Naomi grumbles, “It just seemed like she went from being totally okay with all of it, to ending all of it.” She snaps her fingers. “Just like that.”
Summer turns to look at her friend. “Remember though, she didn’t want to even rep Brazen or compete a few months ago?”
“But she’s so good at it!” Naomi practically wails. I feel like I’m supposed to be comforting Naomi, who’s taking this break-up nearly as hard as I am.
“I bet that crash scared her,” Moses says quietly.
“Not the crash, the messages,” I clarify. “One girl said she hopes Jordan breaks her legs. Another was following her, took a picture of her outside our place and said to stay away.”
Moses lets out a low whistle. “You go to the cops?”
Going through all this again, it’s bringing me out of the frozen state I’d been in, where I felt like I was slowly drowning. Now my blood is boiling, and I want to punch something. There’s nothing I can do about any of this. I’d get on a plane right now and fly to her if she’d let me hold her, but the last thing I want to do is bring more stress to her doorstep. She made it clear I’m not the source of comfort she wants, didn’t she? Sure, part of me thinks the head injury fueled her to break up with me, but if I don’t respect her decision, that makes me an asshole. No better than my own ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t let me go.
My phone rings from the coffee table and I start to reach for it. Naomi scoots forward before I can and reads the screen. “It’s a Connecticut number! I bet it’s her! Answer it, Beck!”
I don’t need to be told twice. Jumping up, I grab my cell from the table and start jogging up the stairs, not wanting four sets of ears listening. My old bedroom is a guest room now, and I head for it, shutting the door behind me as I answer.
“Hello?”
“Beck? It’s Jordan.”
My entire body sags, and before I know it, I’m sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. “Hey. How are you?” God, I have so much I want to say to her, but I try to play it cool.
“I’m… still recovering I guess.”
“You sound different.”
She sniffs, and I frown at the sound of it. “That’s what your sister said too.”
“Have you been crying? Jordan, are you okay?”
There’s another sniffle, and now my heart is breaking again, but it’s not for me this time.
Jordan
He deserves honesty, as much as I’m capable of giving. Am I okay? “I don’t know. Not really. I think I will be soon though.” I’m not making any sense, but the clarity I thought I had the day we broke up? It’s gone. Everything is blurry and foggy and I feel so lost.
“I feel bad calling you after what I did, but my friends said I should, and then Naomi and Summer said I should, so then I figured it was okay. I tried to cry out all my tears before I called you but I guess I wasn’t done.” They start to flow again, coming harder as I talk.
“You don’t have to cry out all your tears before calling me, Jordan. You can call me anytime. You know that, right?”
Just hearing his voice, this reassurance from him, it soothes me like nothing else has.
“I went to the neurologist yesterday. She made it seem like everything I’m experiencing is because of the concussion. But she doesn’t know everything else that’s been going on. And now I’m confused. I don’t know what’s what. I don’t know if I can trust my own head.”
I don’t even sound like myself. I’m usually decisive, upbeat, ready for the next adventure. But I’ve barely left my house since I got home, and the weirdest part is that I don’t even want to. If I’d gotten the all clear to skateboard from the doctor yesterday, would I be out there right now? It scares me that I don’t know the answer to that question.
Beck, however, sounds solid and sure when he responds. “I know this isn’t all about us, and I don’t want to turn it around to be about me. But you need to know I’m here for you, no matter what, okay? You can call anytime, don’t worry if it’s the right thing to do or not.”
I hear what he’s saying, but even as I tell him, “Okay,” I don’t know that I agree. I ended things. I can’t just keep leaning on him, treating him like my closest friend, even if that’s what I want to do. That’s not fair to him.
“So you said stuff is going on that your new doctor thinks is from the concussion. What kind of stuff?”
“Just sleeping a ton. Kind of mopey and down. Not wanting to go out and do anything with my parents or Phoebe and Wyatt.” Cue the guilt for calling him. All these things are break-up things, aren’t they? Sure I’m the one who did the breaking up, but that doesn’t mean I’m not torn up about it.
Beck’s voice is tentative when he offers, “I can still get on a plane and be there with you. I can still cancel Shred Live.”
Another round of tears threatens, but somehow, I manage to push them down. “Beck, I can’t let you do that. I just can’t.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while, but I can practically feel his frustration coming through. “It’s not a sacrifice for me, Jordan. It’s what I want to do,” he finally says.
For an instant, I see him how he was that last morning–sitting up in his bed, bare shoulders and chest showing and a little smile on his face. But then I imagine him in a giant house with nineteen other people, a world away without me. Images of him competing at the X Games play through my head, and I know this man is only at the beginning. As soon as filming is done, he’s meant to travel the world, going full tilt back into competition mode after his hiatus. I’ll only hold him back. I know that now more than ever. If I’m going to take care of myself, I can’t be trying to keep up with Beckett Steele. And no matter what his soft voice is saying to me right now, how many promises he’s made, I’ll never feel good about holding him back.
“I just wanted to check in with you. Let you know I’m still recovering.” I try to brush it all off, his offer to be here with me. “What have you been up to?”
Beck hesitates a moment before responding, and I know he wants to swing the door I cracked until it’s wide open. I should’ve locked it tight, but I know I’ll never be able to do that. It makes me wonder if things will ever be done with Beck. Even as I’m the one shutting the door, it’s hard to imagine they will be.
Beck tells me that he’s at his mom’s, and Moses is over too with Griff. But conversation feels forced now. Beck doesn’t let it go on.
“Look, I’m going to wait for you to figure this all out, Jordan. I’ll do Shred Live if that’s what you want, but I’m not going anywhere when it comes to us. Maybe it’s not what you want to hear, but for me, this isn’t over. It’s a break while the social media stuff blows over, while Shred Live is filming, and while you recover from the concussion. But I’m not saying goodbye to us. I can’t.”
His words shouldn’t heal something inside me even as they gut me. I don’t know that I want him to believe what he’s saying, even if it gives me the kind of hope I desperately need right now.