Page 6 of The Score

She squeezes my hand.

I hear what she doesn't say—for now. Like me, she's waiting for the day I meet the right person. She thinks it will naturally break us apart, but I'm determined to never let it happen.

"You will always have me." The words come easy, and I give them weight with a confident tone. "Even when the day comes and I meet someone special. You will always have me. Our friends, too. But your parents are more traditional. They don't get why you renounced love like that."

"You know why I stopped looking," she says.

Yeah, I know. Protective anger for her courses through my veins like it always does, to know how many bad experiences she had through the years. When so many people play with you, mistreat you, disrespect you, of course you want to give up. It broke her heart and mine, to see her go through all of it. In that sense, I understand.

But it only has to work once.

The thing is, she's not a romantic like me. She doesn't read a hundred thousand words of fanfic a week. She doesn't rewatch her favorite TV show episodes based on when her favorite fictional couple first kissed. She doesn't seek another hit of romantic dopamine hoping one day it will be her turn.

Pen did her part. She put herself out there, she opened up, she took risks. She gave chances and trusted. It rarely clicked. When it did, they hurt her.

"Yeah," I say. "Fuck those guys. Their loss. Men are the worst."

She laughs. "Well, it sucks that I can't just do this for him. Especially now."

I glance at her. She stares out to the road, pensive. Her eyes are always smiling, even now. I know the tiny changes— the tells that betray her innermost sadness for the situation.

There are things about our relationship I've never figured out, but I've never lost track of the most important truth. We're friends. Having her in my life is a miracle I'll never take for granted. To me, that means helping her carry her burdens, and ease her struggles every time I can.

It's one of my sports psych's favorite topics. Whenever I see her during the season, she tells me I need to brave the depths of my mind and puzzle out what all of that means. She says my acts of service are good and generous, but that it will do me good to understand myself more. To ask what I feel and why, to shed light on the mysteries that make me… me. She also has some thoughts about my capacity to compartmentalize but, since that skill is so helpful for me as an athlete, she lets me be.

"Despite everything," Pen says after a while, "it's in moments like these that I wish I was still looking. Then I could tell my dad to hang on, that it will happen one day. It would make him happy and, more than anything, I want to make him happy. Even more so now. But I can't imagine putting myself through dating hell again. Especially not when it would force me to rush, if I hope to get married before the surgery. It would have to be before the surgery, I think, which… ha. Silly me, for even imagining it."

"I know you. You’ll still think about finding a way."

"I can't. What would that even look like? I could put it in a dating app profile. 'Looking for marriage. Not hypothetical. You better give me a ring in two weeks, so I can make my dad's dream of walking me down the aisle a reality. His health is up in the air— thank you for understanding.Any takers?'"

Grinding my teeth happens by instinct. I hate the idea of her dating someone else. Or maybe, what I hate is that she could get so terribly hurt by trying something like that. Regardless, a growl escapes me.

Pen glances at me. "I would have to add something about the snarly best friend who would vet them. Hard."

"Mmh. Yeah. Your best friend might threaten them, too. A little. If that's not enough, I'll get the whole team on their ass."

"Since these men I'd be dating are hypothetical, sure. Go right ahead. Scare them into being decent human beings. You have what it takes."

I do in more ways than she knows. Her words sparked memories I don't think she's thinking of, and I'm a man of my word, after all.