Chapter 7 Ari
Ari
Ari didn’t have anyone to confide in. Gracie, the one person who could give her advice on how to be the new team captain, had sustained a career-altering injury, and Ari didn’t want to call her to fret about being handed the kind of job that people spent their whole lives dreaming of.
Her teammates were her best friends, but she played the role of the stable, responsible one and rarely told them what she was worried about.
And because her family was always in the middle of some sort of conflict, she never told her mom, dad, or sister anything meaningful.
Ari only allowed people to see the most polished version of herself. She refused to be anybody’s burden. But even she could admit that silently sifting through the messy details of her life got exhausting. Sometimes, all she wanted to do was talk it out.
The cute American guy on the roof couldn’t solve her problems, but she reasoned that maybe telling a stranger the truth would take some weight off her shoulders.
They’d met randomly enough that she knew she was never going to see him again.
So there was no harm in opening up. As long as he went first.
“So, what’s the big one?” Ari asked. “Your whistle-blaring siren of a red flag.”
“You’ll judge me,” he said, shaking his head.
“I would silently judge you if you told me three months down the line, but we only have … ten minutes left until the new year. I don’t have time to judge you,” she said.
He smiled at that—it was a good smile. Infectious. The side of his face was lit up by the moonlight, and a small dimple appeared on his right cheek.
“Okay.” He took a breath. “I dropped out of college a couple of weeks ago, and I’m pretty sure it’s the worst decision I’ve ever made.”
She could hear the heaviness in his voice, so she decided to lighten the tone.
“Oh, this would never work out then,” she teased. “I graduated first in my class, so I only date guys who finish their degrees.”
Drew didn’t miss a beat. “If I knew I was going to meet you, I would have stayed in school.”
“But if I’m honest, I peaked in secondary school,” she admitted. “And I got a degree in sports science, so…” She shrugged.
“Your destiny is to become a high-school gym teacher clinging on to your glory days?”
“Something like that,” she said, thinking about the Team GB Olympic Kit that awaited her back at Bootcamp.
“Okay, your turn. Anything worse than throwing your career away on a whim?” he asked.
Ari thought about it for a moment, flipping through her rolodex of regrets.
Ari was all for sharing secrets with a stranger, but this was still a Zeus party.
She couldn’t risk telling him too much too soon.
It was a small world where reputations were tarnished overnight.
She couldn’t risk it all for someone she didn’t know.
“Hmm, what will make you judge me…? Oh, I have a good one,” she said. She kept her voice light, but her first secret had been weighing down on her for years. “I once got into a competition with one of my rivals at … work…”
“The long pauses make me feel like you’re not being honest,” he said.
“I’m not lying. I’m just being evasive.”
“Oh, that is something I could get a degree in.” He laughed.
She cupped her hand to her ear. “I think I can hear … alarm bells?”
“If I can admit I’m evasive, then you can hide the details of your story. No judgment if we’re on the same page,” he said.
If this had been a real first date, Ari would have run for the hills. But she was never going to see Drew again, so what was the harm in opening up?
“Okay, so I was in a competition at work. And I wanted to win. So, I did my very best and put all my energy into the … game. But in the process, I accidentally hurt someone. Physically. It could have left her injured for life,” she admitted, thinking back to a fateful hockey match from years ago that troubled her to this day.
“But it was an accident, right?” he said, looking over at her.
“A complete accident. Nobody was supposed to get hurt,” she said, recalling the moment she’d tried her best to forget.
“So, there’s nothing to feel bad about.”
“Oh, but it gets worse,” she said before he could try to make her feel better about it.
“It almost ended the other person’s career but it did wonders for mine.
In fact, that accident changed my life.” Ari felt simultaneously exposed and unburdened.
She’d been thinking about that match ever since she’d heard the news about Gracie.
What were the chances that two injuries four years apart would have such a significant impact on her career?
She searched Drew’s expression, expecting to find judgment in his eyes. But instead, he just nodded.
“Her loss was your gain. I’ve been there before,” he admitted. “I once told a girl that … wait, no. That’s too far,” he said, stopping himself.
But Ari was curious. She glanced down at her watch to check the time.
“Why hold back? There’s only a few minutes left until midnight, and after that, we’ll never see each other again,” she said. “Imagine we’re in a confession booth. If you tell me your secrets, I’ll absolve you.”
He hesitated for a moment before he spoke again.
“I once told a girl, who in my defense I did really like—”
“Said every fuckboy ever. No judgment, of course.” She teased as she watched him shake his head and look up at the sky.
“I dated this girl, Sade … whose dad just happened to be one of the top execs of a football team I was interning at. For the record, that isn’t why I dated her—”
“The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.”
“We were friends for a while before we started dating. I was an intern in their marketing department, and she worked on the social media team. I knew she had a crush on me, so we started dating. But I realized pretty early on that I didn’t like her as much as she liked me.
So, I was about to end things because I respected her too much to waste her time.
But … her dad ran the internship program.
And knew the powerful executives of all of the sports teams in LA,” he said, looking guilt-ridden.
“Oh, this is really bad,” she said.
He looked mortified, but he carried on speaking. As if it was too late to turn back.
“So, I decided to postpone breaking up with her until after I got a reference from him. But then she said I love you…”
“Oh no,” Ari said, her eyes widening. Drew’s face was a portrait of regret. But he couldn’t stop talking.
“I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I said … I love you, too.” He grimaced and held his head in his hands.
“Then what happened?” she asked, grimly curious.
“We were together for a year.”
“Wow.” It wasn’t nearly as bad as her secret, but it wasn’t great, either. “You were together, as in you no longer are?”
Drew shook his head and looked back up at the stars.
“She cheated on me with a football player. According to Instagram, they’re in love.”
Ari put her hand over her mouth.
“I know. It is kind of funny,” he chuckled sadly. “What goes around comes around, I guess.… Wow, this is a terrible first date.”
“Our first and last,” she laughed. “You can’t stop thinking about Sade, and I can’t seem to avoid Harrison.”
“Harrison?” he asked gently.
She debated telling him about her ex-boyfriend, but she didn’t want Harrison to take up any more of her night than he already had, so she changed the conversation. “Okay, my turn to share a secret.”
“Do your worst. But I think I might have set the bar too low.”
“Oh, I can go lower,” Ari said. She hadn’t told her next secret to a single soul. “My dad broke up with my mom when my sister and I were kids. And then he started a new family on the other side of the world, so I kind of hated him.”
Drew looked over at her and nodded. Encouraging her to carry on.
“He knew that I was never going to forgive him, so he stopped making an effort with me. Which is fine.” She shrugged, even though it wasn’t fine.
“He kept sending my little sister birthday cards. But I didn’t want to let him keep getting her hopes up, because I knew he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to make things right …
so I hid every birthday card he sent her from the time I was thirteen until I turned eighteen.
” She was a little shocked at her own honesty.
“That’s…” he said, rubbing his temple, momentarily lost for words.
“A little messed up?” she suggested. Still feeling guilty about it.
“Yeah. But I think I’d probably do the same,” he said. “My grandma has Alzheimer’s and it’s getting worse, way faster than we thought it would. But my sister, who lives on the other side of the country most of the year, doesn’t know. Me and my grandparents are hiding it from her.”
“Why?” Ari asked softly, noticing him tensing up.
Drew took a deep breath. “Because my sister is about to have the most important few months of her life. She’s under so much pressure that I can’t risk making it worse.”
“But?” she asked, sensing there was more.
“But we’ve always been really close, so it feels strange to be hiding the truth from her.”
Ari wanted to ask whether Drew thought he might be denying his sister’s right to make her own decisions. But she couldn’t ask that without sounding like a hypocrite. So, she just nodded. Tonight was about sharing secrets, not giving advice.
“I guess we all do things to protect the people we love,” she said after a moment.
“You don’t have to pretend my red flags are orange to protect my feelings.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m definitely still judging you for lying about loving someone to get a reference from their dad.”
“I’m making a terrible first impression,” he said.
“Me too.”