Page 82 of On Merit Alone
“To basketball?” she asked, her voice going up to a high keen. I winced, and she took it as a personal attack, her eyes growing wideand her hand jerking out of mine like it was on fire. Turning toward me, she pointed. “You’re saying you don’t know if you want to come back tobasketball?”
Well, when she put it like that—like I was the dumbest man alive from the tone of her voice— I felt stupid. But I’d already said it, so looking down at my now empty hands, I nodded. “Yeah.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her distance from me seeming to grow as she pressed herself up against the door. I felt my stomach drop, a sick feeling beginning to creep in. I don’t know what kind of reaction I was hoping for, but I was almost positive, it wasn’t this.
“Are you kidding, Ira?”
“Um, no Merit. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I haven’t told anyone else because I’m very much not kidding,” I said, blinking at her in disbelief. She pressed her lips together so tight I was sure air couldn’t even filter through. My eyebrows pinched together in confusion, hurt finding its way into my chest but not stopping my stupid words from slipping loose. “Don’t you want to know why?”
The slow shake of her head might as well have been a punch to the gut. I didn’t know until that moment that I really wanted to tell her. Not just so that I could talk it out with someone like me, but because I thought she’d care. Because I wanted her to. The striking truth that she didn’t was sitting in my stomach like oil sat in water.
Swallowing, I tried to understand this. “Mer, I?—”
“I can’t do this,” she said, cutting me off. Turning her shoulders, she yanked open the door and all but stumbled out of her side.
Anger rushed me. Anger and hurt as the girl I thought I was feeling something for stomped on those feelings and was now trying to run away. It was that anger and hurt and confusion that brought me rushing out of the car after her.
She was parked in the third level parking garage of Ryan’s office building. It wasn’t totally vacant, but not many people were coming and going in the middle of the afternoon either. I wished my voice didn’t project through the entire structure as I rounded thehood of the car to cut Merit off. I could hear it echoing like we were on top of a mountain.
“Are you seriouslymadat me right now?” I asked, disbelief rolling off my tongue.
She shook her head, trying to get past me. “I don’t know what I am.”
I stopped her path with my arm. “I can tell you what you’re supposed to be, Merit. Supportive. When someone tells you a big decision they are trying to make, when someoneconfidesin you, you’re supposed to be supportive.”
She shook her head, flinching away from my touch again. “I can’t support this.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Ira!” she said, sounding almost panicked. “Because.”
“Because what, Mer?” I scoffed, confused. “You’re not making any sense. You’re just blubbering around like normal. Do I really have to pulleverythingout of you? Even when you’re insulting me. Or are you ever just going to be straight up and tell me what you feel?”
Her face got hard, her eyes narrowing. “Because you’re healthy, Ira! You’re healthy and you’re good and you still have your whole life ahead of you! Why would you give that up?”
“Yes, Merit.My whole life. Basketball isn’t my life. It’s a part of my life, but it’s not everything,” I said.
“You want to throw everything you’ve ever worked for away?” she asked harshly. Unrelenting. “You want to give up your life?”
I stepped forward. “Not my life. Just a part of it,” I clarified again.
Under her breath she muttered, “I can’t believe this.”
“Youcan’t believe this?” I asked. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believeyou. What the hell was I all this time, huh? Just somebody to shoot around with?”
“Shut up,” she whispered raggedly.
“No, really Merit. What am I, some mule with no other purpose than throwing a ball through a hoop? Is that what you think?” I asked, heated.
“I said stop, Ira,” she croaked.
I stepped toward her, crowding her space and bringing us chest to chest. “Were you just here to use me? Get my advice? Get my help and then get on your way? Is that it, Jones?”
She shook her head, her breath hitching on the way in. My eyebrows creased, breaking through my anger. I was so confused. Hurt. Yet somehow, she was the one who seemed the most hurt. She seemed stunned.
Sighing, I felt the weight of my heart heavy in my chest. Hard with regret and rejection. Trying to salvage what I could of the situation, I reached down and picked up her hand. I looked at it, toying with her fingers between my own as dejection set in. “I thought you cared, Merit. I thought after you came over and we talked and you said all those things, that you cared about me—not just my game and what I could do for you. For Denver. Everybody else cares about that stuff. But I thought you cared aboutme.”
She lifted her chin, looking up into my eyes. Her own were broken. Wet, with unshed somethings, she looked at me in a way that had me believing I had been the one to do something wrong.
