Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

AVA

I scream into my pillow and promise myself this is absolutely the last time I will cry about Jett McCombs.

I should have known, should have felt it when his desperate lips first hit mine, that he wasn't over what happened between us before, that he would never really forgive me for leaving. The way he clung to me on the field was just emotion from the game, not the real feelings I thought had returned. He was so vehement about me taking choices away from him, believing football didn't matter, and I see why he'll never forgive me. In his mind, I didn't just break up with him—I took away his future.

I'm scared that he's right.

I can't sleep, and I can't stop crying. Every time I think I've got the worst of it out, I remember the feel of his hands on my back, the touch of his familiar lips, how loved I felt to be the one with him down on the field again. How right it was.

I'm exhausted, but my mind won't stop going over everything, like I should have said something more to make him really understand.

He doesn't trust me .

He never will if he believes I left because it was hard between us. The unfairness of that statement is still ringing in me. I was there with him when his dream schools all turned him down, when he cried in his truck over it because he didn't want anyone else to know about his disappointment. I stayed with him for two years of long-distance that was hard. I lost ten pounds because I was living on ramen and pb&j and working as many hours as I could get.

I didn't leave because it was hard.

I left to save him.

And yet I can't stop hearing his voice in my head about not giving him a choice about us being more important. We are.

We were .

I don't know how to reconcile this—my doubts now with the things I've always been so sure of—even amidst the hurt.

I was devastated when we broke up. I cried for weeks. I really did believe that someday he would understand and come back to me. But in the end, I let him go piece by piece, and perhaps that's why it never felt as final as it does tonight.

Despite getting only a few hours of sleep, I wake up early on Monday morning and distract myself with wedding planning, taking a page out of Gabriella's book and fueling myself with what can only be described as a caffeine drip to keep me going.

She texts me midmorning with a simple Call me when you want to talk . I don't want to rehash everything I went through the night before, not yet, so I just respond that everything is fine. Really.

I force myself to call Dalton. I want to put it off, but he's probably seen pictures of me and Jett on the sidelines. They're everywhere on social media, with heart emojis and questions about whether Jett and I are really just friends and what happened to Hayden Reid. Despite getting tagged over and over, Hayden hasn't responded at all—no comments and no posts of her own. I'm grateful for that. I don't think she's a bad person, just not the type of woman Jett should be with.

It's a joke to think I should be arbitrating that.

Plenty of people who know both Jett and me have made their own comments about our relationship in the past. They're high school sweethearts! I hope they're getting back together. And They almost got married a while ago. They never should've broken up. They were the cutest couple. Plus there are a lot of comments along the thread of Look at them. Obviously there's still something between them. Plenty of heart-eyed emojis and hearts to go around. I've already gotten messages from dozens of friends about us supposedly getting back together. I'm ignoring them, only answering my family with a copied-and-pasted text that we're just friends.

It's fine.

But Dalton deserves a call after everything we've been talking about, and I don't want to make him guess about what that picture means. I head out to the beach to pace and call him. I allow only a minute or so of chitchat before I dive right in. "I'm sure you've seen some stuff with me and Jett."

Dalton pauses for what feels like a long time. "Yeah."

"So I guess I'm calling to tell you that you were right to be cautious. Even though he's never going to forgive me for breaking up with him, I'm still in love with him. I can't lead you on with that hanging over me. I'm sorry. I'm just really, really sorry?—"

"Ava. Take a breath," he says. He waits and I obey, making it obvious. "Why are you apologizing to me?"

"Because we were going to do dinner, and I've kind of ruined everything." It sounds dumb coming out of my mouth. We're friends.

"Can I be honest? I've known there wasn't a chance since I saw the way he looked at you at Colby's house after that football game. The same way he's always looked at you. Yeah, I wanted this to be my time, but I always figured it was a long shot. "

"I'm sorry," I mumble again. My insides are wiggling, but not just because of the guilt I feel for trying to pursue something with Dalton. I want what he says to be true about how Jett feels about me. And it might be true, but I remind myself it's not enough.

"It's fine, Ava. Really. I'm a big boy." He chuckles softly. It's so warm and genuine that I lower myself slowly into the sand and relax for the first time during this conversation. "So what are you going to do now?"

"What do you mean?" I scowl at the gray water in front of me.

"You can't keep walking away when things get tough," he says gently, and it stings because that's what Jett said last night. "The things you care about, they matter. Jett, Gabriella, fundraising. All of it. Don't walk away because you're scared of getting hurt."

I press my lips together. "I'm not doing that," but my voice is small. Mrs. Page's actions at The Hope Sanctuary Alliance event shattered me, and failing Chelsea hurt and left me unsure of myself. So I stopped putting myself in that position. And even though I know I could use my talents for good for Gabriella, I've refused, scared of what it would mean if I made mistakes.

Over the last seven and a half years I've thought about what I should have done differently when I broke up with Jett, but it's run along the lines of not giving up on texting and calling him or how I should have tried harder to reconnect with him later. Dalton confirming Jett's assertion that I ran away makes me pause. Think about it from a different perspective. There were options eighteen-year-old me ignored in my crusade to save Jett from what I thought would be a lifetime of bitterness and resentment: I could have asked him to take a break to focus on his dream but assured him I'd be right there waiting, just in the background. I could have gone home but kept dating him. I could have taken time off school and worked until we were financially stable again. All I wanted was his happiness, and I thought he would never be happy without football.

"Ava?" Dalton asks, stirring me from my complicated thoughts. "Are you mad at me?"

I let out a rush of breath. "Ha. No, I'm mad at myself."

I can hear the smile in his voice when he goes on. "You'll never be perfect. That's okay. You're human. But don't let mistakes and fear hold you down, okay?"

"I'm not sure I know how to do that." I dig my hand into the sand around me, squeezing and trying to find the answers.

I've been white-knuckle planning every single tiny detail of Gabriella's wedding, sure that will mean I can make it perfect, no surprises. I haven't even been enjoying it like I usually do.

And it hasn't stopped me from daydreaming about saying yes to joining Gabriella's staff. In the back of my planner for her wedding is a list of ideas for events when it's time for her to start raising money—from small things like picnics and social media events to the bigger stuff like dinners and parties. I've been telling myself I'll give it to her when the wedding is over, along with my well-wishes for a great campaign. But excitement bubbles inside of me every time I add something to that list. I don't want to just hand it over to her. But how can I put myself in a position where perfect planning might not cut it in the end?

Most importantly, how do I convince Jett that we can be more than the night I broke up with him?

"Just don't stop fighting for what's important," Dalton says. "I know you can do that."