Page 4 of Through the Storm

Except I still hear the way she said my name. And every day I wake up thinking about the look on her face when she kissed me like she’d already decided something.

I could’ve called her.

But what was I supposed to say? “Hey, remember that night you made me forget how to breathe? Cool if I take over your entire life now?”

So I stayed quiet.

She probably thinks I don’t care. That she was a mistake I shrugged off by morning.

But I stayed away because I cared too much. The way she looked at me that night keeps replaying in my head. Open and certain. She wasso trusting that she handed me something fragile without hesitation. Something I didn’t deserve.

And I was a bastard for taking it anyway.

I swallow hard.

I’m spending the summer in Rose Bay at my cousins’ house, like I always do. I’m at the same house with the same porch, same ocean, same laughter spilling from the kitchen. But nothing feels the same this time. I’ve only been here for two days, and I already can’t stop thinking about her. About what will happen when I inevitably run into her.

About what I’d say when I do.

What she’ll say.

How fast she’ll tell me to go to hell.

No one knows what happened between us. Not my cousins. Not my friends. Only my buddy Wyatt does, but he doesn’t count. That dude’s a vault.

I keep telling myself that she’s fine. That she’s moved on. That she’s somewhere out there laughing at what an idiot I am.

I’m supposed to be living the dream. I’m supposed to be enjoying summer at the beach with my family and closest friends—going to bonfire parties, planning boat days, training, and getting calls about the draft.

And even when I try to focus on football or fun, my mind keeps drifting back to her.

Because when I finally see her again, I’ll have to bite my tongue to keep from saying what I should’ve said months ago. That it wasn’t nothing. That I’m sorry I made it seem like it was. That if she asked, I’d still be hers.

Good thing she won’t ask.

I add another plate to the bar because my brain won’t shut the hell up. Normally, working out is all I need to do when I want to turn it off, but recently it hasn’t been as effective.

“Okay,” my cousin Mateo says behind me, “what are we angry at?”

I grin without turning around. “The bar.”

“The bar didn’t do anything to you,” Tyler, the tight end on my college football team, says. “Yet. You need someone to spot you, dude.”

I lift clean and controlled. The kind of rep my strength coach would nod at. Still, my jaw tightens when I rack it.

My other cousin Leo checks the clock. “Didn’t you already do cardio?”

“Yes.”

“And weights.”

“Correct.”

“And now you’re doing… more weights.”

“Excellence,” I say through gritted teeth.

Mateo snorts. “That’s not excellence. That’s you being unhinged.”