Page 102 of The Midseason Fakeout

“You know it’s the right thing to do. You’re not his type, Bailey.”

I squeeze my eyes closed, and with her words, tears run down my cheeks. Quickly, I type out a message and hit send before I even re-read it.

My mom sighs. “Now hand it to your brother.”

I slip Darrin my phone. “Make sure she’s done it, and then shut her phone off. Shut yours off, too.”

After a pause, Darrin murmurs softly, “She did it.”

“Are both phones off?”

He nods, and when she peers into the rearview mirror with an arched brow, he says, “Yes,” with a definitive crack in his voice.

I reach my right hand behind me, maneuvering between the car and my seat and wiggle my fingers until Darrin clasps my hand in his and gives it a squeeze. More tears slip down my already wet cheeks.

Mom slows the car immediately. We’re almost to the end of town, and I can’t believe how fond of this place I’ve become. Its cute shops. The ice cream place. My friends. The sense of community.

A brunette comes walking out of a store, and I immediately look over my shoulder to see if it’s Kenna. It isn’t, and for some reason, that makes my heart break a little more.

It’s not just Aidan that makes me want to stay here. It’s his friends on the team that have become my friends. The classes. The way my eyes have been opened. Don’t get me wrong, Aidan’s my number one reason, but he’s not the only thing tethering me here.

Thinking about him makes the longing so much worse though. Like I’ve ripped off my right arm, and I’m about to leave it in Warner.

The city limit is coming up, and my foot jumps up and down. Mom’s obeying all vehicular laws now, but this slow crawl through the last remaining bits of Warner is like the last breaths of a dying person.

Soon, there won’t be anything left of me. I might go back to “where I belong” in some people’s eyes, but I can’t because in my heart, I know I don’t belong there anymore. I’ve found my life. And it might have a terrible graduation rate and a poor job outlook, but goddammit, my place is here. In the arms of the man I love. In the face of being a nobody, I choose to freaking live.

Mom slows for the last stop sign. I press on my seatbelt release as quietly as possible and maneuver it away from me. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I squeeze Darrin’s hand and extricate myself from him, hoping he’ll forgive me. When she’s slowed up enough that I’m seventy-five percent sure I won’t die, I force the door open and jump.

29

AIDAN

My heart speeds into overdrive.The pulse at my wrist pumps and pumps. The immediate horror that falls over me like a boom of thunder has me rereading the text over and over again.

Aidan, I’m sorry, but I left?

No. This can’t be happening.

I type out a response.

If this is a fucking joke…

I send it, my foot tapping against the floorboards. Externally, I’m peering at my phone and rocking in my car, but internally, a hundred different thoughts are racing through my brain. Her mother convinced her to leave me? I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight. As soon as I was gone, she probably told Bailey every reason why she should go to Carnegie, and Bails listened. Of course she did.

Darrin already told me that I was a complication she shouldn’t have to deal with.

I spiral deeper and deeper and hit rock bottom when my text comes back as undeliverable.

She turned her fucking phone off? What?

I reverse out of Coach’s driveway like a Formula 1 racer and speed all the way back to Bailey’s place. Before I even get there, I spot the big truck parked at the curb with guys carrying stuff out the front door. I park, watching them carry out her desk. Next comes her bed.

Slowly, the world starts to rescind. The black edges of my gaze move inward and inward, consuming me. Suffocating me. It’s like watching someone literally carry my life away from me, and all of a sudden, I’m that scared five-year-old little boy again who’s realizing everything he thought he had was gone.

They left me.

Sheleft me.

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