Page 61 of Fighting

“I’m so honored you told me all of this,” he murmurs softly at my ear. “My side of the story is not going to measure up, but if you want to know, I will tell you.”

twenty-four

Mateo

Fuck.I’m such an asshole. I have to make this right.

Do I comfort her? Apologize to her? Tell her I can’t believe I didn’t know even a little of this?

When her tears have slowed and she gives me permission, I lean back to look her in the eye. “Of course you hated me. I was a jerk. Of course that ‘joke’ isn’t funny. I should never have said it.”

Her lips twitch, like she’s fighting the urge to say “no shit.”

I lightly stroke at the curl that keeps springing back in front of her face as we talk.

“There’s something more important that I need to check on, though.” My hands shake as I lower them, feeling like I should move away, give her space.

But she grasps my hands and laces her fingers with mine.

“The first time we were together…” My voice quivers as I ask a question that could change everything. “You’d been drinking. I didn’t think you were too drunk to consent, but… You did want to be with me, right?”

My heart lurches. I need her to respond, even if it’s to tell me how badly I fucked up.

I loosen my grip. This way, if she wants to take her hands back, she can. Instead, she squeezes tighter and meets my eyes. Our height difference is her advantage right now.

“You mean the wedding weekend? Where I went to your hotel room and took off my own dress? That was my choice. It was a choice that tequila may have helped make, but it was mine.”

Her answer eases only a little of my tension.

“From now on, I won’t touch you unless you’re sober. Or unless you storm into my house wearing something like you did the other night.” I crack a smile, hoping to settle my anxiety and hers.

“I knew the improv king would appreciate a movie moment,” she teases.

My chest lightens. “Life with you has been a bit of a rom-com, if you think about it.”

“You know the way those go, right?” she says. “Every one of the heroines I looked up to when I was a teen started out nerdy. The story is always the same. The nerdy girl gets a makeover, and then bam! She gets a boyfriend.”

“Not all of them,” I argue, guiding her along the aisle of trees again. It’s easier to talk while I’m moving. “Take basically all of Lindsay Lohan’s movies,” I counter. “InFreaky Fridaya wild child learns that she’s perfect as she is. InMean Girlsthe new kid at school learns that popularity and boys aren’t worth the price.”

“Okay,” she relents. “I’ll give you those, I guess?—”.

“You’re Olive fromEasy-A! I know that’s Emma Stone, but listen to me: she lies, she fakes a reputation because she wants tohelp people, even if it means she gets hurt. Oh. My. God. You’re Olive.” I release her hand to pump my fist and jog backward so she can’t look away.

“Excuse me?”

“You let some guys talk a big game. Say things about you that weren’t true. You didn’t fight for your reputation. You?—”

“I used it to my advantage and disappeared behind it,” she says, with a beleaguered sigh.

I turn back to walk in step with her, worrying my lip. I mentioned that my side of the story looked different. It’s probably time to put it out there.

“While you were dealing with those rumors,” I say, my chest tightening. “I was battling my own fallout from our verbal sparring.”

This drains the levity from our conversation, pulling us up short. As I catalog her eyes, the way her lips turn down, I worry this isn’t the right moment. She’s still so defeated. But if I don’t get it out, then I’ll never clear the air.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “That night, in my parents’ backyard, the guys had just finished another round of hilarious jokes about my grades when you arrived. Always the optimist who wanted to help, my dad said, ‘You know what they call the guy who graduates last in his class from medical school? Doctor. They call him doctor.’ That had the guys hooting and hollering about how I couldn’t possibly get into medical school.

“They were doubling down on jokes about how I was a dumb jock and the token Asian. They concluded all the brains in the family had gone to Stef.” I lift a shoulder and let it fall. “We both know that’s probably true; she’s fucking brilliant. But I was a kid, and I was embarrassed.”

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