Cole isn’t the one blocking the path, he’s been the one mending it while I stand like a barrier in the way. Every obstacle I throw, each notch, any hurdle, he keeps on moving forward.
Day after day. Over and over and over again.
He’s trying, for me. For us. Just like he said he’d do.
I sink to the floor in a ball made of equal tears and shame. Howling as the wails grow stronger, but I don’t surrender, letting them out. Letting the walls of my bathroom hear my despair.
My stomach sucks in as my heart explodes, how have I been so blind?
Something dusts over my skin, featherlight in its touch.
The weightlessness of floating not unfamiliar to me as I’m picked up. Sinking further, I allow the familiar presence to move me. Too exhausted to open my eyes as they carry me and place me in my bed.
Turning, I sink into the plushness, the covers like silk against my skin.
The bed dips, them climbing in behind me.
I don’t relent and limpen into the lushness. It’s incomparable to the hardness of the bathroom floor. Crying myself into a coma.
I’m asleep, I know this, but I’m also aware of what’s going on around me. Here but not, like a dreamlike trance.
Maybe that’s why I let them do what they do because I’m not fully conscious of the repercussions. Blaming it on that, I sink, melting against the warmth of their skin as they tuck me into their chest.
The faint smell of something metallic is the last thing I remember before I drift back into unconsciousness.
forty-one
Cole
“Cole,myoffice.”
I don’t lift my head, finishing tying my shoelace instead. Coach Boone can wait.
Practices have been extended since the start of the week, prepping for districts. There is no way we aren’t going without our perfect season so far.
My father’s not happy about me showing less and less, but he’ll get over it. And if not, oh well. He’s only been giving me more statements. My time with him consumed with something that held little to no merit.
The task doesn’t make sense.
He’s most likely doing it on purpose.
Every day, the lines around my once perfectly structured life blur a little more, like walking around with no outline, my guide on how to handle it all nonexistent.
“Now!” Boone clips, shoving his head out of his office again.
I take my time tying up the other one, not because it needs it but because he needs to learn his lesson. I won’t be talked down to like this.
A muscle relaxant would also probably help. For him not me.
“Oh, someone’s in trouble,” Finn goads when I finally decide to get off my ass.
The swift punch at his shoulder has that throaty laugh swelling before it dies. Shoving its way past his sternum. A frown replacing that cocksure attitude.
I can feel more eyes on my back as I enter, close the door, and take a seat, but none of that’s new.
What I don’t know is why I’m being singled out. I do what is necessary to win—and we do win. Simple as that.
Call it cocky, whatever you want, doesn’t bother me either way because we are undefeated. The truth is in the answer.