I can’t say I blame him.
“What are you doing here?” His eyes don’t lift to mine.
It’s not a question he’s looking for an answer from. He says it trying to get me to leave. He thinks this cocky attitude will deter my mission.
“I came to check on you.” I’m hesitant, my hands trembling as I force myself not to vomit right there. It’s hard to judge how he’s going to react to me after our last encounter.
He laughs lightly, taking his hat off to run his fingers through his hair. “That’s not true.”
“Don’t be indifferent to this.” I say moving closer to him because every second that I’m standing near him, my knees threaten to give out. I’m sweating though it’s freezing, burning alive. “Don’t. Not tonight.”
He groans when I sit, like that’s the last thing he wants me to do. Then he flips the question around in my mind.
He’s shocked. Replacing his hat, he looks at me. “Me, indifferent? All I’ve done in this is feel too much. And it fucking sucks, Madison. It sucks.”
He has a point. And it’s a good one. If anything, Cash was always indifferent. He ignored the best he could.
“I miss you.” I say mumbling into the night.
His shoulders flinch at my words but he catches himself from being exposed. “Do you miss me, or my dick?” He laughs, some humor, some annoyance but there’s also a bored frustration to his tone. “Dealer not that great in bed?”
I guess he has a right to be this way. I actually expect it.
“You’re drunk and you’re angry.” I pick at the frayed ends of my sweatshirt, feeling like my nerves are just the same. “I get that.”
“You don’t get shit.” He snaps, shifting his eyes to mine, briefly, and then back towards the field. “Don’t try to understand how I feel.”
I know he needs to calm down so I sit there. I’m giving him this. Me staying and waiting, hoping that he’ll talk to me. He’s accused me of always leaving so this is me, staying.
After twenty minutes, about the time the snow starts to fall and I’m shivering so bad, he asks, “Did you fuck Jay that night?”
I know what night he’s referring to. The night he fucked Bethany on the couch and I had to watch. “Yes” I swallow over the lump in my throat.
“Figures.” He looks back at the field. I watch him, my eyes on lips that used to smile anytime he saw me. Now I’m met with frowns.
“I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy seeing you with Bethany.”
He laughs, bitter, hiding his eyes from mine. “I can’t say it was easy on me either to see you look at me like that.” He says, with almost a casual arrogance.
“Are you seeing her?” I have no right to know this but I ask anyway.
Another bitter laugh, but this time he takes a nervous drink of his beer. “I didn’t even finish. You disappeared behind that door and I left and threw up in the bushes like a fucking pussy.”
We’re quiet, and then he’s demanding answers all of a sudden.
“I want you to say something.” His voice carries drawing my eyes to his, only he won’t give me the chance to look at him, really look at him. “I want you to tell me why? Why wasn’t I good enough?”
“It was never that you weren’t good enough, Cash. It was that… I don’t know.” I don’t have an answer for him. At least not one that makes sense. He deserves so much better and I can’t even begin to describe the ways I’m not good enough for Cash. Still, I’m here, hoping he might see past that.
“Why did you do it?” He asks, holding back emotion he doesn’t want me to see, or I don’t deserve to see anymore. I’ve ruined what we had and I know that. “What made them better than me?” He doesn’t look at me when he speaks and I’m glad he doesn’t because I can’t take his blue eyes staring back at me, demanding to know the truth. He has every right to demand the truth from me.
It takes me a minute to reply and he hands me a beer, which surprises me but I take it anyway because he’s offering. My stare is on the field that captures our innocence and holds it captive. It’s buried deep under those white lines and green grass. Right now, in this moment, I miss Canby and this place and the feeling it gave me. Fresh cut grass, bloody knuckles and dirt soaked knees, blue eyes that promise in the backseat, a crowd roaring with anticipation of what the Kings of this school gave us. A small town hanging on these boys of Fall. It’s the chill of the night huddled in our hoodies with Bryant, Hayes, and Griffin last names plastered over them. Proud as we were, we never thought that feeling would be lost forever.