Chapter Sixteen
Age Twenty
Friday nights are supposed to be spent unwinding with a beer in hand, a pretty girl in your lap, and music thumping so loud through the speakers you can feel the vibration in your soul.
Everyone else got the memo, but I ignored it like it was an assignment I had months to complete. Outside of my dorm, doors slam, random clips of music scream through phone speakers as people walk by. Laughter and an overwhelming mix of body spray and cheap cologne.
I ignore it all and fall against my stiff twin bed with my hands folded behind my head, staring up at the outdated popcorn ceiling. On the nightstand, my phone vibrates and illuminates incessantly, incoming messages from friends wondering where I’m at and if I’m coming out tonight.
At just twenty years old, I have everything I could ask for.
I’m at my top school of choice on a scholarship, playing baseball as their starting third baseman.
On the dean’s list as far as my grades go, and I have a solid group of friends.
A team in the majors ready to pull me as soon as I graduate.
I still talk to Dylan every day—he’s working his way through community college and sticking his dick in anything that moves, living it up with a smile on his face.
But no matter how happy I am, how perfect life seems, my chest feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.
Indy isn’t here.
Indy doesn’t talk to me more than a few sentences here and there through text.
Rolling onto my side, I grab my phone and unlock it, skimming through the messages. Her name sits pinned at the top of my screen, torturing me every time I look at it.
I’ve never told anyone here about her. Not because I don’t want to, but because they wouldn’t understand. A love like this doesn’t make sense at twenty, and it definitely didn’t make sense at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen either.
That was the last time I saw her. When I walked out of her bedroom feeling like I left my heart on the floor after almost giving her my virginity. I should have saved it for her. I was saving it for her. But the finality on her face as she slammed the bathroom door in my face broke something in me.
I lost it a week later, to a nameless, faceless girl in some random person’s bathroom at a house party.
She’s Dylan’s sister, I remind myself for the umpteenth time, the words ringing heavy and permanent.
I close my eyes, my finger still hovering over her name, and try to talk myself out of what I’m about to do. It’s been two months since I’ve heard from her.
Two months and countless deleted messages.
Her laugh echoes through my mind, her smile radiating behind my eyelids.
Like a weak bastard, my eyes snap open, my fingers flying over the touch keyboard on my phone.
Hey.
Hey.
Well that was anticlimactic.
I stare at the screen, willing her response to come through, until it darkens. Laying my phone on my chest, I look up at the ceiling again.
Memories play in my head like a movie, that stupid beating organ in my chest tugging with freaking longing.
I miss her so bad it hurts. We used to be friends—we used to talk daily.
Then we fucked it all up.
Pounding outside of my door pulls me back to the present, but I can’t be bothered to answer. I told the guys I wasn’t feeling it tonight. It’s not my fault if they won’t listen.
“Gareth! Open up, man. Come out with us,” Corbin, or maybe it’s Tony, yells from the other side of the cheap wood. It’s hard to tell which of them it is over the scream-o music competing with their voice.
Regardless, I ignore him and unlock my phone again, my stomach leaping when I see three dots.
She’s responding.
Hey Golden Boy
A smile tugs at my lips as I stare at my phone with a dopey grin. There’s so many questions rapidly firing through my mind, so many things I want to say, but I try to play it cool instead.
Words evade me, and I have no idea what to say. Thankfully, Indy fills in the blanks.
How’s college?
Good overall. Boring right now.
Three dots appear instantly.
It’s a Friday night. Go out.
My chest tightens as I picture her saying that with her eyebrow raised and her lips upturned in a half smile. Her hands are probably on her hips, eyes rolling as she laughs at her own sass.
I wonder where she is right now—what she’s doing, and who she’s with.
Is it selfish to think she stayed in tonight too? Curled up on the couch in an oversized sweatshirt and leggings? The pink hair I love so much pulled up into a bun on the top of her head.
I practically groan at the visual I created in my mind, having used to love the lazy nights we’d all hang out at her and Dylan’s house, watching movies and tossing popcorn at each other.
Wasn’t in the mood to party tonight. Stayed in instead.
Sick?
Lovesick, maybe.
Just tired.
You don’t get to be tired, Golden Boy. You have far too much light to shed on the world.
I stare at the words on my screen, reading and rereading them for far longer than I should. Her sweet words—a contrast from her normally teasing, attitude-filled retorts—almost make me want to hop in my car and make the four and a half hour drive just to surprise her.
That decision would be dangerous.
Hesitating on what to say to that, I steer back to neutral territory, when what I really want to do is peel her back layer by layer and figure out exactly what it would take to make her mine.
What are you doing?
There’s a pause before the dots appear again, but they disappear just as quickly.
You mean who?
A metaphorical bucket of ice water practically drowns me as it’s tossed over my head. I choke on the lump that immediately forms in my throat.
I can’t tell if she’s serious or not.
I’d rather swallow battery acid than think about Indy with another guy. I haven’t touched another woman since that mistake of a night after she rejected me—after I rejected her? Fuck, who even knows. After we drew the damn line between us with a Sharpie.
The vibration in my hand startles me. I hadn’t realized my phone went to sleep. When I look down, Indy’s name’s on my screen.
That was a joke.
Wasn’t. Funny.
Just at home. Nothing special or fun.
There’s a dull ache inside me, and for a second I consider changing my mind and going to meet my friends. Texting Indy may have been a mistake. Everything about this feels off, awkward almost.
Still I find myself saying the dumbest thing I could possibly say.
I miss you.
It feels like I just took a knife and cut myself open, exposing every vulnerable piece of me, but I’m proud of myself for not writing her a damn love letter instead.
What I wanted to say was: Indy, I miss you so much.
All I want is you in my arms, every second of every day.
I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up with your hair fanned out over my pillow.
I want to bring you to ruin every night and worship you until you don’t remember where I begin and you end. Being away from you physically hurts.
But I don’t.
I can’t, for so many damn reasons.
If there’s anything baseball’s taught me over the years, it's patience and discipline. Indy is my person, but it’s just not the right time for us. I recognized that when I was just fourteen years old, and I still know it to be true now.
One day, Indy Archer will be mine, but if the unanswered message is anything to go by, it’s still not our time.
Closing the door on our conversation for tonight makes me want to punch a hole in the wall, but I know it needs to be done. Her silence is deafening.
Have a good night, Trouble.
Powering off my phone, I toss it across the bed and pick up my TV’s remote instead.
It hums to life, flooding the room with the cackling of a live TV audience from an old game show re-run.
I click the up arrow on the remote until I find ESPN and settle in against my pillow while the sportscasters talk in circles about game stats and players.
The familiarity of it all does little to ease my racing mind, and I drag my hand down my face, the ache in my chest only more intense since turning my phone off.
Patience and discipline, I remind myself. Caving and texting her again won’t do anything to speed up the process. I just need to trust that with time she’ll find her way back to me.
I shouldn’t have told her I missed her. It was a moment of weakness—one I should have kept to myself.
The memory of the first time I kissed her creeps in uninvited, torturing me as though I haven’t tortured myself enough in the last hour. I remember feeling like I truly had her back then, even if for just the night.
We closed down the fair, laughing and kissing like all of our problems were solved the second our lips touched.
Another hour passed with us just sitting in my car a block away from her house, just in case Dylan were to look out the window in the middle of the night.
Laughing until tears prickled the backs of our eyes.
Kissing until our lips were swollen and sore.
Then I walked her to the front door of their respectable four-bedroom home, kissing her one more time, not realizing it’d be the last time I’d kiss her for nearly a year.
The next day it was like our time at the fair never happened.
A fever dream. That piece of our story erased from that chapter of our lives.
She never brought it up, and neither did I.
We went back to the friend-zone, and Dylan was put back on his pedestal, slipping back into the number one priority spot.
We are both to blame for our cowardice, but the thing about our story is that I’ve been writing it in pen.
Every single memory with Indy is engraved into my soul.
The commentator’s voice gets louder on the TV as he screams over a highlight reel, the spectators in the stands erupting into cheers as the batter knocks the ball out of the stands.
That right there is why I’m not fighting harder for the girl I spend all my time thinking about.
I’m working on building my life, so we can create ours.
My dream is to play for the majors—not just for the love of the sport, but so I can have enough money to give Indy everything she wants and deserves in this life.
I know we’ll get there.
Like I said earlier, everything’s about timing. Love. Happiness. Opportunity. The home run hit.
One minute too soon or a second too late could cost you everything.
Indy and I have always been in each other’s orbit, circling around each other in an intricate dance. Every now and then we align perfectly just before we drift apart again.
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, counting my breaths as I exhale slowly.
Patience and discipline.
A sharp knock raps against my door.
My pulse spikes instantly as I jolt upright, the sound echoing. I glance at the clock, noting the time. It’s only a quarter past ten, but the hallways quieted down nearly an hour ago, everyone clearing out for the parties over on Fraternity Row.
In a temporary moment of insanity, I wonder if Indy is on the other side of the door.
Another knock sounds, and I toss my feet over the side of the bed. “Just a second.”
My bare feet sink into the ratty old carpet as I cross the room, tossing open the door.
Not Indy.
My stomach drops. “Willa,” I say with surprise. I never would have expected her to be at my door. “What are you doing here?”
How did you know which room is mine?
“Looking for you.” She pushes past me, barging into my dorm. On instinct, I glance around the hallway.
Her gaze sweeps across my space before landing on me. Folding her arms, she hugs herself tightly, pushing her breasts up in her pink mini-dress.
“Why are you looking for me?” I drop back down onto my twin bed, picking up the remote again. Maybe she’ll get the hint and leave.
“You weren’t at Kaleb’s party.”
I stop flicking through the channels and glance at her. “Your point?”
She steps closer to my bed, demanding my attention. The scowl on her face has deepened. “You told me you’d see me there.”
My jaw tightens. You’ve got to be kidding me.
She’s spinning my very casual goodbye when we left class earlier into a promise to meet up later.
Flirting with her a few weeks ago was a mistake.
Asking for her phone number had been an even bigger one.
Even though we’ve only texted a few times, I guess she thinks it’s a much bigger deal than it is. “Willa,” I say, tone flat.
Shutting off the TV, I stand, ready to see her out.
“Why would you say that if you weren’t even going to show up?” she says, the hurt evident.
I drag my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say? Saying ‘see you there’ is practically the same as goodbye. I was being friendly, Willa—”
“Then why did you ask for my number last week?” she snaps.
Jesus fucking Christ. “Look, you seem like a great girl, but you can’t just show up at my dorm and interrogate me—”
“I’m not interrogating you, I just want answers.”
The very definition of interrogating…
Her hands float to rest on her hips, impatience oozing out of her. “Are you taken?”
Her question takes me by surprise. “What?”
“Do you have a girlfriend, Gareth? Because if you do, maybe she’d want to know that you’re leading other girls on.”
I laugh bitterly, my head absolutely reeling over this exchange. The guys aren’t going to believe me when I tell them, but I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.
“I think you should go now.” Stepping around her, I open my door. “I’m sorry you feel like I’m leading you on somehow, but you’ve mistaken my kindness for interest. It won’t happen again.”
Her mouth is slightly agape, probably surprised that I’m kicking her out right now, although I can’t imagine why she’d be surprised at this point. I move out of the way so she can get past me, and after a few seconds, she snaps out of it and goes.
She’s only a few steps down the hall when I shake my head and call out her name. She stops, turning to look at me over her shoulder. “I am taken, by the way.”
I don’t wait to see the look on her face or give her the chance to respond before I shut the door and flip the lock.
Dickhead move, yes. But a necessary one. To immediately assume, whatever it is she assumed, after a couple weeks of flirting in class and a few text messages, tells me all I need to know—she probably wouldn’t have stopped harassing me otherwise.
And honestly, I didn’t lie.
I am taken. Indy might not be officially mine, but I’m hers in every sense of the word.