Page 111 of Don't Puck His Best Friend
Harper:Everything okay?
Me:Will be. Love you.
Harper:Love you too.
I sit there for another ten minutes, letting my heart rate return to normal. My jaw throbs where Liam landed a punch, and myknuckles are swelling. When I finally stand and start gathering my stuff, I catch sight of myself in the mirror.
There's a bruise forming on my cheek, and my eyes look tired. Defeated.
This can't keep happening. Something has to break—either Liam moves on, or we destroy each other trying to pretend everything's fine.
I just don't know which one it's going to be.
Harper's waiting when I get home. She takes one look at my face and gasps.
"What happened?"
"Liam and I got into it during practice."
"Into what?"
"A fight." I drop my bag and sink onto the couch. "Coach is pissed."
She sits beside me, gently touching my jaw where the bruise is blooming. "Cole..."
"I know. It was stupid. But he came at me, and I just... snapped."
"What did he say?"
"That I get everything I want." I lean my head back, closing my eyes. "He won’t admit to shit. I told him to move on and he screamed, ‘What do you want me to say?’”
The silence that follows is heavy. When I open my eyes, Harper's staring at her hands.
"I don't know what to do," I admit. "I don't know how to fix this."
Her voice is small. "I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
"You're not the reason. We're the reason. Liam and me. We're both too stubborn to figure out how to be friends when everything's changed."
She curls into my side, and I wrap my arm around her. Rex hops up on the couch, sensing the mood, and plants himself across both our laps.
"It'll be okay," Harper says, but she doesn't sound convinced.
"Yeah," I echo. "It'll be okay."
But as we sit there in the dimming afternoon light, my face throbbing and my friendship in pieces, I'm not sure I believe it.
43
Unfinished Business
Harper
Twoweekspassinuneasy silence. Cole and Liam maintain their careful distance at practice, on the ice, at team events. They're civil when they have to be, professional when Coach is watching, but the friendship is gone. Everyone can feel it—the team walks on eggshells around them, conversations die when both of them enter a room, and I catch teammates exchanging worried glances during games.
Cole doesn't talk about it much. He comes home from practice tight-jawed and tense, works out his frustration in the gym or on runs with Rex, and pretends everything is fine. But I see the way it eats at him. The way he stares at his phone sometimes like he's considering texting Liam, then sets it down without doing anything.
I don't know how to help. Every time I try to bring it up, he shuts down or changes the subject. So I do what I can—make his favorite dinners, show up to every game, remind him that I'm here and I'm not going anywhere.
