Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,83
in the pictures, wasn’t it? Your trainer? Wasn’t it?” he yells, his voice racked with the kind of rage I’ve never seen in him before. “Was he even really your trainer, or was that a lie, too?”
“No—Gabe—he really was. Gabe—I’m—I’m just so sorry.”
“Sorry about what? Me figuring it out? Huh?”
“No—about—this. All of this. Me hurting you.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he growls. “I’m sure you were real sorry when you were out with—whatever his name was.”
“Don’t be like that. I feel bad enough.”
“No, Chelsea,” Gabe barks, jumping off the bed. “I don’t think you do. There’s no way you feel as bad as I do. I’ll tell you how you feel. You feel caught. But me? I feel like the whole world’s changed. Don’t you think I deserve more than this?” He starts pacing and running his hands through his hair so fiercely he looks like he’s tearing his curls out. “Almost two solid years together, and you don’t respect me enough to tell me to my face that you want to see other people? You just let me go on believing you want to be with me, and you run around on me behind my back? After everything I’ve done for you—after being there for you when everything else fell apart … I’ll tell you something. You thought far more of your stupid fling this summer than you thought of me. And that’s not okay.”
Defensively, I lift my face, my eyes narrowed into slits. All I can think about, suddenly, is the fact that up until a few moments ago, I was ready to go through with this night to keep from hurting him. That I was about to have sex with him even though my heart wasn’t in it. Wasn’t that thinking of him? Wasn’t that putting him first? Didn’t he see how much I’d just been willing to give him?
Fury burns in my lungs. “And you’re perfect?” I scream. “Oh, yeah—I guess you are. Gabe Ross, Mr. Perfect. Beautiful Gabe Ross. Smart Gabe Ross. Disgustingly romantic Gabe Ross, who revels in reminding his girlfriend she’s not a star anymore. I get it, Gabe. You’re the perfect one, not me.”
“Excuse me?” he bellows.
“Oh—and I almost forgot the best part. Gabe Ross sticks by his broken girlfriend after she stops shining. After she stops being such a catch. And he loves the fact that it also makes him a good guy—look at me, I’m with her even now, even after she’s not everything I’d wanted in the beginning.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” Gabe mutters. “After I stayed with you. I even decided to go to MSU because that’s where you could afford to go after you lost any hope at a basketball scholarship.”
“There!” I screech. “You admit it. I’m holding you back.”
“That’s not what I said—”
“It’s absolutely what you said. I’m probably holding you back from all that ass you could have been scoring, too. With me, you’ve become some freaking born-again virgin,” I taunt.
“You were hurt, Chelsea.”
“It was more than that,” I yell at him. “Everybody knows about you and that journalism geek at summer camp. But with me … ?”
“Sex isn’t love,” Gabe says. “I never once thought we weren’t a real couple because we hadn’t had sex yet.”
“It’s part of love,” I insist. “Romantic love.”
“Romantic love,” Gabe spits. “Like you’re the expert. Getting you to tell me you loved me while you were gone was like pulling teeth. Now I know why—he probably was listening in.”
“Is that all that’s important to you?” I bite back. “Me professing my undying love all the time? There’s a difference between being romantic and being completely stifling, you know. God—forget Clint. You would have been upset with me anyway, even if he hadn’t been in the picture! Was I supposed to be a good little girl and call you at five o’clock on the dot every single night? You were jealous, Gabe, and not because of some guy. You were actually getting upset because I wasn’t fawning all over you all the time.” I stop to get my breath, but the words keep coming. “Did the thought ever cross your mind that maybe I never needed you to rescue me, Gabe? Maybe I’m still pretty strong, even after the accident. Maybe I’m not some fragile little thing. Maybe you were holding me back.”
“Don’t you dare put this off on me,” Gabe yells. “You did this, Chelsea. You destroyed us!” He grabs the cider bottle and throws it, letting it shatter against