All This Time(5)

My head whips back to the front windshield just in time to see a blinking pair of yellow hazard lights in front of us. I hammer the brakes, and the car slides underneath us without slowing.

Suddenly I don’t have any control over the direction we’re going in.

I fight against it as I try to avoid a stalled car in the dead center of our lane, gripping the steering wheel tightly as I attempt to steer into the skid. The car miraculously regains traction just in time, and we swerve out of the way of the stopped car.

I pull onto the shoulder and carefully slow to a stop, my chest heaving.

That was close.

“I’m sorry.” I take a long, steadying breath, looking over at Kimberly to see she is pale, shaken, the sharp curve of her collarbone intensifying and receding as she struggles to catch her breath.

She’s okay.

But we aren’t.

I don’t want to be together.

“Are we…?” I start to say, the words struggling to come out, fighting their way to the surface. “Are we breaking up?”

She turns her eyes to me, and I can see the tears lightening the blue of her irises. Normally, I would wipe the tears away and tell her everything will be okay.

But this time I need her to tell me that.

“I need you to listen to me,” she says, her voice quivering.

I nod, the near accident wiping the anger away and replacing it with something even more intense.

Fear.

“I’m listening.”

I tighten my jaw as she gathers her thoughts, my hand already reaching up to feel the charm bracelet inside my jacket while my heart thumps loudly in my chest just above it.

“I’ve only ever known myself as Kyle’s girlfriend,” she finally says.

I stare at her, taken aback. What does that even mean?

She sighs, taking in my incredulous expression. She searches for the right words. “When you blew out your shoulder—”

“This isn’t about my damn shoulder,” I say, hitting the steering wheel with my palm. This is about us.

“It is,” Kimberly says, matching my frustration. “It fucking is. You had so many dreams, and you were going to get them.”

Her words catch me off guard, hitting their mark. I wince as a phantom pain radiates unexpectedly across my shoulder. I see the hulking lineman barreling right at me. The number 9 on his jersey as his hands wrap around my throwing arm, flinging me to the ground. Then… the sickening crunch of my bones and the tearing apart of my ligaments as his body slams into mine. Game-winning throws and college scholarships and a blue-and-yellow jersey with my name on the back. All of those things right at my fingertips. Gone with one play.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, like she’s seeing it too. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to have it all disappear, to have the scouts stop coming, the scholarships dry up—”

I clench my jaw and focus on the rain. Is she trying to hurt me more? “Why are we talking about this? It has nothing to do with you and me—”

“Kyle. Stop. Listen.” Her voice is firm and instantly silences me. “I loved you.”

My insides turn to solid ice. Loved. Past tense.

Fuck.

“But when you couldn’t play ball anymore, you changed. You became… I don’t know,” she says, searching for the word. “Scared. You were scared to take chances, scared to try anything else. And I became your enabler. Your crutch. You always had to have me there.”

She has to be kidding me.

That’s what she thinks of me? Seriously? That I’m scared and pathetic? That I can’t do anything on my own?

Has she been with me all these months out of pity?

“I’m sorry you felt so burdened by me,” I say, forcing myself to look back over at her as my hand instinctively reaches for my shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to miss a few parties. I’m sorry Janna and Carly went to the Bahamas while you felt obligated to sit by my bed and feed me soup because I couldn’t lift my arm. But that’s not on me. You could have walked away at any time—”

“Could I? Would you have let me?” she asks me, shaking her head. “Seeing each other every day at school, same classes, same routines, but not together? Every time we broke up, we never even made it a day.” Would I have let her? What does that mean? We always got back together because we wanted to. Now… she’s saying this?

“So, what? You just… pretended?”

“I didn’t pretend. I just hung in there because I…”

Her voice trails off, but I already know exactly what she was going to say.

“Because you knew we wouldn’t be going to the same college,” I say, feeling like I’m going to be sick. “You’d be rid of me.”

“No,” she says, closing her eyes as she fights to get the words out. “I’m not trying to be rid of you. But—I do want to know what it’s like to turn around and not see you there.” Her voice cracks, but her spine straightens. She means this. She really means it. Her eyes hold mine, steady and sure. “I want to be me, just me, without you.”

The words throw me off-balance, but I hold her gaze. We stare at each other, the rain still falling in sheets against the roof of my car. How long has she felt this way? How long has she not loved me?