I Hate Football Players

40: I Hate Him

My team-Logan membership was verified by the pain in his eyes, and a similar pain reflected in hers. I almost shoved her after him, but she took the steps herself. Enough pain sat in her eyes to last me a lifetime. A heart as big as Elle's didn't deserve to have holes drilled through it, but that was life. Cruel, unforgiving, and preyed on naïve innocence.

Logan was potentially decent but an absolute idiot by fucking with Jake. Any step down that path led to broken teeth and broken ribs. Elle found Adonis' attitude endearing, and I just wanted her happy. The closest I could relate was the ego boost whenever I chopped down Jake's idiocy.

Took one big ego to know another. The only difference was I didn't put up a front like Logan. I simply didn't give a fuck what people thought of me, what came out of my mouth, or, more importantly, what went in it.

Not Elle. Elle Harrison was the sweetest, most loving, selfless, and tiniest person I'd ever known. She deserved special treatment, to be put on a fucking pedestal and not so she could see clearer. If given a chance, over half the guys in our school fell over at one bat of those dark- chocolate brown doe-eyes. She rendered guys into useless piles of goo. Jake's teammates weren't exempt, the worst offender being the hopeless blunder Kieran to random guys in the hallways at school. But this dick Hightower was so over the moon in love with her that, for once, hope filled my callous heart. If any girl could pull a jock like Logan out of his cocky, dick-driven insecurities and turn him into a pile of boyfriend material goo, then it was Elle.

Despite all of Elle's charms, she was incredibly naïve and clueless. Her lack of self-confidence blinded her. All of those characteristics drove me fucking nuts. Sometimes, I wanted to shake her shoulders to snap her out of her headspace. But I couldn't do that. How she thought and thought and overthought instead of acting was not her fault, and she didn't need me to change her.

After what that girl went through, I was willing to do whatever she needed from me. One awful night, a football player crossed an unforgivable line, and Ellie withdrew into Elle. Given my blame to shoulder, I refused to let her go down her dark path alone. With time, she came out of her trauma at a great cost. Despite how she'd survived all the horrible rumors that swirled around her and my best efforts to convince her otherwise, Elle still didn't see herself as I did. Her dreams resurfacing bothered me, so much that a dry lump stole away any words I wanted to express whenever she told me another one happened.

One event rippled effects through the three of us, and we scattered in different reaction directions. Elle quivered with panic and grief that she refused to directly address, Jake redirected his guilt into enraged anger, and me... simple, soul-sucking guilt that sickened my stomach. Guilt consumed me if I thought about Elle's past too much, both what happened to her, and where I was. Or, more importantly, who I was with.

She didn't know my secret, the one that tugged at the icy, callous heart. It beat guilt into my chest when I remembered the horrible night that changed everything.

Fuck Jake.
If only she knew.

Our mutual hatred was strong enough to suggest that we had a history. We shared too many of each other's firsts - kisses, make-out sessions, V-cards, and fuck buddy sessions, although that implied we were friends first. And, after the stunt he pulled our freshman year, I would never forgive him. Lapses in my judgment let him in between my legs, but never my heart again.

Fuck, how many times would I let him break it? At least twice, so far. The first time was ingrained in my memory, whether I wanted it to be or not, and the second time was too raw to process. The wound pricked fresh each time Jake tripped over his tongue at his latest conquest, Chloe.

"You don't know," I murmured at the back of Elle's retreating head. She thought he hadn't burst into the party house bedroom on the back of a white unicorn and smashed Ryder's face into a pulp because he was being hazed to drink. She was content to believe that he was one floor down, doing keg stands, which made sense because the last she remembered of Jake was him dragged into the kitchen by some teammates.