“Lena, I’m sorry, okay?” he said, his voice sincere as far as I could tell. “Really, I am. Can we just talk, please? I hate being like this with you.”
I bit the inside of my lip, trying to keep it together. “I really don’t want to talk right now,” I said, still not meeting his eyes. Then I tried to walk away, but the touch of his hand on my arm made me freeze.
His voice pleaded. “Lena.”
I finally looked at him, glad Bethany was gone. But a small crowd of people had gathered around us, with classmates seemingly at their lockers or talking but really just staring, waiting to see if there would be a make up or a blow up.
I wasn’t quite sure myself which way things would go. But I didn’t want to talk here, in front of everyone like we were some lame reality TV show. “Later, okay?”
Ian gave me a nod, lowering his voice. “Okay,” he sighed. “Maybe before the game?”
No, not before the game, I wanted to say. The game was everything, and I didn’t want to mess it up by having another fight with him.
But in that moment, all I wanted was to leave. For once, I didn’t want the limelight on me, not because of this.
“Sure,” I replied, turning and walking away before Ian could say anything else.
I hoped Ian would just forget what I’d said about talking before the game, but I knew it wasn’t likely.
After school, I sat by myself in one of the hallways, resting my back against a row of lockers and with a view of the soccer field not too far away. I had my earbuds in as I tried to get myself pumped up for the game, but I missed our playlist.
On their way to the soccer field, a couple of the girls on the team asked me if I was okay, but I reassured them that I was. “I’m just psyching myself up,” I explained, pointing to my earbuds. “Like Michael Phelps.” I made his legendary angry, pre-swim meet, meme-worthy face, and that seemed to convince them because they finally left me alone.
The truth was that I spent most of that hour trying not to think about Ian or look at Ian or remember the good times with Ian.
Thankfully, several texts from the #BFFs wishing me a great game finally distracted me away from everything Ian.
In the meantime, we had more downtime left before it was time to warm up. The other team was running late. Everyone else, the teachers and other students, had gone home for the day, but the game wouldn’t start for a while. That’s when Ian found me. I caught sight of him down the hallway, and I immediately pulled out my earbuds.
He took several steps toward me, the sound of his shoes on the linoleum eerily the only sound for what felt like miles. “Coach was starting to think you were lost.”
“Not lost,” I said. “Just wanted to be alone.”
I stood up, keeping my gaze on the science posters on the wall instead of on Ian. I began making my way down the hallway towards the double doors leading to the soccer field. Ian walked beside me without a word.
“It’s weird, you know,” he said, breaking the silence.
“What?” I said.
“You turning into a loner all of a sudden,” he replied softly. “Usually, that’s me.”
I didn’t know what to do but nod. I couldn’t tell him I was a loner lately because it hurt too much to be close to him.
I knew we were broken, but I had no idea how to fix it, so the next best thing had been avoidance.
Ian sighed. “Lena, can we just talk, please? Maybe go back to where we were?”
Where we were? As friends? I wanted to ask. Or where we were after that?
I shrugged, stopping in front of a classroom. It was empty so I went inside, not bothering to get the lights. It was cloudy and gray outside, but it was more than enough light. Ian closed the door quietly behind us.
I leaned back against the teacher’s desk and sighed. “If you want to talk, that’s fine, but we don’t have a lot of time so we should make this quick.”
He looked down, and I felt bad for a moment, wondering if he thought I didn’t care about us. But then his jaw tightened, and he closed the distance between us.
He reached for my hand, brushed his thumb against it. I turned my head to the side, moving my hand away from his.
“I’m listening,” I whispered.
He took a couple steps back, his hands back at his sides. “I’m sorry. About the dance—I promise, it’s not what you think—”
I scoffed. “You mean you kissing Bethany? Dancing with her? I mean, it’s fine if you’re back together with her.” I pushed back the flood of emotions that came with remembering that, not to mention everything I really wanted to say to Ian.
Just like that, the tears were back, waiting to spill down my cheeks, but I willed them to stay put. Go back. I did not want to cry in front of Ian.
I already felt like an idiot for being upset. Letting this happen.
Ian sighed. “I didn’t go to Homecoming with her. And I’m not back together with her. She insisted on one dance. I should have said no.”
I shook my head, that kiss on Homecoming night reminding me of how mad I was at him. Was it so hard for him to say no to her? Would his resolve always cave when it came to her? The rest of the horrible feelings from that night filled my chest again. “I wish I’d never agreed to your stupid dare,” I said, more to myself than anything else.
But as soon as it came out, I regretted saying the words out loud.
Ian was so quiet that I looked up at him. The hurt reflected clearly in his eyes. Guilt ate me up inside, realizing I wasn’t the only one holding back tears anymore.
Great. “I just meant…it wasn’t a good idea. Clearly, you’re not over Bethany—”
“I told you,” he said quietly. “I’m done with her.”
“—and with us being close friends and all…I just should have said no.” I stared at my hands. “I’m not saying this was your fault. It just…”
Never should have happened, I wanted to say. I should have remembered that it wasn’t supposed to be real. But where would we be if I’d never take that dare? Friends? How much would we have missed out on?
It just made me so sad that it didn’t work out between us.
“I get it,” Ian replied. “You’re right. I’m sorry for what happened at Homecoming. All I wanted was a dance with you, not her.” I looked up at him, but he kept going. “But…that doesn’t matter. Because clearly all of this is over.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant.
“I didn’t realize this would cost us our friendship,” he finished. “If I would have known…”
He stopped, and I put his words together in my head, one by one. That’s when the tears broke through the floodgates and streamed down my cheeks.
“What are you doing?” I asked, keeping my voice firm.
He stopped halfway to the door. Shrugged. “It’s pretty clear that you don’t want anything to do with me so no need to keep telling me to leave you alone. Or give me the cold shoulder.”
Nausea rose in my throat.
“Bye, Lena,” Ian said.
Then he was gone.
Twenty-Three
Tori shook her head and grimaced. We sat together in her living room. “That was a pretty crappy thing to happen right before your big game,” she said. “I’m glad you guys won.”
All I could do was nod and wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop. “I don’t even know how I got through it. I just did my best to pretend nothing else existed, did my best to be there for the team. Oh, and Mr. Barry, the scout, wasn’t there. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”
I explained what Coach had told me at the last game. Just one more thing that plagued me.
Despite everything, though, I’d gone out there yesterday and made a goal. Katie had made another one, and our defense had kept the other team at bay.
Meanwhile, I’d held back the flood of emotions around what had happened with Ian minutes before like a dam. One that had finally collapsed.
I didn’t think things betw
een us could get worse, but just like that they had.
“Apparently, we’re not even friends anymore,” I said. I could hardly finish the sentence before my chest heaved and I covered my ugly cry as much as I could.
Harper wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Oh, Lena,” she whispered.
Ella said, “Get it all out,” and that only made me cry harder.
After several minutes, I wiped away the tears with my sleeve and sat up. Shook my head. “I should have just kept pretending. Why did we have to make things so complicated?”
Rey squeezed my hand. “How were you supposed to know that you’d end up falling for him?” she said. “Don’t feel bad.”
“Too late,” I said with a forced smile.
“I bet he’ll come around,” Harper said. “You two said what was on your mind. It may take some time, but I’m sure he’ll come around.”
Did I want Ian to come around? He’d already broken my heart once, practically twice with our friendship and fake relationship breakup rolled into one. No way would I go after him and risk my heart one more time. “Maybe this is for the best,” I said. “Friendships don’t always work out. He’ll go his way. I’ll go mine.”
That had me crying all over again. It was hard losing a guy I’d kissed for real and really felt something for. It was even harder to lose him as a friend too.
Tori handed me a tub of ice cream. “Here, girl. A little ice cream will make it go away…”
Harper and Ella stared at her. Rey stifled a laugh.
Tori gently took the ice cream back. “Okay, the ice cream won’t make the bad stuff go away. But maybe we can watch a movie and have some snacks anyway.”
We settled into the couch at Tori’s house, the girls surrounding me and a warm blanket over my legs.
I could hardly focus on the movie. The bruise of my break up with Ian hurt a hundred times worse than a kick to the shin when I didn’t have my shinguards on.
And it went so much deeper too.
Eventually, I had no choice but to go home, as much as I hated for my entire family to see that I was obviously upset.
My mom asked me if I was okay about a hundred times before dinner was even served. She didn’t even make me help her make it.
My sister Maria wouldn’t stop staring at me, and my dad was more quiet than ever at the dinner table, hardly even looking at me.
I just wanted to go to bed. “Can I go? I have lots of homework, and I’m tired,” I said, setting my fork down.
My mom glanced at my full plate of food then said, “Lena, you’ve got to eat something. You can’t let yourself whither away—”
“Even if it’s because of a boy,” Maria interjected matter-of-factly.
I rolled my eyes, even though my parents hated when I did that.
“Dejala ir,” my dad said quietly, and I almost fell over in relief.
I got up, left my plate by the sink, and practically ran to my room. Shutting the door behind me, I sighed and made it to my bed.
Maybe I could talk to my friends.
Sure enough, Harper told me about her latest adventure with Emerson at the nursing home they still volunteered at. Ms. Ellie had just gotten back from her trip with her daughter to Belize, and she had the tan and hilarious stories to prove it.
That made me smile.
A soft knock at my door interrupted my text message back to the #BFFs, asking just what kind of stories Ms. Ellie had shared with Harper.
I sat up and turned on my lamp, realizing I’d been in the complete dark. “Yeah?” I said. Maybe it was Maria, wondering what I was so upset about and wanting to satisfy her curiosity. Or Mom with a pile of folded laundry for me to put away.
Instead, my dad popped his head in then came in, looking really uneasy.
Whoa.
He never came in here. After dinner meant moving to the couch for some TV.
But there he was. He sauntered a few steps in, brushing a hand through his hair and looking around nervously. His fingers were thick, easily twice the size of mine. When I was little, I would put my palm up against his large one, wondering when I'd grow big enough to catch up to his size.
Dad took a seat on the edge of my bed. Was this about my last game? Was he making sure I did my best at tomorrow’s big game against Chestnut Mountain? Remind how important it was to win the state championship? Give me some last minute pointers?
The silence between us was deafening. I waited for him to say something.
Finally, he opened his mouth, his gaze still anywhere but on me. “Selena,” he began in Spanish, his body language awkward and his voice hardly above a whisper. “I don't know what's going on. Maybe trouble at school with your friends or that boy. I know this age is hard. I remember,” he went on in Spanish.
More silence.
Was he remembering what being a teenager had been like? His childhood hadn't been anything like mine. He'd grown up in Tijuana, Mexico. Hardly gone to school. Had to work from an early age.
He went on in Spanish. “I know maybe it's not something you want to tell your parents about. I understand. This is the age where you start to figure things out for yourself, make your own choices.” He sighed and nodded, glancing at me.
I nodded too, not sure what to say, if I was supposed to say anything.
“We've raised you right. I know you make good choices so we trust you, Selena.”
Another pause, and I wondered if my dad would go mute for a year after this. When it came to talking, I could probably go on forever, but my dad seemed to have a limit. He even sounded exhausted. Or maybe it was his age.
“I just want you to know that sometimes life is going to be really hard, mija. It's going to throw many things your way. Good and bad. Only you can decide how you will deal with it. What kind of person you will become. But remember that you are strong. I've seen it on the field. And I know it's true off the field too.”
He looked like he might say something else, but then he didn't. Instead, he exhaled, as if everything he'd just said had been a Herculean effort.
Then he stood up, patted my shoulder, and began to leave.
I got up. “Dad, wait,” I said in Spanish.
He turned around, and I wrapped my arms around him. It had been forever since I'd done this because we rarely hugged, but I wanted him to know that I was glad he cared. “Gracias, papá,” I said.
He nodded one more time and closed my bedroom door quietly behind him. Hardly making a sound.
I sighed and went back to bed, my spirits lifted. He wasn't worried about tomorrow’s game. And neither was I.
As hard as it would be to focus on the game and ignore my broken heart, I knew I could do it.
For me and for my dad.
Twenty-Four
That night, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wishing I was asleep.
I had a big game tomorrow, the team was counting on me, and there was a chance Mr. Barry would show up. But instead of getting a full eight hours, my brain was determined to keep me up all night.
Thinking about Ian and our last conversation.
Why hadn’t I said anything? Told him it wasn’t over? Said, of course, we were still friends?
I wiped a stray tear from my face.
Because I’d been too chicken. And deep down, I had wanted him to hurt, like he had hurt me.
The thought of letting him hurt me again…
I rolled around and pressed my face against my pillow, letting out a frustrated groan.
Then the perfect solution popped into my head.
A time machine! Duh!
I could just go back in time, not kiss Ian on that dare. And definitely not accept his dare about becoming my fake boyfriend.
We would still be friends…
Where was a time machine when you needed one?
Oh wait, this was reality.
I was stuck with all the choices I’d made, including the one to let him walk away, take all the blame.
Not tell him how I
really felt.
I went back to staring at the ceiling, only the street light several feet outside my window casting a small ray of light into my room.
It was two in the morning, and I had to be up in less than five hours…
At some point, I must have fallen asleep because, the next thing I knew, my six-thirty alarm was going off and I just wanted to cry and pretend it was Saturday.
Maybe if it wasn’t a big game day, I would have begged my mom to let me stay home, convince her I had a fever or cramps or something.
But missing the semifinals? One of the biggest games of the year?
I sucked it up, unglued my eyelids, and splashed my face with cold water.
Tired eyes stared back at me in the bathroom mirror. I looked like a zombie.
Pulling out my make-up bag, I sighed, knowing I’d need to pile it on thick today to cover the dark circles.
When I got back to my room, I picked up my phone, sure I was running late. But what stood out was a message from Ian.
It said delivered at 3:47am, and I wondered how I had missed it earlier.
Probably because I’d only fully opened my eyes after stumbling to the bathroom.
I read the message.
Ian: Are you awake? Sorry if I’m waking you, but I just have to say this because I can’t sleep. Everything we said last time we talked keeps replaying in my head like a bad song, and I hate that it even happened. The truth is I don’t want to lose you. As a friend. Or otherwise. Maybe for you it was all fake. Maybe not. I don’t know. But being with you, Lena, is the most real thing I’ve ever done. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry I even asked you to do this for me. It messed everything up, and it’s my fault. I should have known it was a bad idea, but I think deep down, part of me felt something for you, and I wanted to see what it would be like. To touch you. Hug you, as more than a friend. Maybe kiss you. The more time went by, the more I realized I was falling for you, not trying to get my ex back. This stopped being about her a long time ago. I don’t care if you don’t feel the same way about us. It doesn’t matter. But can we just go back to where we were before? I miss you. I miss sitting with you on the bus to games or sitting together on the bleachers. I hope you’ll give our friendship another chance… See you at the game.
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