Offside (17 page)

“You bitch!” I yelled out, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the same time. I rolled to a sitting position and reached behind me to grab the ball out of the net. I cringed a little as I stretched to reach for the ball, and my ribs ached from the movement.

Nicole raised her eyebrows at me.

“You conceited little bastard,” she retorted. “Always thinking you’re better than everyone else. It’s about time someone took your ego down a peg.”

I smiled and shook my head at her.

“You did that on purpose,” I accused. “You conned me.”

“And you fell for it.”

I couldn’t argue with her there. I snickered and dribbled the ball between my legs. She continued to stand over me with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.

“All right,” I sighed. “What do you want to know?”

I figured it was going to be something about my past conquests with the girls in this school, and I wasn’t looking forward to talking about it with her. I mean…I didn’t see her that way, and I didn’t want her to think I did. Or maybe I was going to have to confess about the flowers—I could cope with that. I kind of wanted her to know.

She hooked her thumbs into the little decorative pockets on her shorts and leaned back on her heels a bit. I looked up to see her biting on her lip, her smile now gone.

“What happened when you went home Sunday?” she said as her eyes grew dark.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied, but at the same time, I felt my stomach drop. There was something in her tone…something I didn’t like. Not at all.

“Tell me how your rib got broken,” she said.

My body went cold.

No.

No fucking way.

“I told you,” I said quietly.

“You told me you got it cracked in a scrimmage,” Nicole said. “And that’s bullshit. I want to know what really happened.”

“I told you what happened,” I repeated. I stood up, popped the ball into the air with my toe, and grabbed it before I started heading back to my Jeep, taking long strides through the damp grass.

“Hey!” she called out. “We made a deal!”

“Fuck you!” I yelled back over my shoulder. My hands were shaking, and my breathing was quick, making my side hurt. I tossed the ball to the ground and walked faster.

“Tell me what happened!” she continued from behind me. “Why didn’t you want to go home, Thomas? Why?”

“Shut the fuck up!” I yanked open my car door, fully intending to just fucking leave her there. I didn’t need this bullshit—some bitch conning me and then pulling this kind of shit. No fucking way.

She managed to wrench the passenger door open before I could lock it, and I tossed the ball into the back seat without looking in her direction.

“I won,” she said. “You have to tell me.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said again, my voice lowered, “or you can fucking walk home.”

“We had a deal.” Her voice didn’t sound quite as forceful now. “Are you backing out on me?”

“I told you what happened,” I said again.

“The deal was for the truth,” she countered.

As if I needed the reminder.

I started the Jeep and gripped the steering wheel, trying to decide if I should just get her home quickly and never speak to her again or dump her ass in the school parking lot right now. I was still panting, and my head was getting swimmy. I needed a pain pill…or maybe a drink.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I heard her whisper. “I swear I won’t.”

My foot tapped the accelerator, revving the engine but still not going anywhere. I just stared straight ahead, trying to silence that tiny piece in my brain that wanted to tell her everything. No fucking way.

I continued to grip the steering wheel even as I watched Nicole reach over to turn the key back to the off position. The engine whirred for a moment before dropping back into silence.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her get up on her knees in the passenger seat and crawl partway over to me. Her hand slid around the back of my head, and she pulled me close to her. That’s when I could smell her, and as I inhaled, she threaded her fingers through my hair and pushed it back behind my ear.

No fucking way…

No way…

No…

I can’t…

Please…

I turned my head toward her, something inside of me letting go…giving up. I didn’t know what this was, but I couldn’t stop it. I buried my face against the skin of her neck and wrapped my arms around her waist. I heard myself scream over and over again—my throat going raw from the force of it—until my body just collapsed against her, and she held on to me.

Just like she had before.

“It’s not his fault,” I whispered against her skin. “It’s mine…it’s always been my fault.”

Oh shit.

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no…

My mind continued to scream even though my voice had failed.

There was nothing I could do. The words were out.

My mind was empty.

Or it was full, and I just couldn’t see past the fog inside to know the difference.

The warmth of the girl holding me in my car in the middle of the school parking lot was the only thing keeping me grounded, keeping me from completely going over the edge. I was still close, and as the tension throughout my muscles slowly released, the spring inside my head just wound tighter. I closed my eyes as her fingers brushed across my temple in their seemingly endless task of pushing my hair away from my face.

My head was now in her lap, and my arms were wrapped tightly around her waist as she held me, comforted me, and hummed quietly. The emergency brake was uncomfortable against my side, but at least it was my right side. My left side ached. My throat ached. My head ached.

But it was so, so easy to forget about all of that because I was wrapped up in her arms and her scent. I clung to her as if she were the railing of a balcony on the top floor of a hotel, and my drunk ass had just stumbled over it. It hurt to try to hold on to her, and part of me just wanted to let go and let myself fall—be done with it.

Rain started plopping against the roof of the car—slowly at first but then harder. I still didn’t move, and Nicole didn’t seem to be going anywhere, either. The inside of the windows fogged up, making it hard to tell just how late it was. I wasn’t sure if the dim light was due to the cloud cover or if it was really that late.

I needed to get home.

I raised my head a bit and ended up with my forehead against her shoulder as I finally met her eyes again. She looked so
worried
. I couldn’t keep my eyes on hers, so I looked away again, focusing out the window though there was nothing to be seen.

My shoulders tensed as I thought about what I had just done and said. What the fuck was I going to do now? She knew. Somehow she knew even before I said it, but she didn’t understand why he had to do it. I’d taken everything that mattered from him, and he had every right to be pissed about it.

“It’s not his fault,” I said again, my voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain. I coughed, my throat still hurting.

“What happened?”

“He was drinking the night before,” I said. “He had too much. He doesn’t usually drink at all…just that day. He was angry, but he didn’t mean it. I just fell.”

“You
fell
?” she repeated. “How did you fall?”

“He only just…pushed me away,” I told her. “There’s one of those vanity table things—some antique—in the hallway. I cracked my rib on that. It wasn’t his fault; it was mine.”

“He pushed you,” Nicole said, “and you hit a table, and that’s when your rib broke?”

“Yeah.”

“How exactly is that your fault?” she asked quietly.

“It’s
all
my fault,” I said. My arms tightened around her, and I ducked my forehead into her shoulder. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”

“My dad said it was a car accident.”

“But she wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me.” I proceeded to tell her about my forgotten gloves and how Mom went back for them.

“It was an accident,” Nicole insisted when I was done. “Everyone forgets things sometimes…”

“I don’t anymore,” I mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“It never would have happened if it weren’t for me,” I growled under my breath. “Would she have even been in the car then if I hadn’t forgotten my gloves? Huh?”

“That’s not the point, Thomas. You were just a kid…”

“That didn’t stop it from happening,” I said, “and it doesn’t change the fact that if I hadn’t been so fucking stupid, she’d be alive now.”

“You are not responsible—”

“Yes, I am!” I yelled as I pushed away from her, wincing and grabbing my side. Moving away didn’t work, so I just dropped my head back on her shoulder again. “Tell me she still would have been on that road if I had remembered all my shit! Go ahead. Tell me she would still have had a reason to drive back home! You can’t, can you? And you know why? Because
it’s my fucking fault!
”

Nicole leaned back against the seat and tilted her head to look at me, her expression pained.

“Even if it was,” she said, “and I am
not
agreeing with you, but even if the accident was your fault, that doesn’t mean he gets to treat you like this now. It happened six years ago.”

“It’s six years later, and she’s still gone,” I said, repeating Dad’s words to me from the previous day. “Nothing changes.”

“It’s supposed to change,” Nicole insisted, “but you guys are stuck.”

I closed my eyes and thought about the word
stuck
for a while. I had to admit it did kind of fit.

“Thomas, you need to tell someone about this,” Nicole said softly. “My dad could—”

“No!” I turned my head to hers and gripped her waist. “No, Nicole! You promised! You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

Nicole shook her head.

“I won’t,” she said. “I just think
you
should.”

I tried to take a deep breath, but between the uncomfortable position in the car and my rib, it wasn’t working well. I didn’t want to let go of her, though. Even if I couldn’t breathe at all, holding her and feeling her hands in my hair was good. I didn’t want to ever let go.

“No one can know,” I whispered into her shoulder. “No one.”

I thought maybe having someone who knew about it might make it just a little better, but I didn’t know what that was going to mean to Rumple. I also didn’t know where we were supposed to go from here. Even though Jeremy had his suspicions, this was entirely different.

“What now?” I asked quietly.

I had turned the car back on, but we were still sitting in the school parking lot. I leaned back in the driver's seat, my fingers clutching the center of the steering wheel. I felt strange—nervous, embarrassed, empty—and I simultaneously wanted to get the hell away from this girl and also hold her tightly and never let go. It was freaking me out.

“I still think you should tell my dad,” she responded—again. “But I'm not going to push it—not now. He has no right to treat you like that.”

“Going to your dad is pointless,” I said—again. We'd gone over a lot of this in the past hour. “I'm over eighteen. What's he going to do? Even if I was still underage, you obviously haven't been around long enough to understand my dad's hold on this community.”

“Then move out.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…can't,” I said with a sigh. “I can't do that to him. He needs me. Besides, I don't really have anywhere to go.”

“That's what I thought a couple of months ago,” she responded. “I never would have considered coming to live here before then. I didn't think I had anywhere to go, either.”

“Why did you leave?”

“You lost the bet,” she reminded me.

“I don't care about the fucking bet,” I said, my voice a little harsher than I had intended. “I want to know.”