Page 71 of Blitz

I kiss her gently, sweetly. I pour all of my love for her into this kiss, this one perfect moment.

“I love you,” she says softly, then burrows her face into my chest.

I cup the back of her head as her cheek presses against my heart.

“Love you, too, Princess.”

But I don’t feel warmed by the innocent display of affection. Instead, I feel cold. Empty.

I take her hand and we head towards Athlete’s Village with the rest of the crowd. She rests her head on my upper arm as we walk.

She chatters about her weekend. She got some good study time in on the drive home. Mark puked on the bus and stunk up the place. Her races went well—she came in first in one and second in the two others. She has team dinner tomorrow night and nothing else on the horizon.

“Oh, and Micah will be here next weekend,” she adds as an afterthought.

My stomach tightens at the mention of her brother, the guy who used to be my best friend. I haven’t heard from him since our one text conversation.

“It’ll be good to see him,” I say neutrally.

“He misses you,” she tells me.

Is that why he hasn’t contacted me once in the last two and a half years? Is that why he dropped me the second she did? If that’s the way he treats his friends, maybe I don’t want to be his. I’m fine with the guys in the house.

It will be weird having him on campus. Mason and I are still so new. And they clearly have remained close over the years—they’re siblings, of course they’re close. I’m oddly nervous for him to meet the guys. For him to judge the life I’ve built without him, without her.

I get the same nervous antsy anticipation whenever Jamal or my moms come to visit, however infrequently that may be. They’re usually good for one or two visits a year. For the most part, they give me the space to live my own life outside of our family unit, something that I’ve appreciated more and more as time goes on. I need to figure out who I am and what I stand for. My family is there if I need them.

Mason’s house is four blocks away from mine. I follow her into the little yellow house. It’s laid out the same as mine. All the houses in Athlete’s Village follow one of three floor plans. They have six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a small kitchen, and a living room. There’s a small laundry room on the lower level, my favorite feature—it majorly sucked when our washer stopped working last fall and it took them six weeks to fix it.

Her room is at the back of the house, overlooking the small yard. She shares a Jack and Jill bathroom with Fred. Melissa and another sprinter are across the hall.

She opens the door and I blink back my surprise. Her room at her mom’s house was a dark blue and covered in posters. Her dad’s house featured a room that was bubble gum pink. This is… different. She has the same boring white walls we all do. Twinkly lights hang from the ceiling, looping around the room. The walls are plastered with pictures.

There’s a section of photos from high school, people I recognize as being on her track team or in the newspaper club. There are pictures that have to be from Georgetown—the logo is featured on her chest in a number of them. There are pictures from Newton. Fred, Melissa, and Mark are prominently featured. Over her desk are photos of her and Micah and their mess of step-siblings.

And then there’s the wall devoted to me. Pictures of us, hand in hand. Wrapped up in each other. Kissing. There are quite a few pictures of us kissing. Our first date, that terrible winter formal. Three years of homecoming dances. Junior prom. Date nights. Senior prom. Graduation. That last idyllic summer, beach trips and days at the community pool. It’s a wall of us.

I’m at a loss for words. It doesn’t look like these are newly printed photos, that she just put them up last week. They’ve been on her wall for awhile. She’s been staring at pictures of us for who knows how long.

“Mase…”

She looks at me over her shoulder, totally oblivious. “What’s up?”

She might still be processing what we are now, but it’s clear she’s been pining for me just as long as I’ve been pining for her. When I shut down, she lit up. We were both coping in our own ways.

“Nothing.” I drop her bag on her bed and press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m great.”

Chapter twenty-nine

Mason

I’m not sure what I expected when I jokingly suggested it, but Tucker agreeing to a month of celibacy was not on my list. He seems perfectly fine with abstaining for a month or longer.

Aren’t guys supposed to want sex all the time? Isn’t he supposed to be all over me after going without for the last two and a half years? Either he’s not as okay with this as he says he is, or he’s getting some on the side. I know sex is important to him, that it’s a meaningful experience for him, but I just can’t wrap my brain around the fact that he would rather not have sex with me than have sex with me right now.

So I call Micah.

“What did he do? I’ll beat him up,” my twin tells me.