Page 100 of Stay
In answer, he leans over and takes my lips with his own. His tongue slips inside my mouth to mingle and dance with my own. A whimper escapes from me as he attempts to suck me under until I can’t think straight. I lose track of how much time passes as his lips coast over mine and he licks at the inside of my mouth.
“Please,” I gasp, breaking away from him, “let me get this out. It’s eating me up inside.”
Instead of backing away, his gaze holds mine as one hand settles on my shoulder and the other continues to stroke my cheek. The intensity of his stare makes me feel like a ball of tightly wound nerves. When a tremor slides through me, Cole’s grip tightens as if trying to anchor me to him.
“I’m not a freshman like you think I am. Well, credit-wise I am,but age-wise, I’m almost twenty…like you.”
“Okay,” he says slowly.
I gulp in another breath before forcing it out. “I graduated fromhigh school the same year as you, and then I started at Dartmouth in the fall.”
“Dartmouth?” He repeats the word as if it’s foreign. I can almost see his mind tumble back to the restaurant and Luke asking if I’d attended that school. And me lying about it.
“You and Luke were at the same school last year?”
Heat fills my cheeks. “Just for the first semester.”
Confusion floods his voice and fills his eyes. “I don’t understand why you’d lie about it.”
Of course, he doesn’t.
“That’s what I need to explain.” My heart pounds into overdrive until it becomes painful. I remind myself to take slow, even breaths. If I don’t calm myself from the inside out, there’s no way I’ll get through this. When I start, it’s from the beginning. I don’t know any other way to make him understand.
“Ever since I was a little girl, my dad talked about me playing college hockey out East. Once I became older, that school became Dartmouth. It was the goal I spent my teenage years working toward. You probably understand what that’s like,” my gaze sifts through his in the darkness, searching for some measure of understanding, “to commit yourself so completely to a sport.”
When he nods, I continue. “I ate, slept, practiced, and went to school. That was the extent of my existence. There was always so much pressure to succeed, excel, push through to the next level.”
Cole dips his chin but otherwise remains silent.
“When I committed to Dartmouth in the fall of my senior year, I’d assumed some of the pressure would be off and I could ease up. Maybe even relax and have some fun. Instead, everything become more intense. I needed to keep my grades high, and my dad had me working out every day, in addition to team practices. He said playing at the next level would be tough, the competition more challenging, and I needed to train harder in order to be physically and mentally prepared.” I shrug as my mind tumbles back to all the work and sacrifices that have been required of me.
Sacrifices I’d ended up pissing away.
“I spent the summer working out with trainers and skating with private coaches. I swam and ran for extra conditioning. When I finally left for college in August, I was exhausted and burned out.” I’d been in the best physical shape of my life, but mentally, I was a miserable, stressed-out mess. “And my dad had been right. Playing at the next level was more challenging. I was skating with and against girls who’d been playing for two or three years in college. Instead of being at the top of my game and one of the best players out on the ice, I was barely holding my own. No matter how hard I worked, it was never enough. It didn’t take long before I was drowning in my classes.”
I shake my head, remembering how rigorous the workload had been. “In hindsight, if I hadn’t been playing hockey, I would have been able to focus more on school. My grades wouldn’t have been perfect but at least they would have been…” my voice trails off as I get tangled up in the memories.
For a moment, I sit in silence before mentally shaking myself out of the past as it slyly wraps around me. “Not only was I failing academically, but I was also failing at something I’d always excelled at. The one thing I was talented at and took pride in. Hockey.”
Regret and shame sink their sharp teeth into me. It’s Cole’s soft voice that breaks through the chaotic whirl of my thoughts.
“I can understand all of that, Cassidy. I’ve felt the same kind of pressure to succeed. What I don’t understand is why you’d lie to me about it.”
“There’s more.”
“Okay. Tell me the worst of it so I can understand what changed you so much.”
I inhale a breath, prepared to purge the rest from my body. “About a month into the semester, I was already failing a couple of my classes. Even though I studied, it didn’t seem to matter. I was always behind and trying to play catch up. No matter how hard I worked in practice, it wasn’t enough. The coach barely noticed me, and the other girls didn’t respect me. I’d never…”
It was so hard to wrap my lips around the words.
Even now, almost a year later.
“I’d never failed at anything. And now, I was failing across the board. I didn’t know how to handle it. I couldn’t tell my dad what was going on because he was so proud of me. Of what I’d accomplished. The coaches didn’t care, and I didn’t have any friends. I was far away from home, and felt,” I shake my head, remembering how alone and lonely I’d felt, “isolated.”
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Cole cuts in quietly. “I understand how that could happen. Going away, all the pressure to succeed. I just wish you hadn’t felt like you needed to hide all this from me.”
Pulling me to him, he presses his lips against my forehead.
