Page 16 of Going for Gold (Sweet Cravings 3)

I pulled my wrist out of his grip. "That's not fair, Chris. You were on a sex ban too. You didn't try to pressure me until you won your event. You're the one that wouldn't put me first. This is such a double standard."

"You don't even care if you win. You're retiring after this."

"I don't care? Of course I care! I want to go out on top. And you know that I need the money to..."

"Right. So money is more important than me?"

"Chris! That's not what I was saying."

"Do you have any idea what I've given up for you? All the girls I turned away in college because we were together?"

It felt like he had slapped me. "It shouldn't have felt like you were giving up anything if you loved me."

"Well it did. Talk to me when you let this go. Oh, wait, you can't. Because you never let anything go. You can't even beat Gabriela in a game because she bullied you..."

"Stop." My voice was barely a whisper.

"That's what I thought. This isn't even about me. You're just jealous that Gabriela..."

"Stop."

"For the record, she had a game the next day too. Yet she stayed to help celebrate my victory. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from your arch nemesis."

"It's not a break, Chris. We're done." I opened the door and escaped into my dorm room, slamming the door behind me.

Chapter 7

Sunday

Alina

"How'd it go?" asked Kristen as she scrolled through a list of movies on the TV. Her hair was wet and she had a towel wrapped around her, which reminded me that I was still sporting my snot covered jersey.

"It went okay," I said in as steady a voice as I could muster. It felt like my whole world had just crashed down around me. The f

act that Chris said he felt like he had given up a lot for me was even worse than him giving into temptation with Gabriela. I thought he was happy. I thought I was enough for him.

"Please tell me you didn't let him off the hook."

"I think we're going to take a break." Usually I would have told her all about it and cried on her shoulder, but I decided it was better not to tell her about Chris kissing Gabriela. Kristen would never forgive him for it, and that would cause problems if Chris and I worked it out. I couldn't have my boyfriend and my best friend hating each other even more than they already did. Do I even want to work it out?

"A permanent break?"

"Maybe. I'm gonna go take a shower while you pick out a movie." I went into the bathroom and started the water just in time to mask the noise of me crying.

As the hot water poured over me, I tried to picture Chris as the dirt and sweat that was being washed away. It didn't work. The conversation and the pictures kept cycling through my head. Did he really just kiss her? It hadn't occurred to me during the conversation because I was so distracted when he admitted they kissed, but there could have been pictures on his phone of them going further than just kissing. And now I would never know. Will I ever be able to trust him again?

Stop thinking about him!

I couldn't stop though. He had been my boyfriend for two years. I had seen him nearly every day during that time. I couldn't just pretend like he never existed, because without him there was a big, gaping hole in my life.

Focus on volleyball.

I started running through the game in my head. Yes, most of my mistakes had been caused by Chris, but I had also made some errors in the first game before any of that had happened. I would have to watch the game film tomorrow to see exactly what I was doing wrong.

I took a deep breath. Volleyball was only a temporary patch for the hole in my life, but it was already making me feel a little better. And I was sure Kristen would pick a wonderful movie that would make all my problems disappear for the next two hours.

But she didn't.

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