And again, his façade slipped.
His bottom lip trembled so bad he wiped his hand over his face to cover it, and then he hung his hands on his hips and turned away from me again to hide the rest.
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.
And then I charged.
“Bullshit,” I seethed, shoving him from behind. He stumbled forward before turning to face me just in time for me to push him again. “This is all bullshit and I know it. Why are you doing this? What the fuck is going on, Clay?”
“I just told you what’s going on. This has been my plan all along,” he said, voice louder, and I watched as he willed himself with all his might to be angry, to glare down at me — but he failed pathetically, and tears filled his eyes, falling over his cheeks as my heart broke with the sight.
I reached out for him, swiping the wetness from his face before I held his cheeks in my hands.
“Don’t do this,” I begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but please, don’t do this.”
His face twisted in grief, and he turned away from me but leaned into my palm, closing his eyes and releasing another wave of tears before he peeled my hands off him.
“I have to go,” he whispered, brushing past me.
But before he could reach the door, I ripped him back.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Stop this right now. Look at me,” I begged, grabbing his chin in my hands and forcing him. “Look at yourself. You don’t mean this. You don’t mean any of it.” I shook my head. “You don’t.”
“Please,” he pleaded, and as more tears filled his eyes, he tried to pull away from me. I didn’t know if it was shame from crying, or shame from what he was saying, or both. “I can’t.”
“You can’t what?” I asked desperately, trying to read between the lines.
He shook his head, freeing my hands from him before he kissed my fingertips and let them go completely. “You deserve to be happy, Giana. I want you to be happy. Just… move on. Go be with Shawn and—”
“I DON’T WANT TO BE WITH SHAWN,” I cried, pressing back into his space. I pushed up onto my toes, wrapped my arms around his neck and refused to leave any distance between us when I whispered, “I want to be with you.”
He cracked, a sob breaking through his veneer as I slammed my mouth over his, tasting the fresh tears there. His arms wrapped fully around me, and he kissed me like he fucking hated me, like I was the absolute bane of his existence.
And then, he pushed me back.
“I have to go,” he said, voice cracking as he went for the door.
“Whatever it is, whoever it is you think you’re helping, you’re breaking the promise you made to me,” I said to his back, and I knew I was right, knew I’d struck a nerve when he stopped abruptly, his back heaving with every breath.
Carefully, I moved around him, bending to catch his gaze.
“The promise you made to yourself,” I reminded him.
He closed his eyes, letting out a long, hot exhale. “I have to.”
“Have to what? What are you doing, exactly?”
But he wouldn’t answer me. He just shook his head, all his effort going toward strangling the emotion desperately trying to break free.
And in an instant, in a snap of a band I didn’t realized was stretched so thin, I went from sad and hurt to all-encompassing anger.
“You’re a coward, Clay Johnson,” I whispered.
His eyes snapped to mine, pain laden in them, but I didn’t care.
He was hurting me, too.
“You’re a coward, and a fool, and this isn’t what you want, and I know it.” I shook my head. “Let me in. Tell me what happened. Tell me and we can fix it together.”
Clay just stared at me, his nostrils flaring as his eyes wandered over the length of my face like he was savoring every inch of it and storing it in his memory.
Like he’d never see me again.
And that broke me.
“Fine!” I screamed, and in a move that surprised both of us, I punched him straight in the chest with both of my fists. “Go! Leave!”
Clay took every hit, his eyes fluttering shut, not so much of a flinch each time my little hands rained down on him.
“Go be with Maliyah. Go pretend like none of this mattered, like I don’t matter.”
He shook his head at that, reaching for me, but I swatted him away.
“No. No, don’t try to take it back now.”
“Kitten,” he whispered in a pained breath.
“GET OUT!” I screamed, hitting him again and again as I shoved him toward the door. “I hate you! I never want to see you again! I hate you!”
The words came out more desperate and garbled with every breath as sobs ripped free from my chest, echoing off every wall of my apartment.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against another flood of tears, trying to hold onto me as I pushed and pushed.
“You…” I stopped, melting into his arms as he wrapped me up tight. I shook and cried and he did the same. “You broke my fucking heart.”
Silence fell over us, one long, still moment.
“I broke mine, too,” he whispered.
And then he released me.
I gasped at the loss, but didn’t have time to do more than reach for his back as he pulled my front door open and flew out of it without looking back at me.
A mangled cry fell from my lips when he was gone, and I sank down to the floor, bones collapsing in a heap before I hugged my knees to my chest like that was the only way to keep myself together.
Just like that, my cotton candy cloud moment was over.
And no matter how I braced for it, I knew I’d never survive the crash to the ground.
Clay
I dragged my ass into the locker room after our loss against the Hawks the next day, wondering why I didn’t feel the same emotion as my teammates.
Zeke threw his helmet into his locker with more force than necessary, the clang of it echoing off the walls of the room. Riley tried to soothe him, but the way she shook her head and hung it between her shoulders told me she was just as upset. Kyle sat mutely on the bench in front of his locker, no phone in sight, no bragging on social media or dancing in celebration. And even Holden’s jaw was tight as he stood in the middle of the locker room and thought of what to say to rally us.
It was a brutal beating, a poor showing on all our parts against a team we should have easily defeated.
My team was angry. They were disappointed.
I, on the other hand, was just fucking numb.
It should have been something I was used to, the hollowness in my chest. After my breakup with Maliyah, I thought I’d felt the worst emotional pain of my life, thought I had survived the worst heartbreak I’d ever experience.
I wanted to laugh at that now, but I couldn’t muster up anything that even resembled joy — no matter how sarcastic.
This wasn’t just pain. It wasn’t just heartbreak. It wasn’t just missing someone and being mercilessly reminded of them everywhere you looked by memories that would haunt you for what seemed like eternity — although all those things were present.
This was the kind of torture only those who put someone they cared about through hell knowingly could understand.
It was guilt, and failure, and recognition that I was the villain. It was someone else’s blood on my hands. It was the cry that I had to do it, that there was no other way, weak as it left my lips.