Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(6)

How stupid I was for believing he meant that.

He couldn’t even hold eye contact for more than a moment before he looked down at the ground between us, the book still extended toward me.

My throat burned as I snatched it out of his hands, willing the tears flooding my eyes to stay put and not release down my cheeks. “You’re a liar, and a jerk, and I hope one day someone hurts you as bad as you just hurt me.”

His friends broke out into a chorus of laughter, and one of them said, “Ohhh, you hear that, Hernandez? This fat, pimple-faced freak called you a big bad jerk!”

The boy’s voice mimicked that of a little kid with those last few words, which made everyone crack up all over again.

And Leo didn’t say a word.

He didn’t stop them, didn’t tell them to shut up and leave me alone, didn’t defend me or even show an ounce of mercy. And when his friend threw an arm around him, leading him and the rest of the pack away from me, Leo looked back only once.

I thought I saw him mouth that he was sorry.

It only made me fume more.

A blink released the tears I’d been holding back, and they burned the memory into my brain forever as they seared down my cheeks.

I waited until I was home, until I was behind my bedroom door that I slammed vehemently. Then, I screamed and ripped at the pages of the notebook

“I hate you, Leo Hernandez,” I seethed, tearing page after page. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

Yanking the pages out of the notebook wasn’t enough. When they littered my floor, I picked them each up and shredded them into tiny morsels until my bedroom floor was covered in paper snow. My chest was heaving by the time I finished, and then I collapsed right there in the middle of the pile.

And I cried.

No, I sobbed, until my lungs gave out and there were no more tears left in my ducts. Mom hesitantly knocked on my door, but I told her to go away, and I told Dad the same when he got home from work. I didn’t join them for dinner. It felt like I’d never eat again, never sleep again, never be the same person I was before Leo destroyed me.

I tried to find reason, tried to remind myself that I was a high school girl and these emotions would pass. That’s what Mom always told me when I was being dramatic. But nothing could pull the hurt, the rage from my heart — not this time.

That day fundamentally changed who I was.

The weak cage I’d tried to live in to please my parents, to be what they and everyone else in my life wanted me to be, was completely obliterated. I clawed at the bars, bending and warping them until I could step through. And on the other side, I was untamed, unfazed, unstoppable.

I decided right then and there that nothing and no one would ever hurt me again.

That evening, when Leo logged on and tried to request for me to play with him, I unfriended him. He called me immediately after, and when I didn’t answer, he sent a text that I didn’t even bother reading.

I blocked him on everything.

I unplugged my Xbox and made a plan to take it and all my games to GameStop and exchange it for a PlayStation, instead.

I shut the world out.

I shut who I used to be out.

And that night, when sleep wouldn’t come, I didn’t know a lot of things.

I didn’t know how much worse things would get at school the next day. I didn’t know that it was possible for an already-fractured heart to break even further. I didn’t know that those asshole friends of Leo’s took a picture of my drawing when I was busy looking at Leo. I didn’t know they’d make copies and plaster it all over school with my hideous freshman school photo, that pimple-faced porn freak would become a nickname I’d never escape in all my high school years. I didn’t know that Leo would laugh with them, that he’d never so much as look my way again, that he’d pretend I didn’t even exist.

The biggest surprise of all?

I didn’t know that six years later, when I was no longer even a semblance of the girl I was that summer I turned fifteen — Leo Hernandez would be my neighbor.

And a year after that… my roommate.





Now… Seven Years Later

Leo

“Coach! Coach!”

I turned, setting my cup of Gatorade down on the folding table just in time to save it before I was run over by three eight-year-old kids in full padding. I scooped one up under my arm while the other two collided with my legs, their little hands around my waist.

“Did you see that?!” Keon said, pointing back at the field. His helmet was a bit too big for him and his head wobbled with the weight of it when he looked back up at me. “I hit him with the stiff arm, just like you said!”

“Did not!” Jordan combatted, releasing his grip on my waist only long enough to shove Keon backward a bit.

“Did, too!”

“I tripped.”

“Yeah, because I pushed you. With my stiff arm.”

“Yeah, but I tackled you, Keon,” the little tyke under my arm pointed out, wiggling until I set him back down. “So that stiff arm doesn’t really matter.”

“I got twenty yards!” Keon combatted.

“Nuh-uh!” the other two said in unison, then they were all fighting, and I chuckled, bending until I was down on one knee and at their level.

“Alright, alright,” I said, grabbing two of them by their shoulders. I gave them each a look until they quieted. “Keon, that was a damn good run. You should be proud of it.”