Chapter 2
LOGAN
This lemon square is like actual crack.
I look down at it in my hand and swear it could make all of my worries disappear.
Nothing else matters right now except this lemon square.
“Falling off the wagon already?”
My bliss is interrupted as my roommate and best friend, Kai, bumps his shoulder against mine.
“Kai…” I lick the powdered sugar off my fingers, trying to hold onto the last vestiges of my joy. “Really not the time to be vague when I’m halfway through the best damn pastry known to mankind.”
Kai snorts. “It’s a well-known fact that breakups make you gain weight.”
I shove him. “Screw off. It has fruit in it, so it’s healthy.”
I can never stay angry at Kai for too long. He just has a heart of gold, and it always shines through, even when he’s teasing me.
Part of his charm is his strikingly handsome appearance, with caramel-colored skin, an angled jawline, and thick eyebrows. I try not to remind him of it too much because he already has enough guys and girls fawning over him.
Still, hearing him mention my breakup with my ex-girlfriend, Mikayla, rattles me. It’s already been six months since my knee injury and a few months since Mikayla broke up with me, but it still feels like it all happened last week.
Kai gives me a more serious look beneath his thick, dark eyebrows. “But how are you feeling, man? You know, with… everything.”
Where do I even start?
How am I really feeling after my ex-girlfriend broke up with me because I got injured and will most likely never become some pro hotshot football player in the big leagues?
As good as I ever could be.
Kai is trying to be nice. He’s treading carefully, like he usually does.
Everything still feels fresh, and while I’d rather spend my time eating the lemon square I bought, I still need someone to lean on.
Sometimes literally, like when I have to walk down a flight of stairs or get into a car.
It’s nice to have someone there to help. However, having a best friend who’s still on the Montgomery Hornets and living out the dream I wanted makes any conversation about football or my injury a recipe for disaster.
I usually love shutting myself away in my room to study plays, watch football on TV, or read the sports section of The Goldberg. But now, all of it just reminds me of what I’ll never achieve anymore.
I don’t feel like airing out all of my thoughts and sadness for everyone on the quad to hear.
“I’m… hanging in there,” I settle on saying.
Kai puts a hand on my shoulder. “Are you really, man? I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to leave our dorm room again.”
It took me a lot of effort to go anywhere other than the gym after classes.
My schedule feels so empty without football.
Everything used to be planned out for me: my classes, training, practices, team meetings, and games.
Now it’s all gone.
I still have my scheduled classes, but I feel like a ghost wandering around campus, like I don’t really belong here anymore.
Kai pats me affectionately on the back after my silence lingers too long. “Mikayla doesn’t know what she lost. Screw her.”
I try to force a smile, but it’s hard.
Mikayla and I were together for almost a year. No matter how stressed or insecure I got about going pro, she was always there, cheering for me on the sidelines, literally.
Getting together with her felt like a match forged by the gods. It happened without either of us even trying.
We just fit together easily. Football player and cheerleader.
I avert my eyes as one of the cheerleaders passes by Kai and me, giving me a furtive glance like she knows everything that happened.
I close my eyes and inhale.
It’s hard to feel good about myself after the injury, but the breakup with Mikayla just kicked me while I was already down.
The one shining beacon through all of this is that the university let me keep my scholarship. I can still attend classes and finish my sociology degree without paying tuition, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful.
I just have to figure out what I actually want to do with my life now.
“She still means a lot to me, Kai…” I mumble.
I know the five stages of grief. I became very familiar with them after my injury. After the breakup with Mikayla, I’m trying not to fall completely into the anger stage just yet.
Kai sighs and rubs my back. His eyebrows knit together with concern.
“I know… I just really want things to get better for you, man. You were, like… one of the best players I’ve ever seen.
And I have mad respect for you on and off the field.
I just don’t want to see you get so down over her on top of the, uh… injury.”
I give him a weak smile. “Thanks.”
He claps me on the back. “I got your back, Lo.”
Kai stops walking. “Look, I have to meet Callum before practice to get his Econ notes, but—”
Someone knocks into me from my left, making me stumble to the side. A sharp pain radiates through my leg as I put too much weight on it to catch myself.
“Fuck,” I say through gritted teeth.
Kai’s hands land on my shoulders. “Shit. Lo, you okay?”
I grimace and close my eyes, clenching my fists as the pain in my knee slowly fades.
An apologetic-looking girl stands beside me with a frisbee in her hand. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going…”
I shake my head. “It’s fine.”
Kai keeps a grip on me like I might fall over.
Honestly, I want to.
“Do you need me to bring you back to your dorm?” he asks, his eyes full of concern.
I shake my head. “It’s okay. You have practice.”
This injury has made every day difficult. I can’t walk like I used to. I can’t play football with my teammates.
Everyone looks at me like I’m some fragile baby bird. I constantly feel like I’m going to break at any moment, and I’m sick of it.
Kai frowns. “I can miss a few minutes.”
I shake my head. “Kai. I’m fine. I’ll see you later.”
Kai raises his eyebrows, but concedes. “Okay. I’ll see you later, Lo. Get some rest.”
Kai lumbers off, leaving me wandering aimlessly along the quad.
I look around and catch people turning away, pretending they weren’t staring at me or watching the whole thing happen.
I pull my backward hat forward and lower my head as I try to walk faster to get away from all the prying eyes, trying not to notice my limp as I do.
I push through the doors of my dorm building just as my phone buzzes.
I pull it out and see a new grade notification for my History of Western Civilization class.
This surely won’t be good.
I grimace as I open the app and check my grade.
Forty percent.
Great. As if the embarrassment couldn’t get any worse.
Even if I don’t want to study, I sure as hell need to.
I think about the bitten-into lemon square in my bag and pray the embarrassment of the last five minutes doesn’t swallow me whole.
I feel like I’ve never sat at this desk before.
I probably haven’t. I’ve never actually sat down and studied for a class before.
Isn’t this what most students do? Get a coffee, sit at their dorm room desk, and start writing things down?
I don’t have a coffee, but I do have a protein shake. That’s basically the same thing, right?
I feel so stupid for not knowing how to study properly.
Usually, my memory is good enough to get me through my classes, or I just have to write some kind of essay.
History is a whole other beast, and I’m terrible at remembering dates.
I tap my pencil against my textbook, trying to force the words off the pages and into my brain, but I can’t find it in me to concentrate.
My eyes land on the framed photo of Mikayla and me.
I’m giving her a piggyback in my maroon-and-gold football gear while she waves a pom-pom in the air after we won the championship game earlier this year.
My mom took that picture. I remember the tear streaming down her face while she did. She looked so proud to be my mother.
That was one of the best days of my life.
I slam the picture face down.
I don’t have that anymore. Everything’s gone.
All I have left is this history quiz happening the day after tomorrow, and I can’t even study for it properly.
I give up on studying and open my phone, scrolling through Instagram to distract myself.
I see photos of my teammates at the gym together or posting their player profiles, enjoying their time on the team.
My grip tightens around my phone as I scroll past it all, and my chest constricts when I see a picture of Mikayla posing with Joel Whitlock, a running back on the Hornets.
He has a hand around her waist, and they both look like they’re gloating at the camera without even saying anything.
I throw my phone onto my bed and run a hand through my hair.
This is ridiculous. Why do I even care who she’s seeing now? Or that it happened so quickly after we broke up?
Joel’s an asshole. She’ll figure that out soon enough.
But in reality, she probably doesn’t even care that he is. She just wants to be the girlfriend of someone who’s going to go pro, and since the quarterback for the Hornets, Callum Brown, is already taken, she’s going for the next best thing that isn’t me.
But honestly, part of me always knew things wouldn’t work out with her. I just didn’t have that… “spark” all my guy friends said they felt with the girls they dated.
I still love her, but I also know she wasn’t the right girl for me.
My phone vibrates with a call from my mom.
Against my better judgment, I hit answer and put her on speakerphone.
“Ma, don’t tell me you got to see it last night.”
“I’m really sorry, honey, but I did.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It was so beautiful. I’ve never seen the lights so vivid this time of year. I wish you were here to witness it, honey.”
I glance at the posters of constellations and the aurora borealis hanging on my wall.
After my mom started pointing out constellations to me on clear summer nights when I was a kid, seeing them—and hopefully, the Northern Lights someday too—became an obsession of mine.
“Was Dad there?”
She sighs. “No, but he wishes you were here, too.”
They’re only an hour away, and technically, I could visit them if I wanted to. But I know a million questions about my life will come rushing back, and I don’t need that right now.
“How are the Hornets doing? Is Callum Brown going to bring you all to glory again?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m not a Hornet anymore, Ma.”
“Don’t say that, honey. You still are in so many ways.”
I sigh. “Whatever, but—yeah, Cal’s doing great.”
“And how’s Kai? Is he still being a womanizer?”
I chuckle. “Something like that. He’s a ‘man-anizer’ too, if you can call it that.”
“Oh.”
I tighten my grip on my phone. Does she have a problem with Kai liking guys, too? Kai isn’t exactly quiet about who he likes, and I thought she already knew that about him.
“Is there a problem?” I ask, my voice taut.
“No, I—I just didn’t know. Callum dating a guy was already an anomaly for football players… but Kai too…”
I chuckle. “Well, it’s just like Orion’s Belt. Just because it’s not visible all the time doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“Fair.”
A silence falls over the phone, and I get this awkward feeling that she’s going to warn me not to be like Callum and Kai. That two queer football players are enough, even though I only like girls and I’m not even on the team anymore.
But the pressure is still there, even if she’s never actually said anything.
“And how’s your knee?”
I want to smash my phone into a million pieces. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to ask me about the one thing I never want to talk about again?
“Fine. It just hurts when I sit down sometimes, but that’s it,” I lie.
I try to make it sound like it’s no big deal so she’ll stop asking about it. But, God help me, she keeps asking.
It felt like I lost a part of myself the day of the accident. Like my parents lost part of their son, too. I wish I could go back to who I was before, but even then, I’m not really sure who that was.
I tap my pencil against my notebook. “Look, I have to get back to studying. Can I call you another time, Ma?”
“Oh, uh. Sure, baby. Sorry for distracting you.”
“It’s okay. I’ll call you soon. Bye.”
I hang up and lean back in my chair.
I’m not sure how we covered so much ground in only a few minutes, but I’m glad I didn’t have to talk about Mikayla and how she’s yet another thing they’d ask me about.
Talking to my parents is always a mixed bag.
I spot the paper bag sticking out of my backpack, grab it, and shove the lemon square from the Honeycomb Cafe into my mouth.
I chomp on it like it’s going to cure all my worries.
It doesn’t make me forget anything, but it does a hell of a job making me feel better because it tastes so good.
I need to buy a whole box of these.
I lick my fingers as I finish it, trying to savor the last traces of powdered sugar on my tongue.
I need to go back to that damn cafe. I need to buy out the entire pastry case, or I feel like I’m going to wither away.
If that smiley guy at the counter is there again, he’s probably going to think I’m crazy.
But I’m an athlete, so why should I care what he thinks? I can eat as much as I want.
He was nice to me anyway, and he has a nice smile, just like Kai does. I’m sure he’s some kind of “person-izer” too.
My head buzzes with tiredness.
I glance at the clock and see it’s only eight o’clock.
By every other student’s standards, I have a geriatric bedtime and should be burning the midnight oil if I want good grades in my classes.
But most students seem to live on coffee to get through it, whereas I was never allowed caffeine.
But since I’m technically not a football player anymore, I don’t really have to follow that rule.
I guess that’s one good thing about not being on the team. I don’t have to be so strict with myself anymore. I can let loose.
Instead of forcing myself to study, I throw my clothes off and collapse into bed, my knee rewarding me with another stab of pain as I do.
I angrily pull the covers over my head and settle in for the night.
Mikayla’s built a new future for herself with Joel, and I have to do the same. Maybe it’ll come from my new classes, a new hobby, or even a new friend, like that barista at the cafe.
The one thing I can look forward to right now is those lemon squares from the Honeycomb Cafe, and honestly, I’m fine with that.