Playing Hurt

Clint

dirty player





She wrenches away from me, pushes against my chest. She keeps pushing until we’re both sitting up again. Bats me away angrily when I try to take her hand.

“This isn’t your style, either,” she says, pushing her hair from her face. “Lying like this.”

“Lying?”

“Pretending’s as good as lying.”

“I want to be here, Kenzie,” I insist.

When she finally does look at me, her dark brown eyes are glistening. “I’m such an idiot,” she says. She raises her hands and lets them fall into her lap. “Just take me home.”

“Kenz—let’s not end the night like this—”

“I’m not mad, Clint, okay? I’m embarrassed, though. So don’t make it any worse than it is—”

“I wasn’t lying,” I insist. “I really do want to be here.”

“I know you do,” she squeaks. “Just with somebody else.” She rubs her face, shakes her head. “I’ve known you a long time, and you’re a good guy, and you deserve to be happy, and in a way, I’m getting what I wanted.”

“What’re you talking about?” I ask. This night is completely wearing me out.

“I hoped you’d fall in love again,” she admits. “And you did. Just not with me.”





Chelsea

man-to-man defense





Gabe lifts his head, staring down at me with a puzzled expression. “Are you all right?”

I shake my head, wiping at my tears.

“Where are you tonight, Chelsea?” he asks. “Because you’re definitely not with me.”

I put a hand to my forehead. “Gabe—I’m just—”

“It’s not nerves,” Gabe says as he rolls away. “It’s something else.”

“You went to so much trouble, and I’m messing everything up.”

“It wasn’t trouble—it was what I wanted. I thought it was what you wanted, too.”

“It was.”

“Was, not is?”

I can’t answer that—the words stick in my throat like splintered chicken bones.

“What’s going on, Chelse?”

I sigh and sit up next to him; I pull my spaghetti straps onto my shoulders. I can tell, from the tightness in his lips, that anger is really bubbling up inside him.

“The night before you go on vacation, we spend hours making out under the stars,” he says shortly. “Now, two days after you get back, you don’t want to be here with me. The thought of making love to me makes you cry?”

“Gabe,” I moan. “That’s not it.”

“Then what? Something’s happened. Something’s different. You can’t deny that. I’ve felt it ever since you got back. God—even when we were walking into the hotel, I wasn’t even sure this night was actually going to happen.”

My tears roll one after another, each forging their own shiny path through my powdery makeup.

“Can I ask you something that might piss you off?”

I shrug and nod.

“Was there somebody else while we were apart?”

I turn my head away, and my shoulders heave with sobs.

“I knew it,” Gabe mumbles. “I knew it,” he repeats, louder this time.

“Gabe, please,” I manage. I reach for his hand but he jerks away.

“It was the guy in the pictures, wasn’t it? Your trainer? Wasn’t it?” he yells, his voice racked with the kind of rage I’ve never seen in him before. “Was he even really your trainer, or was that a lie, too?”

“No—Gabe—he really was. Gabe—I’m—I’m just so sorry.”

“Sorry about what? Me figuring it out? Huh?”

“No—about—this. All of this. Me hurting you.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he growls. “I’m sure you were real sorry when you were out with—whatever his name was.”

“Don’t be like that. I feel bad enough.”

“No, Chelsea,” Gabe barks, jumping off the bed. “I don’t think you do. There’s no way you feel as bad as I do. I’ll tell you how you feel. You feel caught. But me? I feel like the whole world’s changed. Don’t you think I deserve more than this?” He starts pacing and running his hands through his hair so fiercely he looks like he’s tearing his curls out. “Almost two solid years together, and you don’t respect me enough to tell me to my face that you want to see other people? You just let me go on believing you want to be with me, and you run around on me behind my back? After everything I’ve done for you—after being there for you when everything else fell apart … I’ll tell you something. You thought far more of your stupid fling this summer than you thought of me. And that’s not okay.”

Defensively, I lift my face, my eyes narrowed into slits. All I can think about, suddenly, is the fact that up until a few moments ago, I was ready to go through with this night to keep from hurting him. That I was about to have sex with him even though my heart wasn’t in it. Wasn’t that thinking of him? Wasn’t that putting him first? Didn’t he see how much I’d just been willing to give him?

Fury burns in my lungs. “And you’re perfect?” I scream. “Oh, yeah—I guess you are. Gabe Ross, Mr. Perfect. Beautiful Gabe Ross. Smart Gabe Ross. Disgustingly romantic Gabe Ross, who revels in reminding his girlfriend she’s not a star anymore. I get it, Gabe. You’re the perfect one, not me.”

“Excuse me?” he bellows.

“Oh—and I almost forgot the best part. Gabe Ross sticks by his broken girlfriend after she stops shining. After she stops being such a catch. And he loves the fact that it also makes him a good guy—look at me, I’m with her even now, even after she’s not everything I’d wanted in the beginning.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” Gabe mutters. “After I stayed with you. I even decided to go to MSU because that’s where you could afford to go after you lost any hope at a basketball scholarship.”

“There!” I screech. “You admit it. I’m holding you back.”

“That’s not what I said—”

“It’s absolutely what you said. I’m probably holding you back from all that ass you could have been scoring, too. With me, you’ve become some freaking born-again virgin,” I taunt.

“You were hurt, Chelsea.”

“It was more than that,” I yell at him. “Everybody knows about you and that journalism geek at summer camp. But with me … ?”

“Sex isn’t love,” Gabe says. “I never once thought we weren’t a real couple because we hadn’t had sex yet.”

“It’s part of love,” I insist. “Romantic love.”

“Romantic love,” Gabe spits. “Like you’re the expert. Getting you to tell me you loved me while you were gone was like pulling teeth. Now I know why—he probably was listening in.”

“Is that all that’s important to you?” I bite back. “Me professing my undying love all the time? There’s a difference between being romantic and being completely stifling, you know. God—forget Clint. You would have been upset with me anyway, even if he hadn’t been in the picture! Was I supposed to be a good little girl and call you at five o’clock on the dot every single night? You were jealous, Gabe, and not because of some guy. You were actually getting upset because I wasn’t fawning all over you all the time.” I stop to get my breath, but the words keep coming. “Did the thought ever cross your mind that maybe I never needed you to rescue me, Gabe? Maybe I’m still pretty strong, even after the accident. Maybe I’m not some fragile little thing. Maybe you were holding me back.”

“Don’t you dare put this off on me,” Gabe yells. “You did this, Chelsea. You destroyed us!” He grabs the cider bottle and throws it, letting it shatter against the far wall. I yelp and race into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

Never live timidly, my mind screams out. Face this, Chelse. But I can’t; not yet; I don’t know how. Did I really mean all those awful things I’d just said?

I put one hand on the marble counter and cover my mouth with the other. When a knock comes to the suite door, I hear Gabe answer, saying, “I dropped a bottle. I’ll clean it up. Sorry to have disturbed the other guests.”

I listen as he picks up all the broken pieces. And maybe, I tell myself a little desperately, there are a few other broken pieces we can start to gather—together. I’m not a hundred percent sure, in that moment, exactly what I want from Gabe—I only know that I don’t want to completely trash the last two years. And that I don’t want him to hate me.

After splashing cool water on my tear-soaked face, I open the bathroom door.

But when I step into the room, Gabe’s already changed back into his jeans. He’s shoving his tie into his overnight case. A cold electric shock travels through my body. “Gabe—where are you going?”

He doesn’t answer, so I put my hand on his arm. He shakes it away. “You can’t have it both ways, Chelse.”

“But, Gabe, I—”

“Get the hell away from me, you selfish bitch,” he says. He zips his case and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.





Clint

back in the game





I step inside Baudette Sporting Goods—and for the first time in two years, I let myself glance past the fishing gear that’s just inside the entrance. I let myself look toward the shoes in the back. Cleats and basketball shoes and …

“Hey, man,” Todd says. “How’d it go the other night? With Kenzie?”

Pulling my eyes from the shoe display is a little like trying to wrench myself out of a dream. I mumble “Hmm?” as Greg pops up out of nowhere, a new fly rod in his hand.

“Sorry. Got the last one,” he tells me.

“Last one,” I repeat, feeling completely disoriented.

“Rod. On sale. That’s why you came, isn’t it? When I saw you walk in, I assumed—”

I shake my head. “No—not today.”

“So?” Todd presses, adjusting his ball cap by tugging on the bill. “How’d it go? With Kenzie?”

I shake my head. “I think—I’ve just—known her too long. Takes a little of the mystery out of it, right?”

Greg squints at me. “Known her too long,” he repeats, because he knows it’s bull. But I don’t exactly want to spill everything in the middle of a sporting goods store, of all places. Or even really spill it to the guys, period.

How am I supposed to talk about it without looking like a complete moron? Now that I think about it, the night with Kenzie proved what I’d suspected all along—that the void Rosie left in my life wasn’t ever going to get filled by just anybody. I needed Chelsea. Just wish I didn’t have to embarrass Kenzie in the process.

If I say anything like that, they’ll both swear I’ve lost it.

I push past the guys toward the shoe display.

“So, you’re not interested? In Kenzie? Right?” Todd asks as he follows me.

I’m only half-listening as I scour the shelves for a size twelve. It doesn’t seem possible, but the box is already standing out a little from all the rest, like the ghost of the old me’s already tugged it out, left it waiting for me.

My heart’s practically on fire as I open the box and take out the hockey skate. Just touching it, I can already hear the slice of the blades on a rink.

When I look up, Greg and Todd are staring at me with wide-eyed, shocked faces.

“Are you serious?” Greg asks, nodding once at the skates.

“I kind of promised somebody,” I say, and turn toward the checkout counter.





Chelsea

advance step





One down!” Brandon announces as he bounds through White Sugar holding the keys to the Explorer.

“We haven’t made the delivery yet,” Mom reminds him. “The deal is, you show me you can deliver twenty multi-tiered cakes in one piece—no skidding, no speeding, no careening—and we’ll start to talk about buying you a car.”

“Piece of cake, Ma,” Brandon insists. “Pun intended.” He grins at me and rolls his eyes.

I smile back at him, just like I’ve been smiling ever since he lied through his overbite (something about Gabe’s ’Stang getting stalled on the highway to Springfield) in order to get his hands on the keys to the Explorer and come rescue me in my hour of need, the night Gabe left me deserted at the Carlyle.

My thumbs fly over the keypad on my phone, finishing up the three-thousandth text I’ve sent to Gabe these past few weeks: u hate me u have evry rite im so sorry.

“You going to be all right here by yourself, Chelse?” Mom asks, knocking on the front counter to get my attention.

“She’s not alone,” Dad corrects her. “I’m here.”

“You’ll disappear back into the office,” Mom pouts.

“Not necessarily,” Dad says, winking at me.

Mom tilts her head at us, a smile of relief washing over her face.

“Aw, don’t shove me into the middle of your schmaltz-fest,” Brandon moans.

“Hey, mister,” Mom snaps at him. “You’re responsible for getting two of these layers into the Explorer. You drop one, no car.”

“The way you keep adding on to our agreement makes me think I should have gotten you to put it in writing,” he mutters.

I think she’s nuts for trusting Brandon with one of her precious cakes. But I guess she figures he wants a car so badly that he’d rather lose a foot than dent a single icing rose.

“You’d do just fine without a car,” Mom reminds him. “After all, our house is walking distance from school.”

“I’m on the up-and-up, Mom. I gotta have wheels, period.”

“Then stick to my rules, buster,” Mom says. “Or else you’ll be toting your Marshall amp around on your old Schwinn.”

“Man,” Brandon moans. After kicking at the tiles a few times, he takes a deep breath and eases one of the boxed layers off the counter. “Comin’ through!” he screams. “Watch out! Coconut cake walkin’!”

I shove the phone in the pocket of my White Sugar apron, lean my elbows on the counter. Let my eyes go bleary as my mind drifts into a daydream like the Explorer drifts into a stream of summer traffic—or, at least, what qualifies as traffic in Fair Grove.

“Chelsea, I’ll take over the front counter,” Dad tells me.

“I’m fine,” I try to insist, but Dad nods toward the front window, telling me to look.

Gabe.

I clench my jaw, gritting my teeth as I watch him approach the post office with a handful of letters. I’m frozen as he disappears through the post office door. But when he reappears, heading straight for his ’Stang, I finally dislodge myself and rush out into the early August heat.

“Gabe,” I shout. “Gabe, talk to me.”

He shakes his head. “Just mailing Mom’s bills.”

“I tried to text you,” I tell him.

“I wish you’d quit that,” he says, through a mouth drawn tight.

“Please,” I say, lurching in front of him, blocking him from opening the driver side door. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I just—I wanted to tell you that I believe what you said that night we graduated. Remember? About the heart being like a compass. And it leads you either closer to a person, or it shows you another way. And if we were meant to be, our hearts would have led each other straight back here, to us. Not in different directions.”

“That’s what you’ve been thinking?” Gabe says. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t go anywhere, Chelsea. You did. You don’t get to feel good about it. You’re not forgiven. Move.”

He pushes me aside, leaves me standing stupidly in his old parking space. Watching him drive away.

As I turn toward the front walk, my prickling eyes hit a vine of purple flowers curling up an old trellis in the corner of the White Sugar building. The same flowers that grow in the field around the Fair Grove mill. The same flowers that filled the field behind cabin number four back in Minnesota. As tears threaten to roll, I close my eyes; I can still feel the itch of grass beneath my legs, Clint’s breath on my cheek. Even now, I’m thinking of Clint.

My eyes are tingling as I step back inside. I hope Dad really will disappear into the office. At least then I won’t have to be a blubbering idiot in front of an audience.

“Haven’t seen Gabe around in a long time,” Dad says.

Great. This is exactly the heart-to-heart I want to have right now.

“Not since the night of the MSU game,” he goes on.

I nod.

“From the looks of what just went on out there,” he says, nodding once toward the window, “it doesn’t seem like he’s coming back.”

I clench my jaw and shake my head.

Dad pours an iced latte and puts an éclair on a plate, slides it toward me. Like he thinks a little Bavarian cream might cut the bitter taste of losing my first real boyfriend. “I’ve seen you when you’re passionate about something,” he says. “I know what it does to you. Basketball, for instance. It was all-encompassing. But Gabe … ” He frowns, shakes his head. “I never thought you and Gabe—you just didn’t have that same look on your face. That look you got when you were still playing ball. That—passion. You had it over vacation, though.”

My eyes widen.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I know love … it has different shades. Sometimes, it’s passion. Sometimes, though, it’s just—”

“More like friendship,” I finish.

Dad starts mopping the front counter.

“The heart is a compass,” I say. “Steers us back to the thing we love the most.”

I reach into my back pocket, pulling out the confirmation letter from MSU that I’ve been carrying around for a week. I’ve figured it out, just like Dad said the Chelsea of old would. I’ve figured out how to keep basketball in my life. But after the year we’ve had, it’s been hard to find the right time to show it to him. To not living timidly, I think, as I toss the letter in front of his towel.

“You’re already declaring a major?” he asks as he reads the letter. “Psychology?”

“Sports psychology,” I say, and when Dad’s eyes start to get all glittery on me, I cut the éclair in half, take my portion, and push the plate across the counter toward him.