Page 81 of Shut Up and Score
All it has is a crack I’ve memorized since the beginning of the year and the quiet hum of Caleb scribbling notes behind me. I shouldn’t have messaged him again. I definitely shouldn’t have pushed.
But when I saw the green online circle, when I knew he was there—Micah was there—I felt like maybe I still had a shot. Maybe some part of him wanted to talk. To yell. To tell me off again. I’d take any of it. Anything but this silence.
Now it’s gone. And I’m left choking on my own damn desperation.
I scrub a hand over my face and grab my pillow, burying my face in it to muffle the frustrated groan that threatens to tear out of me.
“You good?” Caleb asks.
I don’t answer right away. Becauseno,I’m not good.I’m the opposite of good. I’m falling apart in slow motion, and I can’t even scream for help without revealing every lie I’ve ever told.
“I’m fine,” I say, voice flat.
Caleb watches me a second longer before shrugging and going back to his notes. But I can’t sit still. I sit up. Grab my phone again. Open the app.
Still nothing.
He’s probably staring at my message and hating me. If I know, he could know, right? Probably piecing it all together. That the guy behind the username is the same one who hurt him worst. The same one who kissed him and let him take the fall, as if it was some kind of crime.
God. I feel sick.
I should delete the app. Erase the evidence. Pretend it never happened.
But I don’t. Because a small, broken part of me is still hoping he’ll reply.
Even if it’s just to say:I know who you are.
Even if it’s just to say:I hate you.
At least then I’d know where I stand.
TWENTY
MICAH
I don’t knowwhy I haven’t messaged GoldenSpiral back. Probably because it feels wrong. I’m still in love with my ex-best friend. I can’t lead some innocent, shy guy along. Not when I’ll probably never feel that way about him.
That kiss?—
God, that fucking kiss. Why did he have to kiss me? Why did he have to call out to me with that fucking broken voice. I should hate Colt. Idohate him. But part of me, a very big part of me, loves him. I love him so much it hurts.
And I can’t do that to someone else. Even if we have a different sort of connection. What if I met him and he didn’t compare? I snort and tug my fingers through my curls. I’m sure the mystery guy is probably better for me than Colton is.
I open the app, ready to reply. Tell him I’m not ghosting him. Make up a lame excuse about my phone being dead…or a fake emergency… tell him I want to meet him too. But I can’t do it.
I stare at the message:
GoldenSpiral23: Ghosting me now? I see how it is. Maybe you’re the one that’s afraid of something real.
He sent it hours ago. The little timestamp mocks me every time I refresh the screen.
And he’s not wrong. I am afraid.
I grip my phone tighter, the screen lighting my face in the dark dorm room like some kind of confessional booth.
If I message him now, I start something I can’t walk back from. I build a bridge to someone Imightbe able to fall for.
But there’s still a boy in my chest I haven’t exorcised yet. A boy who kissed me next to the bleachers two years ago. A boy who kissed me again in the showers yesterday. And I still feel everything for him. Two years wasn’t enough to erase any of it. I thought I’d come back here, make him regret it, and then hurt him back.
