She Drives Me Crazy(52)

My insides cool as quickly as they had warmed. How does she always manage to turn a compliment into a dagger? Why do I let her? And why doesn’t it give me a strong enough reason to stay away?

“You did see it,” I tell her. “You just didn’t always like it.”

Her mouth hardens. We’re both quiet, and I’m ready to call it quits before I’ve even gotten what I needed.

But then she passes me the ball and says, “I miss Grandma Earl, you know.”

I thrust the ball back to her. “You still live there.”

“Yeah, but I mean … our school. I miss it. I miss the people.”

Our school. She sounds genuine. I don’t know what to make of it. “I thought you hated Grandma Earl.”

She shoots a free throw. Misses. “I thought I did, too.”

I grab the rebound and hold it to my stomach. She meets my eyes. There’s a meekness in her expression I haven’t seen in a while. The soft side she used to reveal only to me.

I pass the ball back to her. “How about we play something? P-I-G?”

“Okay.”

She shoots first: an easy shot just below the basket. The ball sinks in. I step up to take the same shot. The ball bounces on the rim and tips in.

Her next shot is a hook shot. I’ve never been as good at them as she has. Whereas she makes the basket, my shot bounces off the rim.

“That’s a P,” Tally says, but she’s not gloating. She says it matter-of-factly, like it could have just as easily been her. Or am I only imagining she says it that way? Maybe she is gloating.

We carry on, Tally setting the moves of the game until she misses a shot. Then it’s my turn to set the pace. I sink a free throw. She follows suit. I line up to take my next shot.

“Do you really like her?” Tally asks out of nowhere.

I freeze, the ball in my hands. “What?”

“Irene,” she says, like she has to force herself to say the name. “You started dating her so quickly. I thought—never mind.”

“Tally, you broke up with me.” I don’t say it harshly. It spools from me like a question. Because this—this—is what I need to understand.

“I know,” she says quietly. “But it wasn’t because I didn’t love you anymore.”

I stop dribbling. My feelings are all over the place. My body is hot but my hands are cold. I need her to keep talking even if I don’t want to need it.

“Transferring was the right thing for me,” Tally says. “At least, I think it was. Maybe I won’t know for sure until we’re a few years out of high school, but at the time, it felt like the right decision. I didn’t like Grandma Earl. I was floundering there. I felt like I needed—I don’t know, a push. A chance to start over.”

“But why?” I plead.

“Because I—” She shrugs her shoulders defensively. “I wanted something more than I was getting. I wanted to go somewhere basketball mattered. Where I mattered.”

“You mattered to me,” I say, my voice catching.

“Scottie, believe me. You were the only thing that made the decision difficult.”

My heart splits. We stare at each other. Tally clears her throat and says, “It’s your shot.”

I take a deep breath and dribble again. My free throw sinks cleanly. Nothing but net. Tally sighs, and I point at my feet until she lines up in the same position.

Her shot misses the basket by a full foot, but she ignores it and turns to me.

“Scottie,” she says, and god, I missed her saying my name. “I really, truly thought I was doing the right thing breaking up with you. I thought it would be too hard to switch schools and keep up a relationship. It didn’t seem fair to you.”

Neither one of us grabs her rebound. The ball rolls into the bleachers.

“Don’t you think I should have decided that for myself?” I ask. “If it was fair to me?”

Tally pulls at the split ends of her braid. She looks up at me. “Do you wish we were still together?”

My throat feels tight. I have an aching need to reach out and touch her. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a small voice says Irene Irene Irene. But in my body, in my heart, all I can feel is this excruciating need to soothe this heartache.

“No,” I answer truthfully. “But I don’t know how to give you up, either. I’m trying and trying and it’s killing me.”

Tally’s chest heaves. She moves toward me and wraps me in a fierce hug. It’s tinged with yearning and grief and regret. I can’t pull away from it. It’s like pressing on a bruise and knowing it will hurt, but needing to feel the tenderness anyway.

When the tears leak out of my eyes, she wipes them with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, Scottie,” she whispers. “I really am. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Is that true? Is she being genuine right now? Do I have to keep my guard up even though it’s exhausting?

“I wish I could show you my world,” Tally says. “Show you why I came here. It’s the right place for me.”

“I believe you.”

She wipes my tears again. “You never answered my question. Are you really dating her?”

I look into those yearning blue eyes. In this moment, they’re all I can see. “No.” I pause. “Not right now.”