Page 123 of Play For Me

If it hurts this bad now, a few months down the line probably would have destroyed me.

“Hang on,” Jay says, rubbing at his eyes. For the first time, I take him in. His hair is a mess, his shirt wrinkled, and there’s a red line across his forehead from sleeping on the couch pillow. He must have come straight here when she texted, and when he realized I wasn’t really present to recognize him, he crashed on the couch.

Nausea roils in my belly. When the hell am I going to stop being such a burden to the people I care about?

Jay is staring at me. “What do you mean she would have found out? Are you talking about CeCe?” Her name pricks at me as I nod. When I don’t offer anything else, he groans in frustration. “Sol, what happened after your dad left? All I know is that CeCe texted and told me you had a rough night and weren’t feeling well. She said you didn’t want her to come over, but she was worried about you being on your own.” He studies me. “Why didn’t you want her to come over?”

The words are sour on my tongue. “I broke up with her.”

Jay just stares at me, mouth open. A beat of silence passes, then another. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he finally bursts out.

I wince. Noise is always harder for me when I’m already in shut down mode.

He takes a deep breath, obviously trying to control himself. “Why would you break up with her? You’re insanely in love with that girl!”

“Solomon, I’m in love with you.”

“No, you aren’t.”

She looked hurt when I corrected her, but what was I supposed to do? There’s no way someone like her could ever love someone like me. And still, hearing her say those words mademe want to believe it could be true, and that hope hurt like a bitch. Shutting her down had been my only option.

“She’s not going to stay,” I tell him. “At some point she’ll realize how deep this goes, how fucked up I really am, and then it will be over anyhow. At least this way I didn’t get in too far.”

He stares at me. “That’s insane. You know that, right?”

I manage a bitter smile. “Funny, I’m pretty sure my father used that same word to describe me last night.”

Jay makes a low, angry noise in his chest. “You have no idea how much I wish I could end that asshole once and for all.” He’s quiet for a beat. “Still not understanding why that means you dumped the girl you’ve been crazy about for two years.”

“Seriously?” I snap. The anger that keeps spiking this morning kind of surprises me. I’m usually numb for much longer than this, and when real emotion does reappear, it’s usually just disgust at myself for being so weak. “What about this aren’t you getting? Cecelia deserves better.”

“I mean, obviously she’s out of your league.” He offers a small smile, but I don’t see the humor in his very accurate statement. “But Sol, man, she’scrazyabout you, too. You guys are fucking great together. How are you not seeing that?”

My stomach twists. “If she’s crazy about anyone, it’s a guy who doesn’t exist. She has this image in her head of who she thinks I am.” I should know, right? I did everything I could to make her see me the way I wanted her to. “But that’s not real.”

“Of course it’s real. It’s you?—”

“No,” I snap. “I’m the guy who can’t remember anything that happened for about five hours last night. That’s how out of it I was. And it’s not the first time she’s seen me like that. After we ran into Sybil in San Jose, I did the same exact, crazy bullshit. But that time I could have gotten her hurt because I was too busy being a weak little bitch to check on her knee before the game.” Igroan, rubbing my face, remembering how she wouldn’t even let me look at her knee yesterday. Once again, I let her down.

Jay holds up his hands. “Sol. Having these reactions does not make you weak or crazy.”

I laugh, the sound sharp and bitter. “It’s thedefinitionof crazy.” How long before Cecelia started to see me that way, too? I don’t think I would survive that, honestly. I think seeing the same disgust and judgement inhereyes that I always saw in my parents might just send me into a hole so deep I wouldn’t be able to get out of it.

“Listen to me.” There’s a tension to Jay’s voice and when I look at him, his eyes are red. “There isnothingwrong with you.”

“Jay, give me a break.” I hold up my busted hand as evidence.

“So you hit a wall after a hard night.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I once tried to head butt a refrigerator to impress a girl while I was drunk. So who’s the crazy one?” When I just stare at him, he sighs. “Guess you’re not ready to be cheered up by stories of my stupidity,” he grumbles.

“It’s not the same thing,” I mutter. “You doing something dumb ’cause you’re drunk just means you’re in college.”

“And you shutting down after a run-in with your parents just means you’re human,” he shoots back. I open my mouth to argue but he holds up a hand, looking pissed now.

“Maybe you have challenges I don’t, Sol. Maybe your brain works different from mine. But that doesn’t mean you’re broken, or whatever shit your parents tried to put in your head. I can see who you really are. So can Em, and Red.” My eyes sting, chest feeling suddenly tight. Then he twists the knife.

“And I bet CeCe can see who you really are, too, because that girl is pretty fucking smart.”

I stand abruptly, knocking over the chair. Just like that, I can’t stand to be in this room with him anymore, hearing these words. I know that he means them. Jay doesn’t have a dishonestbone in his body. And I know that my best friend loves me like I love him.