Ten Things

Ch.24-Making it Worse

Cole

“Come on, Cole, it’s just for a couple of hours.”

I sighed heavily. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Margaret.”

It should have been her cue to leave, but like always, she stuck around. “Is that really what you want?”

I nodded. “Every time.”

She clicked toward me in her heels. It was December and nearing Christmas time, and a couple of guys from the team were throwing a party. I should have been there already, with my track record of these things, but I wasn’t. I was sitting in Jake’s Shakes off the main street of Heart on a Friday night, looking absolutely pathetic. A few other people had stopped by to convince me to go but they were unsuccessful. Margaret, though, she was persistent.

She sat herself across from me, stretching out her short red dress. What the hell was she doing in that? It was thirty degrees outside. I shook my head and slurped more of my chocolate shake.

“People are getting concerned,” Margaret murmured, leaning across the table. “You’re pulling away.”

I grunted. “Am I?”

“Yes. They’re worried about you . . . I’m worried about you.” She said the last part as she put her hand on my thigh beneath the table. I jumped, shoving it away.

“Quit it, Marge,” I warned.

She huffed. “I don’t see what the matter is!” she cried. “You’re single and I’m single and we go great together. I’ve even kept my distance until now. Why won’t you give me another chance?”

I stopped before I could spit out the cliché line, “It’s not you, it’s me,” but that would have been a lie anyway. It really wasn’t her, but I didn’t think it was me either. The truth was something I didn’t want to face yet.

She scowled at me. “Are you going to talk to me at all?”

“No.”

“Are you even coming to the party?”

“No.”

She released a disgusted breath. “Fine, then. Sit here by yourself on a Friday night, see what I care.” Before I could tell her that I truly didn’t care what she thought of me, she jumped up off the seat and took her sashaying hips out. Some of the guys hanging around watched her go, and I shook my head. If they wanted that annoying well-sculpted banshee ass they could have it.

I returned my attention to the shake in my hands. I saw a few flakes of snow falling from the corner of my eye out the window.

Weeks. That was how long it had been since I had it out with Grace on the field. I didn’t know the exact amount but it had been a lot. I was trying to convince myself that wasn’t the reason for my sudden turn of isolation but I would have been fooling myself.

It was ridiculous, really, how worked up I was letting myself get. It had never happened, with anybody. Not even when I had thought Jayden was moving to Thailand for the rest of his life in middle school.

She didn’t come to practice anymore. When I asked Coach about it he said he dismissed her since her services were clearly no longer needed. I hated that. Yeah, I wasn’t up to par recently with my playing, but it was hard. I couldn’t perform if my mind wasn’t in the game, and I hadn’t felt centered since discovering Grace had cancer. But that wasn’t a reason to let her go. She had gone through so much shit to be accepted as a coach on the team, and it had all flown out the window.

 I growled aloud in frustration, dropping my head to the table.

She hadn’t been in school normally, either. I could count on my hands the number of times she attended in the past weeks I hadn’t spoken a word to her, and dammit if that didn’t bother me. Was she okay? Did something happen to her? I didn’t know a lot about cancer but I knew there wasn’t a cure and a lot of people died from it.