Play the game | INCOMPLETE (might rewrite)

Chapter six

All week I've been thinking about Thursday. Worrying about me and Nathan, hanging out just the two of us. And now I'm not sure Nathan and me are going to hang out Thursday.

'Then we better not.' that's what he told me earlier, mere hours before. his voice was serious, and he clearly meant it. Which was probably what hurt me the most and made me feel sick.

I haven't seen Nathan today since earlier in the library. Since he cried on my shoulder and made my shirt wet with tears, I remember the way his eyes were puffy. Etched into my brain for safe keeping. Making me relive it in fits and starts.

I walk into the locker room behind Mason and Liam after school, the cool air of it hitting me and sending chills down my spine.

I walk to my locker and open it, put my bag inside and grab my soccer cleats and shin guards, which are piled at the bottom of it.

I close the door and sit down on a bench near the wall, and as I sit down the door swings open, sending harsh lighting from the halls to flood the room.

I squint my eyes to readjust them to the light and set my eyes on Nathan. Hair slightly disheveled, eyes still slightly red, but controlled.

He doesn't look at me as he walks to his locker, which is the one behind mine on the other side. When I put on my cleats, I keep glancing up at him, trying to catch his eye, but he doesn't look up; not even when Jimmy and Henry are trying to talk to him.

"Alright, I'm heading out." Nathan says, his voice hard and rough against my ears, my stomach drops slightly at it, and he walks out of the room and onto the dewy soccer field. I tie up my cleats fast, throw my tennis shoes into the bottom of my locker and basically run out of the door.

I look around, but it doesn't take long to find him. He is sitting down on the grass in the middle of the field. Head back as he looks at the darkening sky, it's beautiful; and I'm not sure if I mean the sky, or Nathan. I sigh and walk over to him, taking a seat a few inches away from him.

I look at him, but he just continues to stare at the sky. His eyes are distant, and his jaw is tightened together, a muscle in his jaw spasming from the tightness of it. "Hi," I try, seeing what he does.

He finally looks at me, but his stare isn't the same as it used to be. It used to make me feel like I was floating when he looked at me, like the air was sucked out of me and filling me up all at once. He made me lightheaded and disgusted towards myself. Now it's just pain when he looks at me, the corners of his eyes pinched slightly. It's painful.

I look away, unable to keep staring at the tightness of his features.

Earlier he was relaxed, and cheerful with me, even after he cried on my shoulder for nearly an hour. Now I can almost hear his teeth grinding together with the force of his bite. "Why are you being mean?" I freeze, I look up slowly but don't look at him. I didn't even mean to say that out loud, it was just a small thought that popped into my head for a second.

"I'm not." he scoffed, when I turned to look at him his jaw was looser.

"You are." I counter, my voice the same tone as his. "You look at me and it's not the same, not when you looked at me earlier. Did I do something wrong?" I mumble, my voice quiet, barely above a whisper.

Nathan let's out a sharp breath as if he's been holding it in all his life. "No," he elongates the 'o,' "you..." he opens and closes his mouth a few times, clearly working through something in his mind that I can't see and just have to sit and wait for him to say it. "You didn't do anything..." he looks at me through his eyelashes, his hands now picking at the grass near his ankles.