No Strings

by J. C. Hayden

  I cheered and screamed so loudly that my voice started to feel hoarse, and even if the people in the stands around me didn’t know, my cheers were mostly for the blonde man that my cousin was still clutching, their arms around each other as they went to embrace the rest of their team.

  Everyone in the stands was cheering raucously as, finally, Klein lined up to shake hands with the opposing team. As soon as they were finished, they lined up to make a victory lap around the field.

  It was like a wave of screams as they approached each section of the stands. Each section of the bleachers got louder as the team approached. And when the team got closer to our section, everyone screamed so loud that I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear my own voice if I tried to talk. I watched Brody as he got closer, and his head was moving up, down, and around the stands like he was looking for someone. When they finally got in front of my section of the stands, Brody rounding out the back, I was wringing my hands in front of me so hard that they were turning white. I thought I heard someone calling my name, but my eyes were focused on Brody as he grinned and waved at everyone he passed, still looking around. He was coming toward me and I was holding my breath, and then I froze when his eyes met mine and he finally stopped looking around.

  I thought he was going to throw me a cheeky wink or some little sardonic glance, but what he gave me instead made my knees shake slightly.

  It was the sweetest smile, one of the smiles that he usually reserved for me when we woke up in his bed together. That smile that was just for me. My heart pounded wildly in my chest as I practically melted to a puddle on the floor beneath me. Then he looked away as he passed so that he could wave to all his other admirers, leaving me in a state that I had no business being in while surrounded by hundreds of people.

  I was still on cloud nine as the crowd made their way down to the field to congratulate the team and mingle with each other before going back to our apartments and dorms. It had been a spectacular and unforgettable game with two teams so evenly matched that even some of the opposing team’s players and supporters were on the field congratulating Gabe, Brody, and the rest of the team. Everyone who ever met them loved Gabe and Brody pretty much universally, and everyone in attendance today was pretty happy to see the stars of the team win in their final game, Klein student or not.

  Along with Talia, Carver, and Callum, I had made my way down to right outside the locker rooms, looking around for Gabe who I had somehow lost in the crowd. We had gotten swept up with the opposing team somehow, and Carver snorted.

  “This has got to be the most excited bunch of losers I’ve ever seen,” he said. Callum laughed and slapped Carver on the back.

  Talia looked at them out of the corner of her eye. “They just seem… oddly cheerful for a group who just lost the last soccer game of the year.”

  I gave her a playful shove and put a finger up to my mouth when I saw someone from the other school look over in our direction. “Be nice, Tal.”

  “Well! I’m just saying…”

  We stood around for a little while, waiting for the crowd to thin out a bit so we could congratulate Gabe. Callum was bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  I gave him an amused look. “Don’t tell me you’re this excited about soccer.”

  “No, no, definitely not,” Callum said, clearly too excited to hold whatever it was in any longer. “You know I only come to support you and your cousin.” He looked around and leaned in dramatically, making the three of us lean in to him as well. “I wanted to tell when I got here—it’s why I was late—but my thesis was accepted. I’m officially a PhD student.”

  The looks on my, Carver, and Talia’s faces were comically shocked as our jaws all dropped at once. I was the first to break out of my shock.

  “Oh, my God! Callum!” I threw my arms around him and gave him a huge hug as he laughed. I pulled back slightly and grabbed his face in my hands. “That’s amazing! I didn’t know it was going to happen so soon. God, I’m so happy for you!” I hugged him tightly again until Talia and Carver made noises of protest about them wanting to congratulate their friend as well.

  “Isn’t Klein’s program, like, majorly competitive?” Carver asked, eyes going wide.

  “Like top ten in the country for PhD’s in literature, right?” Talia followed up.

  We listen as Callum explained all the details of the program and its prestige before Callum glanced over my shoulder and smiled.

  “Gabe’s coming this way.”

  I looked over my shoulder and grinned and waved as I saw my cousin trying to push his way through the crowd, waving at me enthusiastically.

  “We’ll let you guys have your moment,” Callum said as I turned back to them. “Go on.”

  “Tell Gabe to come back to our place before he goes off and gets hammered in celebration,” Talia said. “Oh, and no library for you tonight. Because we are also going to be celebrating.”

  When Talia said it, she gave me a look that made me squirm a bit, almost like she knew I wasn’t in the library all those nights I said I was. Almost as if she knew that “library” meant something else.

  I frowned at her for a brief second before smiling and agreeing to meet them after I saw Gabe.

  He was about thirty feet from me when I turned around, surrounded by a huge group of admirers that had blocked his way while he was trying to get to me. I was having trouble pushing my way through the crowd, but when Gabe saw my red head bobbing through the people, he immediately left who he was talking to and shoved through the crowd to get to me.

  “Gabe!”

  I threw my arms around him the second he got close enough and he lifted me off the ground.

  “Did you see it?” Gabe asked excitedly after he set me down.

  “Of course!” I said gleefully, even though that wasn’t particularly true. I’d had my eyes on Brody when Gabe’d made the winning goal. But I couldn’t tell Gabe that, and besides I could fake it when his happiness was so infectious.

  “I almost didn’t think I would get it,” he said in a rush. “And then Miller came out and got the ball from the other team—did you see his steal, it was fantastic, inspired—but his kick went a little wide, but, you know, I just trusted my instincts and went for it and I swear I kind of like blacked out for a minute and when it was over and everyone was screaming and it was just—wow! But I’m glad you saw it, and guess what?”

  I was grinning so hard at Gabe’s childlike excitement that my mouth was twitching. “What?”

  “There’s a scout here,” he said quietly so no one around would hear.

  My eyes went wide and my mouth fell open. “For the Revolution?”

  Gabe nodded enthusiastically.

  “He found me after the game, and he said that it wasn’t common knowledge yet but that one of their starting forwards is retiring at the end of this season, and guess who they want to replace him?”

  I squeaked. “No!”

  “Yes!”

  My jaw dropped in shock. “Gabe!”

  “Catrina!”

  “HOLY SHIT!”

  I threw myself at Gabe again and he lifted me off the ground—again—and I felt happy tears spring to my eyes as I held my cousin tightly. When I had walked toward my cousin minutes earlier, I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that Gabe would be telling me this. And the tears were falling because I could remember when we were kids, running around my Uncle Conrad’s backyard kicking around a tiny soccer ball while Gabe shouted that he would be a Rev someday and that was that. And I had laughed, never imagining that this would really happen for him.

  “I mean, they still want me to go to try-outs and stuff,” Gabe was saying, my feet back on the ground, “but he made it sound like it was basically in the bag because they aren’t really asking any other forwards to come to try-outs. And he said…”

  Gabe went on, talking excitedly and animatedly, and I was listening intently until I glanced over Gabe’s shoulder, and the sight I saw nearly made my heart fall out of
my chest. My knees started to feel weak, and I got scared that I wouldn’t be able to stand much longer. My blood ran cold and everything seemed to be ripped from my body at once.

  Brody was walking in our direction, but he wasn’t alone. He had a girl under his arm, and not just any girl, but Holly’s best friend Tabitha, one of the people who had laughed in my face the night of Truth or Dare. A girl who was nothing but a leech on my cousin and Brody, and someone who got everywhere in life simply because she was tall and blonde with big tits and just about nothing between her ears.

  And she had her arm wrapped around Brody’s waist as she looked up at him, laughing flirtatiously, throwing her head back and giggling wildly.

  They were coming in Gabe and my direction, and I was too stunned, too horrified, to even attempt to come up with an excuse for how I could get away quickly, and I saw it all happening, saw them approaching and I knew that there was no way, that I was going to have to face the horror of standing there stupidly while Brody was wrapped up in this girl that I deeply and profoundly disliked just a few short hours after I had realized that I was in love with him.

  “Hey!” Gabe said happily when he saw them approach.

  “Hey,” Brody said with a smile at Gabe. Then he looked at me, and his expression was completely unreadable. I wanted to slap him, this person who had had his, God, his fucking dick inside me not even twenty-four hours ago and was now walking around like what was happening was completely normal. Like I meant nothing.

  Relax, Catrina, I told myself. Just relax.

  “Good to see you, Murphy,” Brody said with a casual smirk.

  My blood boiled, and I almost screamed when Tabitha giggled.

  “Yeah,” I managed.

  “Are you coming to the party at the house tonight, Catrina?” Tabitha asked with a simpering smile, no doubt remembering what had happened the last time I had gone to a party with her and her group of god-awful friends.

  “Nope,” I said, determined not to let my feelings show, determined to hold my head high. “My friends are coming to hang out, so I’m gonna celebrate with them.”

  “I’m sure Jeffries will want to celebrate,” Brody said with an arch of his eyebrow, referring to Callum by his last name. “Guy’s wound so tight it’s like he’s never even enjoyed a day of his life.” I clenched my teeth and tried to read his expression, not sure why he would bring Callum up right now when it was not at all the time for it. Not when he was standing there with his arms still wrapped around Tabitha while I stood there feeling like a completely out of place idiot.

  Fucking asshole.

  “I doubt it,” I said with a shrug. “He just found out his thesis was accepted into the PhD program for literature, so he’s pretty excited right now.”

  “Oh, really?” Gabe said with genuine happiness and curiosity. “That’s awesome, I’ll have to tell him congrats the next ti—”

  “Well, that’s great for him,” Brody said, raising his voice to talk over Gabe. “Congratulate him for us, would you?”

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to wring his fucking neck.

  I could feel the tears burning the backs of my eyes, desperately wanting to fall, as Brody treated me like a complete stranger. He had been amazing these past weeks. Even though what we did was a secret he always made an effort to say hello to me in the halls and make small talk when appropriate. He had never, ever been the way he was being right now, like I was nothing. Like we were nothing. I knew we were casual, knew I was just a fuck for him, but he’d never treated me that way. Not until now.

  I had to get away from him before I threw up. Or said something I would regret.

  “Well, congratulations again, Gabe,” I said, turning to give Gabe another hug. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Gabe said when we pulled away. He was frowning at me.

  “See you,” I mumbled to Tabitha and Brody as I passed them. And then I walked away with my head down as quickly as I could, praying that no one would see me cry.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Itried. I really, really, really tried not to think about Brody and what had happened after the soccer game when I went back to my apartment later.

  But while Talia was getting ready for the small party we were going to throw out our place, I laid in my bed, scrolling obsessively through Brody’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds—desperate for any sign that he felt bad about what he’d done.

  Nothing.

  The only thing he posted was a picture on Instagram that someone must have shot right as he and Gabe had first hugged after the game. It was an amazing picture, caught in a moment of pure joy and elation, but I couldn’t even bring myself to smile when I saw it.

  Talia was blow drying her hair and was no doubt preparing to look fabulous. The only thing I could do was change out of my Klein sweatshirt and into a simple black cotton dress. I didn’t want to make myself look good when I felt so bad inside.

  When I went on Snapchat, I knew immediately that I’d made a mistake when I saw that Brody had posted a story. My thumb hovered over his name for several moments, and I was just about to toss my phone aside when I impulsively clicked on it.

  The party had apparently already started at the big house that a bunch of the soccer team rented—the house where all of this began. The lights were turned down and there was what looked to be some kind of strobe light going because Brody’s story started with him dancing around the room as colorful lights flashed. The camera was in selfie mode on his gorgeous face that I suddenly hated. When I saw Tabitha come up behind him and put her arms around him, I quickly exited the story and then spent the next fifteen minutes deleting Brody from all my social media accounts.

  I knew it was immature. I knew it was petty. But I also knew I had to take care of myself. And taking care of myself meant removing any possibility that I would want to look him up and obsess over him like I was currently doing. If that meant unfollowing him, then that was what it was going to have to be. I wasn’t going to make myself sick scrolling through his twitter feed and wondering at the meaning behind every single miniscule word.

  Because the fact of the matter was: I was done with Brody Galen. I had self-worth. I had power. I was fucking magical, like Talia always told me. And I wasn’t going to let any man make me feel like any less.

  An hour or so later, I was sitting in our plush armchair in the corner of the room, seething as I gulped down what might have been my fourth glass of wine.

  Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. Don’t—

  Brody. Brody fucking Galen. Not only was I sitting quietly raging over what he had done when I had promised myself that I wouldn’t, but I was even angrier when I thought about how what he’d done was ruining my time with the people I loved so much and had so little time left with.

  How had I ever, ever, thought that I was in love with him? He was a selfish, arrogant dickhead, and I would never speak to him again. I wasn’t in love with him, I couldn’t be, wouldn’t be, not if he was going to treat me the way he had no right to treat me. Not if he was going to make me feel like less than what I was.

  I sighed.

  But that was just it.

  I was in love with him. And that’s why it hurt so badly, that’s why it killed me, because even though he’d said it was casual—no strings—I had stupidly thought that it was more than that, that I meant more to him than just the occasional fuck.

  But he’d never said it. He’d never said we were more than a no strings arrangement. In fact, he’d been honest up front. He’d told me from the beginning that he didn’t do relationships, and was it really his fault that I had chosen to ignore it and go and fall in love with him? His actions may have made me think differently, but that was in my head, not based on anything he’d said, and—

  “Hey.”

  I looked up from where I was sitting in the corner when Callum sat down on the floor next to me, looking up to meet my eyes.

  “Hi,” I said, takin
g a huge drink from my wine glass.

  Talia was sitting at table she had set up in the corner of the room so people could play cards. She wasn’t sitting on a chair, though. No, she was sitting on the lap of a huge, muscular, tanned, dark-haired guy who I knew to be Jack. The Jack that had asked her to the wedding. The Jack that had made her swear off men. She hadn’t told me they had worked things out, but they must have because she was sitting on him, smiling and looking happier than I’d seen her in a while. Sitting there, I suddenly felt like a heel knowing that I had been so self-absorbed over the past few weeks that I knew nothing of Talia’s love life.

  When the party had started and I’d posted up in the corner, she had come over to ask if I was okay, giving me a strange look. I had been so tempted to tell her everything, spill my guts all over my friend, but then Jack had just arrived. He had come up behind her and put his arms around her, and she had looked over her shoulder smiling so genuinely and openly that I didn’t have the heart to bring her down with my own drama. She had waved him off after giving him a long kiss, and when she turned back to me, she had grinned and said:

  “That’s Jack. You remember him, right?” She had tried to prod me for more information, but it didn’t take much to insist on her going with Jack and having a good time. I told her I just wasn’t feeling that great, and she gave me another narrow look before, obviously, the pull of Jack became too strong.

  I didn’t want to take away from the good time that Talia was having, and as much as I desperately wanted to spill to her, I was so happy that she had apparently reunited with Jack that I just couldn’t put all my relationship stuff out there. Misery may have loved company, but I wasn’t about to make my friends feel as miserable as I felt.

  Carver was sitting on the floor across the room, pretty much out of earshot, next to a guy he’d been dating on and off again since sophomore year. Talia hated the guy, which was probably why Carver was off in the corner with him, talking closely.