72

Piper

I Don't Want Your Pity

I must've been wrong. Maybe someone else had told me something similar during the semester and I accidentally attributed it to Adam's high school coach. But the more I gazed at the linebacker, the more I saw his grin disappear, piece by piece, and a purposely blank face look back at me.

Oh no.

Neither of us said anything.

"I didn't…mean to say that," he said, his words careful.

My fingers curled into my palms for a different reason. A horrible, sickly feeling carried through my blood. The implication of Adam's father being the same high school coach who put him through everything was too much for my hungover brain to understand.

I swallowed. "Adam…?"

"Let's go order coffee," he urged. "We can listen to a book or watch a movie and just fuck off for the rest of your shift."

My head hurt. "I don't…understand."

Adam didn't say anything to help. He was frozen in place, just like I was.

All of our conversations came back. Adam, telling me what a horrible coach he had, all the belittling things his coach told him. The long practices, the sayings, the accident.

The question from Kassie hung over my head. What else did he tell you?

Those six words vibrated in my skull. Kassie wasn't asking about the accident. She was asking if Adam had really and truly told me everything about his coach. Back then, I'd just written it off to Adam being taken off the team. But now…

"Was your high school coach…your dad?"

Adam didn't say anything at all, but his face confirmed it.

I wanted to throw up. His own father refused to call the ambulance. I couldn't believe it. If my dad heard about anyone treating me like that, there'd be blood to pay.

And I couldn't stop thinking about that lanky boy from high school who helped me with my heels. The boy that everyone abandoned. Ryan aside, Adam had no one in his corner. Not even his parents.

Oh my god.

My lower lip wobbled. "I'm—I'm—"

"Stop."

Adam tried to smile, and it broke my heart.

My parents and I texted all the time, they were always involved in my life. They even came in the middle of the night when Thomas kicked me out after I'd broke up with him.

I couldn't remember Adam mentioning anything about his own parents before today. The realization shocked me. I wanted to hug him so tight, nobody could hurt him like they did ever again. I wanted to do something. But Adam's attempt at a smile disappeared. It was replaced by something cold.

"I'm so sorry—"

"Piper, I don't want to talk about it." He laid out each word with such precision, I might as well have been speaking to a lawyer. "I really don't. Let's just forget it, okay? We can just get coffee."

But I was too hungover to let it go. And maybe I wasn't completely sober.

"Your accident—" I blurted out, drawing in a sharp breath.

"Piper."

"Your dad did that to you. You were just a—a kid—"

When I'm angry, I cry, and tears threatened to spill over. It was hard to keep myself together. To push past the waterworks. But just imagining gangly, teenage Adam—slamming his bone back into place to please his father was too much.

For the first time ever, I wanted to physically hurt someone. I wanted to track his dad down and hurt him. At the bare minimum, I wanted to give Adam's parents a piece of my mind and tell them they weren't allowed to do that to him ever again. They weren't allowed near him. I'd make sure of it.

" Piper ." Adam ushered me to the corner. "This is why I don't tell anybody - this is why I didn't tell you. I don't want your pity."

"It's not—"

It is pity .

"I mean—I just—I'm so sorry—"

"I don't need your apologies," he said in a curt tone, recoiling back from me. "Fuck. This isn't…just drop it. Pretend like I didn't ruin this."

"You didn't ruin anything." I wanted to touch his arm, but he wouldn't let me. "I'm so—"

"Stop."

"I'm just sorry—"

A breathless laugh escaped him. "Why do you give a shit?"

He was shutting down right before my eyes, and everything I was doing was making it worse. This was outside of my expertise. I had no experience with anything like this. I hadn't even known someone who had something like this happen to them. He asked me to stop but the alcohol didn't burn out of my system yet.

"Because…because you're in this—this rut of pushing people away—" I tried to explain and cringed on the inside. "You're messed up because of this and—no. Adam. Wait." I had to get control of my own rambling. "It makes sense. It's why you're—you're like this."

"Like this?" Adam repeated, his voice dead.

"No, I—because we're friends, Adam."

He didn't move a muscle. "Who said I wanted to be your friend?"

Oh .

Nothing anyone had ever said had hit me so hard. Not even the stories about what Thomas had been up to at the bleacher bunny party. The breath left my body, and I watched Adam, stunned, as he typed something into his phone and held it out.

"I changed the number on the account. I'll get the calls from the desk assistant," he said, purposely looking away. "You don't have to worry about the end of the shift. I'll clock you out on the spreadsheet."

"Adam—I—I—"

"I'll see you later, Piper."

No ice princess. No grin. Just a simple goodbye before he turned back around. With long steps, he headed off towards the elevator bank and I couldn't move from my spot.

How could I do that to him?

He didn't even stop. He pushed open the door to the stairwell.

We weren't on a low floor. It'd take him so long to get back to where we were. He just didn't want to see me.

My breaths came out in sharp, haggard gasps and I stumbled back to one of the little places to sit, trying to breathe again. I messed up. I couldn't have messed up worse. Why did I say that? How could I even think to hurt him like that? Especially after everything he did for me in the last twenty-four hours?

When I went upstairs, Adam's door was shut.

I walked into my dorm and sat on my couch. I didn't move for a long, long time.