I shook my head. I didn’t understand what this had to do with anything.
“I never planned to graduate. I only did the minimum required to remain eligible. I wouldn’t have even declared a major if they hadn’t made me.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I hated how shaky my voice sounded.
“I never told you that because I knew you would think less of me.”
I opened my mouth to object, but the words wouldn’t come. Truthfully, I didn’t know how I would have reacted if he’d told me that bit of information under other circumstances. I would have been disappointed, but that wasn’t the same as thinking less of him. Or maybe it was. But I wouldn’t apologize for wanting him to live up to his potential. That was what a person was supposed to want for people she cared about.
“I was one hundred percent sure I’d end up being a professional athlete.” He hung his head. “But now I just don’t know.”
I circled back to the words that had crushed my heart. “What does any of this have to do with us being a mistake? I can’t believe you would think that, because being with you is the best thing to ever happen to me.” I had laid my heart bare, hoping he wouldn’t use my words as ammo against me. I couldn’t believe I even had to worry about that.
“I knew I wasn’t good enough for you, but I ignored it. This injury forced me to face facts, though. You’re better off without me because you’re everything, and I’m… I’m nothing.” He choked out the last word.
I stepped toward him, wanting to take him in my arms. He’d hurt me, but he was hurting too, and that was so much worse. “You’re not nothing.” When I reached for him, he moved away, not letting me touch him. “You’re everything to me.”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I have nothing to offer you.”
Goddamn him. I forced my hurt away, allowing my anger to surface again. Why did he think he needed to give me something? I had no idea what that even meant.
“You have you.”
“You deserve more.”
I stared at him. How could he think that? He treated me like I was the most precious thing in the world. He cared for me, looked after me. He loved me. I didn’t need anything else.
He’d always been self-deprecating when it came to his academics, but it had spread to his entire existence. I didn’t understand because Carson had always oozed confidence. But the last few weeks… My thoughts trailed off as it hit me.
Being with Carson might have been the best thing that had ever happened to me, but the converse wasn’t true. For whatever twisted reason, being with me had caused him to question his worth. I thought back to the night I came home after my failed date with Blake. From the beginning, Carson had told me he didn’t deserve me, and it had only grown from there. I’d brushed his comments off, not realizing how deeply they’d taken root in him, not realizing that he’d been poisoned by them.
But I knew him well enough to know there was nothing I could say to change his thoughts. Deep down, I also knew that would only be slapping a Band-Aid on a gaping, festering wound.
Until he accepted himself, he couldn’t be with me. And that was something I couldn’t help him with. It was a paradox, really. Maybe later, I would laugh about the absurdity of it. But now the final shard had been shoved so deeply into my heart that it was on the cusp of breaking.
Though I knew it was fruitless, I needed to throw a Hail Mary. “What if your love is enough for me, Carson? That’s all I want from you.”
His left hand clenched into a fist at his side, and his expression grew even more pained. “You deserve more. I can’t let you settle for me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to keep breathing as my heart broke. I’d loved Carson as a boy, and I loved the man he’d become, the man who stood before me. But I couldn’t be with him, not like this. Anyway, he wasn’t giving me much of a choice.
But I would give him one. “I love you, Carson, but I can’t wait for you forever. I’ve already spent half my life waiting for you. I hope you’ll stop believing the lies you’ve been telling yourself. If you do, you know where to find me.”
Then I turned and walked out the door, using all the strength I had not to look back.
CHAPTER 23
Becca
NICOLE PUT HER hand on her hip and eyed me. “What do you mean you’re not going to the game? You always go to the games.”
I was suddenly regretting talking her into going with me to the middle school’s robotics club meeting. I’d wanted to check it out myself before I asked WIE members to donate their time. I was blown away. The kids were so smart that they’d already taught me a few things about programming. At first, I’d felt awkward because, as a volunteer, I was supposed to be helping them, but it didn’t take me long to realize that they liked showing off what they knew.
But Nicole was seriously driving me crazy.
“I told you,” I muttered. “Carson and I aren’t together anymore. I don’t want to go.”
She sighed. “I wish you’d tell me what happened.”
Shaking my head, I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to talk about it. It just makes it worse.” My cure for heartache was staying busy. That meant attending every WIE study hall and volunteering at the middle school. Hell, I’d even run some lines from Othello with Lucy. Yeah, I was that desperate. In related news, if a career in the biomedical field didn’t work out, at least I knew theater wasn’t an option. Thanks, Lucy. Maybe now she would finally stop asking me to rehearse with her.
“Boys! Boys!” Miss Hinchey yelled, giving a pair of kids a stern look. “Robot components are not swords. Please keep the make-believe out of the technology lab, okay?”
A group of girls snickered, and the two boys in question turned bright red. They returned what looked like metal arms to the workstation. Peer pressure at its best.
“But we always go to the games together,” Nicole whined. “It won’t be the same.”
I sighed. Nicole was awesome, except when she wasn’t. “Evan will be there.”
She pursed her lips. “Carson needs to apologize so you can go to the games again. You love going to the games.”
I did love going to the games, but one of the main reasons was because I liked watching Carson play. He wouldn’t be playing, but even if he were, I still didn’t know if I would go. Trying to cut Carson out of my life had been nearly impossible before when we’d just been friends. Now that we’d been more than friends, I’d succeeded. But damn, it was so hard. Just last night, I’d had to stop myself from texting him to ask if he had any assignments he needed help with before I remembered we were no longer speaking.
I missed him. I missed him so much it hurt. But I loved him enough to let him go. I just hoped I survived it.
***
Carson
BEING SIDELINED FUCKING sucked, especially when all I wanted to do was hide behind closed doors and drink myself into a stupor until my damn arm was better. But I still cared about the team, and wallowing in my misery would hurt morale. Normally, I liked being known as the outgoing one, but now it was biting me in the ass.