“They’re not going to remove one of my toes, Letty.”
She honestly wasn’t sure what was worse: that he had done this, or that he was being all weary and withering with her about her perfectly reasonable horror.
“You say that, and then the next thing you know I’m digging through a Dumpster for your missing foot.”
“Now it’s my foot they’ve removed? Seems pretty unlikely when I definitely need both to wrestle.”
“Yeah, don’t worry. They’ll just take it after you’ve outstayed your welcome.”
“Sounds more like you’re just listing the plot points of most mobster movies.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? I’m a fat nerd from a small town. I have no fucking clue what the actual mob will do. Probably something with razors and salt and hammers and”
He caught her flailing hands before she could go any further. Hell, he did it before she even knew she was doing it. She looked down and saw his big fists around hers and was surprised.
And then he spoke, and she got it.
“Letty, Letty. Stop. Calm down. It’s cool, okay. I’m handling it. I’m handling it.”
God, he sounded sure. Sure and soothing.
She just wished she could believe him.
“And if you don’t handle it, what then?”
“How is it possible to fail at handling it? All I have to do is go down.”
“I don’t know. You might slip.”
“Slip and accidentally win the match? It’s not possible, honey. I’d have to be fucking suicidal to somehow screw it up. I’d have to be out of my mindlike if you suddenly dropped dead.”
She snapped a look at him then.
Mostly to see if he was seriouswhich unfortunately he was.
“Don’t fucking say that. Don’t you fucking say that, you stupid shit.”
“Oh come on, you’re not really going to die.”
“And what if I do? You better promise me. You promise me now that upon my death you throw that fucking match so hard it hits the surface of Mars.”
“Okay, okay, I promise. I will. Better?” He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
But his expression seemed shadowed somehow, and didn’t back up what he was saying and doing.
“Not even remotely better. The opposite of better. I mean, there must have been some other option besides this. We talked about other options besides this. You were going to wait.”
“Yeah, I was going to wait back then, when I had no real clue what my life could actually be. But now I know different, don’t I? You’ve shown me exactly what I could have, and could benot just some dumb jock asshole you hate, but a guy you like and admire. You think I want to wait to be that guy?”
“You already are that guy, Tate. You don’t have to quit the team to be him.”
“But I feel like I do. That’s the thing, honey. Every second I spend doing that shit isn’t just a second wasted on something I hate. It’s not just an obligation to help out my mom. It’s shit that takes me further away from you. Always, always it takes me further away from you.”
She turned in his arms. She had to.
He needed to wholly see how crazy she thought this was, as well as hear it.
“Hey, I’m right here. I was right here before you ever put this on the table. I don’t need you to not be on the team to be happy with you. I just need you to be alive, Tate. Okay? We can’t be together if mobsters murder you. But we can be if you trust in my feelings for you and let me help dig you out of the holes you think you’re in. We could have put a plan in place, gone to admissions, looked at getting your tuition some other way, or maybe”
“I did all of that. I looked into it all. It would have meant reapplying next fall and maybe working two jobs and getting loans and just a whole bunch of shit that boils down to not having all of this right here and now. And maybe never having it at all. Who knows what’ll happen if I’m basically gone for a year? Maybe you’ll find some other guy who doesn’t have to grind just to get by or”
Now it was her turn to cut him off. Hard, and with vigorous hand gestures.
“Stop. Stop. Just stop. This is the worst, most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. Are you seriously saying you did this because you’re worried I won’t be happy with someone who works two jobs? Because if you are, I might have to murder you myself. It was bad enough when you said the reason you got yourself into this was to have a different life and be personally fulfilled. But to do it because you think I don’t believe in you or won’t stick around…I just don’t even know what to say to that.”