Fadeaway by E. Vickers (ebook smartphone TXT) 📗

doesn’t return the squeeze, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. “I just…Maybe not tonight.”

“Okay,” I say, steeling myself against the sting.

“Annnndddd Daphne gets shut down,” says Kolt. “Hey, don’t feel bad. It’s your night too! Congratulations on winning the loser bracket.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Congratulations on your two points tonight.”

“And twelve rebounds!” he insists, but by then we’re both laughing. “Hey, have you seen Jake?”

Seth’s hand tightens around mine, and when I look up, I wonder if he knows somehow.

I’ve got to explain. Got to fix it.

“No,” I tell Kolt. “Probably still got kids lined up for autographs or something.” I say it as a burn on Kolt, but I feel the way Seth tenses beside me. He’s never been jealous of Jake’s success on the court, but even Seth must have his limits.

Kolt laughs and goes to look for Jake, and Seth lets me pull him back into the house.

I keep hold of his hand and hope he won’t hate me when I’ve said what I need to say.

“I made a mistake.”

He unfolds his arms, starts to walk away. “Come on,” he says, not even really looking at me. “It’s too loud in here.”

If those words had come out of Kolt’s mouth, they would sound like a line. But even if nothing had happened in the locker room, even if nothing needed to be fixed between us, Seth wouldn’t have stayed long at his own party. Deep down, he’s an introvert. He loves that people are at his house, having a great time. He loves that he played a role in the victory that brought them all here. But he’d rather watch it all from a distance.

Seth grabs two quilts from the hall closet, and I follow him out the back door and straight onto a path that leads to the woods. (Of course, Kolt gives us crap on our way out.)

Once we’re alone in the cold clarity of the forest, Seth hands me one quilt and wraps the other around himself. We’re not wrapping up together, then. He sits, and I sit beside him, unsure how much space he wants between us.

“I made a mistake,” I say again.

“Okay,” he says.

Even through the blanket, I can see that his knees are bouncing, and it can’t be from the cold. I’m not sure there’s a right time to say it, so I start again. “Something happened before the game, and I—”

“Could we not?” he asks. He starts to stand up, changes his mind. “I mean, whatever it is, can we talk about it another time? I really want tonight to be about the win.”

“Okay,” I say, and I swallow it back down with one part relief and nine parts remorse.

After that, we just sit on the rough log bench at the edge of the tree line, watching the golden glow of the party from the cocoon of our separate blankets.

Eventually we talk, and even now it’s not as hard as it probably should be. But the topics are safe; we’re both guarded. He asks about my game, and we talk about what’s next. Track for me, baseball for him, AP prep for both of us. We don’t talk about what’s beyond that. We’ve applied to some of the same colleges, but neither of us has decided on our top choices. Even though graduation is months away, it feels like high school is winding down.

Seth watches as a new song begins and everybody dances, the music and laughter muted by the distance and the windowpane. “It’s like a metaphor or something. Like we’re already looking back on the party, but not ready to step into the forest. You know what I mean?”

I laugh. “That is exactly what I was thinking, but not quite in those AP English–essay terms.” I lean my head on his shoulder, hoping he won’t pull away.

After a few seconds, I feel his temple against the top of my head. I draw the blanket closer around me. “Thank you for letting me share this metaphorical purgatory bench with you, Seth Cooper.”

It’s a more perfect moment than I deserve right now.

And yet Jake lingers like a ghost on the edges of this happiness. I can’t stop thinking of the way he looked in the training room, the desperation in his eyes. Even during the game—the greatest performance of his breathtaking high school career—there was something off. Something I’d been seeing glimpses of all season. For the first time, I think of the fact that he’s not here tonight and feel worry instead of relief. I hate to break the moment, hate that it might hurt him or us, but I look straight up at Seth, and I ask, because I have no choice.

“Will you check on him?”

Seth’s face tightens. “Check on who?” Of course he knows who, but it’s fair that he’s going to make me say it.

“Jake. I promise I’m over him. I know that more than ever. But something’s wrong, Seth. Really wrong. And he won’t answer my calls or texts.”

“You called him,” Seth says, pulling away. “You texted him. Tonight?”

I nod. “Before I came over.”

He closes his eyes and lets out a breath. “Yeah, I’ll check on him. How long do you think this will last?”

“I don’t know.” I’m not sure if he’s asking how long Jake will need us or how long I’ll feel like I have to help or whether he and I will stay together long enough to go off into those metaphorical woods side by side someday.

Tonight, I have no answers at all.

—

Later, as I lie in bed, trying to make sense of the day, I realize the list of people I trust is shorter than ever.

I don’t trust Jake like I used to.

I don’t trust myself around him.

And no matter how many times I chase the thought away, I wonder for the first time if Seth might be hiding something too.

I watch as Daphne’s taillights recede in the distance, headed toward home. Why the hell would I