I Hate Football Players

44: Fess Up

I wasn't falling for Ellie. I was gone. The distance between our schools sucked, but she was the girl I wanted, no matter what. She unlocked feelings I didn't know I was capable of feeling. Feelings that led me to care more about her than myself. She very, very quickly turned me into a person that didn't feel like me.

Guess I was unpacking this. My heart hurt for her. The urge to console her, kissing her tears away and giving her soft, appreciative touches, wasn't me. Neither was an overwhelming need to fix how upset I made her, despite having no idea what the fuck to say.

I wasn't uncomfortable with how much Ellie affected me. Her depth sucked me in. Most high school kids were worried about the next party, homework assignment, or college entrance exam. Ellie confronted a soul-wrenching trauma with emotional depths past superficial shit. It made me look at my own life, where changes were needed.

Confronting Ellie's nightmares was harder than admitting my idiocy. I hated myself for ruining the peaceful, relaxed look, but she flinched when I touched her. The conversation topic was suffocating. While hearing her story, my heart paused mid-beat in my chest, my muscles locked up, and my internal organs no longer worked. I couldn't breathe. My mind went to dark places that I didn't know existed. Correction: that shouldn't exist.

Her shivers cut her off, but she didn't need to finish. That protective urge I'd never felt overwhelmed me. I pulled her into my lap and wrapped myself around her to comfort and protect her from her memory. Again, not me. Ellie released a soft squeak as I grabbed her hips and planted her on my lap. Her spine went from tense to rounded in a breath. Her cheek rested on my shoulder, and her hair tickled under my chin. Curling her into me, I wrapped my arms around her trembling frame.

The slow flickers of anger were dormant but still burned in me as she walked up her driveway six houses up. Mason's words, 'All things in all holes that won't get a girl pregnant,' were sick but true. What happened to Ellie hadn't changed how I felt about her, but it sure increased how I felt on her behalf. My blood boiled, every muscle in my body tensed, and my fists squeezed. I wanted to tear apart something, or better rearrange the internal organs of a guy I'd never met.

No wonder she was jaded against football players. I hated the association, but who could blame her? Not me. The idea that anyone hurt an innocent fourteen-year-old made me rage with anger. I was terrible and selfish with girls in the past, but I couldn't consider forcing myself on someone. A football player or not, I couldn't relate to anyone who would.

I could easily track down Ryder and beat the pulp out of him. The only thing that held me back was that approach wouldn't have impressed Ellie. She shouldn't have to hide her preferred nickname because some asshole trashed her name three years ago or hide the truth from her parents.

"Fuck, I wish I could help her," I muttered and shifted into the PCH entrance ramp. "Or figure out how to talk to her."

I'd always considered myself a confident guy who capably talked to any girl. But while Ellie struggled through her emotional confessions, I was painfully aware of one now obvious fact: I didn't know shit about girls' emotions.

In slow motion, the sparkle in Ellie's eyes dimmed to flat, dull, and vacant. While she gazed ahead, her thoughts turned inward to the pain she'd held inside. She sat still as the white corners of her eyes turned red and her lashes clumped together.

Shit, what do I do now? Think, Logan... yeah, I got nothing. "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. Anything except pretend that it didn't happen. I'd like to, for your sake, but I think you've been doing that already, and it's not working." Absolutely and completely helpless, I hugged her close. Guilt gnawed at the inside of my stomach like I'd eaten something Mom had cooked.