? Unbelievable,” Mateo shakes his head and rests his hands on his hips. “It wasn’t his information to share. But Adams has been a shark circling our relationship since day one, watching for signs of blood. I guess he found his chance.”

“This isn’t about Aaron. It’s about you not being honest with me.”

“Aaron made it also about him when he inserted himself into our relationship. Are you going to tell me that Adams didn’t take this opportunity to conveniently remind you of his feelings for you?” Mateo questions, but it feels more like a declaration.

I fidget back and forth on my feet, right fingers aggressively playing an unknown melody against my left bicep.

Rage, hurt, and sadness weave together in a curtain across Mateo’s face. “I knew it,” he says quietly, looking down at the ground.

“Okay, yes, he did try to reiterate his feelings for me, but I shut it down, Mateo,” I explain, feeling flustered.

Mateo cocks his head to one side as he examines my face. “Are you sure, Lana? You liked him for a long time, long before me. Is that door really closed in your heart, or has this cracked it back open?”

A cold, clammy sweat breaks out across my body, and thick tears fill my eyes. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t trust me about this,” I whisper.

“All it took was one conversation with Adams revealing something I shared in confidence, and you come at me guns blazing,” Mateo responds, one eyebrow raised. “I never stood a chance of convincing you that I was trying to do what was best for you by not saying anything yet. He planted that seed of doubt in your mind, and you just latched right onto it instead of trusting me, instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt.”

I can barely see his face at this point, and I press the heels of my hands against my eyes to try to stem the flow of tears. “You think I don’t trust you, and apparently you don’t trust me to handle it if you share about the possibility of your future plans changing. You don’t trust me when I say my feelings for Aaron are dead and buried because I only care about you,” I say, voice quivering.

Mateo throws up his hands and blows out a frustrated breath. “Yep, great summary. I’m definitely the only person entirely at fault here. Glad to know exactly what you think of me.”

Stuffing all my sadness down, I gather up all the inner rage I can muster. “I think we’re done, Mateo,” I say, voice icy. His eyes are red and glisten with tears, but he doesn’t say anything in response. I push past him and start walking down the sidewalk away from AOPi.

“I think we should sleep on this and try to talk tomorrow, Lana, when we’ve both had time to calm down,” Mateo says, jogging after me.

“No, we’ve said all there is to say,” I assert with more resolution than I feel, not bothering to turn around. “We’re done talking. We’re done.”

I hear Mateo’s steps pause, and he calls out, “Lana, at least walk back to AOPi. I won’t get in your way. You can’t walk alone around town after dark.”

Pivoting to face him, I scream, “YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE WHAT I DO WITH MY LIFE!” My chest is heaving and my eyes fill with tears again, so I quickly turn back around so he won’t see. “Don’t follow me!”

I continue speed-walking down the sidewalk, taking a right on the next street to put some distance between us. I hear the faint sound of a door slamming and truck engine starting. The flash of headlights passes behind me, and I lean over and dry heave.

I quickly survey my surroundings and recognize the next street as one where several professors have houses. Seems like a reasonably safe choice to sit and wallow. I walk down and sit with my back against a tree, hidden from the street.

Oh God. Please let this all be a nightmare. A sob gathers in my chest.

He didn’t tell me.

He doesn’t trust me.

He let me go.

I cover my face with my hands and weep.