“If you can’t be honest with yourself, how can you expect Saylor to trust you again?”
I hang my head and rub my temples to stave off the headache I can feel building in the back of my skull. “Damn, you’re frustrating, Nora.”
“Tell me,” she pushes, refusing to give me an inch.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. After my injury and finding out Dawn was pregnant and I’d have to raise him alone, everything was so messed up. I looked back on the last time I was actually happy and….”
“And you thought of Say,” she finishes for me.
I rub my hand from my forehead down to my chin. “Yeah. I thought of Say. I always think of Say,” I clarify with a gruff laugh. “It’s not like I have a chance of getting her back or anything. I don’t even know if she’s single or not anymore. I just…wish I could turn back time.”
“You can’t turn back time.”
“I know.”
“But you can make your future awesome, and you can right the wrongs from your past.”
“And how would you suggest I do that, Nora?”
“By telling her the truth.”
“I can’t do that.”
Not face-to-face anyway.
Frustrated, Nora demands, “Why not?”
“Because I can’t,” I reiterate.
“Then you can take it slowly. Just be her friend. That’s how it started between you two in the first place, right?”
We started out like an inferno. The spark was instant and burned us both alive before either of us even realized what was happening. She was it for me the moment I laid eyes on her my sophomore year. But I didn’t care. And neither did she.
She always thought she came second to football, but it wasn’t true. I did my best on the field because she was in the stands. She was watching me. Rooting for me. Cheering me on and lifting me up to be the best person I could be. And how did I thank her for it? I let the tiny voices in my head that said I wasn’t good enough, that she could do better, that we were too young to feel something so deeply…I let it all get to me. I was weak. I caved. I gave up the best thing that had ever happened to me, thinking it was best for her.
And maybe I was right. She became a teacher––the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. Except me.
“Is she still single?” Nora prods.
“I didn’t see a ring, and her last name is still Swenson, so I can only assume she isn’t married. But that doesn’t mean she’s on the market. And even if she is, I don’t have a chance with her. She can’t even stand to be in the same room with me,” I admit.
“Just be patient, Owen.”
I sigh. “I gotta go put Grady to bed. Goodnight, Nora. Thanks for calling.”
“Anytime. Oh, and Gage says hi.”
I smile. “Tell him hi from us too. Goodnight, Nora.”
“Goodnight.”
Then I hang up and push myself to my feet when my phone returns to its original screen and the same message that taunts me.
Slytherin4ever: Hogwarts house. Go.
Slytherin4ever: Not a Harry Potter fan?
I laugh and type a reply before I can talk myself out of it. Harry Potter always makes me think of Say, and even though this girl isn’t her, I’m lonely enough to pretend she is. Just for a minute.