Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(65)

“Oh.” She thought for a few seconds. “I took my dress off and things ended up working out.”

I sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Men.

Bryn stood up and unbuttoned her long coat.

“Whatever we started, CeCe, it needs to stop,” Bryn said. “It was fun at first, but I don’t want to play this game anymore.”

“It might be too late,” I said.

“He thinks that you’re me. Or that I’m you. He wants me to be you!”

“No, he wants you,” I insisted.

Bryn threw her arms into the air.

“He wants my face and your mind.”

I nodded slowly. Bryn was right.

“But we can’t keep doing this,” she said. “I don’t want to lie anymore. I don’t want to keep pretending I like his weird taste in music. He made a mix for me the other night of his favorite classical composers, and even worse, he insisted we listen to it together. Some of those songs were twenty minutes long!”

It sounded perfect. Damn it. She was complaining about dating a guy who still had an ounce of romance.

“He told me to message him while we’re on the road, but he means you. You need to tell him the truth.”

Bryn tossed her coat over the banister and mumbled that she needed some coffee. She combed her fingers through her hair and headed down the hall, toward the kitchen.

I looked after her. Tell him the truth? Didn’t she understand that’s what I had been doing all along?





Chapter Twenty-Five


CeCe


In November, we were on the road for two or three nights on average a week. We spent Thanksgiving eating turkey sandwiches from Subway at our hotel and watching Gladiator in a conference room. I was always frustrated when I heard people claim that athletes were coddled or spoiled. There was a reason why we had tutors dedicated to working with us on homework and projects. Between practice, traveling, weight lifting, games, and meetings, playing a varsity sport was like trying to balance a forty-hour work week with school and studying. We crammed for tests on bumpy bus rides in the dark. We woke up to early morning practice while most of the world was still fast asleep and sunlight was just a faint whisper in the sky. When we suffered a heartbreaking loss and were faced with post-game publicity, frustrated parents, angry coaches, not to mention the letdown of the entire high school, we went home and attempted to focus on a math problem set.

One night on the road, the entire team squeezed in VanBree and Schmitty’s hotel room, gorging on pizza. The girls were swapping their weekly dating statistics, weekend make out play-by-plays, and boyfriend status reports. They discussed watching the basketball team practice in order to build their fantasy relationship roster. It was like ESPN highlights for girls.

I tended to stay out of these conversations. I slowly blended into the background, like a chair or a curtain. I didn’t have a whole lot of input on the matter of dating. If a running track resembled our love lives, they would all have lapped me about a hundred times by now.

“What I don’t get,” Tuba said in between bites of cheese and dough, “is, how do you know if it’s more than just a fling with a guy? More than a crush?”

“They need to make a grand gesture,” Schmitty said. “That’s what sets the good guys apart from…everyone else.” The girls leaned forward, listening to her words like she was the Dalai Lama of dating. Schmitty had a long-term boyfriend all throughout high school. To us, that was saint-like.

“A grand gesture? You mean, like, they want to talk to you instead of fondle you?” Bryn asked.

The girls laughed and I looked up from my notebook.

“I think some guys assume that sexting at 2 a.m. is a grand gesture,” Aisha commented.

Schmitty shook her head. “It’s when they drive through a blinding snowstorm just to be with you. Or they agree to tour an art museum, even if they could care less, because they know you care. They sit on the couch all day with you when you’re sick and watch movies. Even if it means no chance at making out. They cook you dinner at their apartment, despite all the heckling they get from their roommates. They put themselves out there. They put you first.”

“A grand gesture,” Tuba repeated the words, like they were her new mantra.

“That’s when you’ll know it’s something more,” Schmitty said.

My eyes traveled around the room, but my thoughts were on one person. When we were home, the football team was on the road. I only saw Emmett at Shakespeare class, and Watford was careful never to give us a second of conversation time during her sacred fifty minutes.

…

EMMETT

It was three a.m. and I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to text Bryn, but I knew she was on the road and I didn’t want to wake her up. But I needed to vent. I grabbed my iPad off the nightstand and turned it on. The screen illuminated my room in a blue electric glow. I opened up my email, and there was a message from Bryn, sent four minutes ago. I smiled and opened it.

Bryn: I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, my mind burns with thoughts about you. I’m not complaining. I like the heat. But they keep me awake, defenseless in the dark.

I started to type.

Emmett: I’ve been trying to piece you together. That song was my way of telling you the effect you have on me—how I understand how complicated you are. I can’t do it justice in writing. I’m not as good with words as you.