Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
I felt everything shutting down, turning off.
I closed up.
Nothing could hurt me.
I was a stone-cold statue, whether I wanted to be or not.
I sat on my bed.
Reese’s phone was going off, and he’d been on it for the last hour, almost since the moment I went robot-style. I caught a few names, but he was trying to keep his voice muffled. I knew he was talking to Juan at one point, then his coach. Who knew who else. People had started calling him. Otherwise I would’ve been worried he was trying to plan a feelings intervention for me.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there in the morning. Thanks, Coach.”
The front door opened.
Grant and Sophia were back.
They came in laughing just as Reese went back down the hallway. I could see them from my room.
“Hey!” Grant burped. “Sorry, man. We had to Uber here.”
Sophia bumped into him, trying to take her shoes off. “Too much wine. So much wine.”
Grant caught her, steadying her, and then she helped balance him while he took his shoes off. They were a good team. Perfect for each other.
I could feel Reese looking at me. I could feel his concern. It was in the air. I could almost smell it. And me, nothing. Just nothing.
I was back to that shell I’d always been.
This was a mistake. All of it—opening up. Letting Trent come over in the first place. Going to camp. Being with Reese. I sucked in a shuddering breath…falling for Reese. All of it was a mistake. If it happened again? If Reese ever looked at me and told me he didn’t want me? If his mind started to go? What was I doing?
He was a pro basketball player.
He wouldn’t want to be with me. Not for long.
We were friends. Fuck friends. Screw friends.
It didn’t mean anything.
His going bare? That meant nothing. That was just for heightened pleasure. That’s all. Nothing else.
“How was your night?” Grant asked. “Should I even ask?” He slapped Reese on the shoulder.
Reese was turned toward me. His hand ran through his hair. “Charlie.”
“No.” That word wrenched itself from me. Just no. No to anything more. I couldn’t take any more of anything. “No.”
“I think you should tell your friends.”
“No!”
Grant frowned. “What’s going on? Tell us what?”
“Charlie, she, uh…”
I was off the bed the next second and pushing Reese back. “It’s not for you to say anything.”
“You spilled all of that to me, and you’ve been in lockdown mode since. You don’t think I recognize the signs? My brother’s an alcoholic. That’s why he does all the shit he does. That’s why I enabled him for years, but don’t think I don’t get phone calls from him that break my heart. I do. And I get it—some of it. I get what you went through. But going locked-down right now? Not the answer. You can’t open up, then shut off right afterward. That’s not how you get better—”
“Fuck you!”
I didn’t know why I’d said it. I just wanted him to shut up. I wanted him to stop. He didn’t understand. No one could.
But his words had made a dent. I felt them sinking in, burrowing inside of me.
His brother was an alcoholic? What did that even mean?
“You enabled him?”
“Yeah. Like you enabled Damian.”
I shook my head, bowing until I was almost a ball, just barely standing on my feet. It wasn’t the same. “I didn’t enable—”
Gentle hands found my shoulders. He lifted my head, then groaned at whatever he saw and just lifted me up. “You did enable him, but you didn’t know you were enabling him.”
He ran his hand through my hair, down my back. He was holding me like a child, but maybe it was appropriate. I was acting like one.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispered into my neck, pressing a kiss there.
Grant coughed, clearing his throat. “Um… I’ll give you guys some time, yeah?”
Reese took me back to my bed, but got up again with me still in his arms. He crossed the room as Grant shut the door. He left the bathroom light on, the door ajar, and he hit the lights in the bedroom. The room was cast into darkness, a soft glow from the bathroom shining in.
It helped. I don’t know how, but it helped. It lifted some of the whatever-the-hell-I-was-feeling off me, just slightly. There was still so much there. Almost too much.
He flipped on my fan next, giving us a modicum of privacy so we could speak freely.
Then he settled on my bed, resting against my headboard, with me on curled up on his lap. He tipped my head back so I could meet his gaze, and he tucked my hair behind my ears.
“I idolized my brother. He was the star in the family. Charismatic. He always had a girlfriend—and always one of the hot ones. For a guy, that says something. He was popular. There’s about five years between us, so I was young enough not to see the signs growing up. Drinking, partying. I thought that was normal, and he was the star athlete, right? Then things changed. I was starting varsity as an eighth grader when it was his senior year. He rode the bench during the first few games. Suddenly basketball wasn’t his thing. Suddenly he didn’t want anything to do with the game. Football, though. He boasted how he wished I had played varsity on his team. He would’ve destroyed me, hazed me. And baseball. He let me know that if I made varsity baseball, I’d better watch out for his pitching hand. So I heeded his warnings. I stayed with basketball. I didn’t even try for baseball, even on my own grade’s team. I didn’t want any issue with him.”