now that it’s over. And who is he to decide that?
“Shit, I’m sorry, man,” Moses says. “Was it because of Shred Live?”
“I guess we’re talking about this,” I say as I make my way back to my chair. “I thought you coming over would save me from it, Moses.”
“You know I won’t tell anybody,” Moses promises, taking the other armchair.
Naomi takes the sofa by Griff, while Summer plops herself on the floor. “I went on her Instagram account this morning,” Summer admits. She glances at Moses. “I have access because I was helping her with it.”
Griff leans forward. “Summer, I told you not to read her messages. You read them, didn’t you?”
“Well, you guys were acting all shady, and then you said she flew home without her phone so we couldn’t call her. What did you expect us to do?”
Moses leans toward me and murmurs, “We’re talking about Jordan Slattery, right?”
I shoot him a suspicious look.
“I assumed you were together the night I met her.” He shrugs. “Saw the video of that crash, man. How is she?”
All I can do is shake my head, because I don’t really know.
Summer picks at the rug. “It makes sense. Why she went for the half pipe that day. She said she’d just read all those messages and her head was messed up.”
Moses doesn’t ask what the messages said, but he can make his guesses. If he’s online at all he’s seen the buzz speculating about which guy Jordan’s with.
“Yeah, but I still don’t understand why she had to break up with you, Beck!” Naomi nearly growls. “Things were so good between you guys. And she sounded all torn up and down about it. Why would she do that? Nothing about how you guys feel about each other has changed.”
“Because he’s leaving for filming for three months,” Summer reminds her. “Because the Shred Live contract says they have to stay a secret for a year.”
“Did you tell her you were gonna pull out of Shred Live?” Griffin asks.
“Yeah, she didn’t want me to,” I answer. Rehashing it with everyone isn’t exactly fun, but it’s weirdly therapeutic watching them process it.
Naomi’s eyes widen. “She didn’t want you to?”
I shake my head, confirming it. Emotion rises in my chest. “Said something about not being cut out for this, any of it, and not wanting me to have to make sacrifices because she can’t handle it.”
“She said that in the email to me too,” Griff says. “That she’s not cut out to be a pro skateboarder.”
Naomi looks confused and maybe a little dumbstruck. Summer is frowning and staring at the ground. My heart breaks a little for them too, because they look up to Jordan. From their perspective, it’s like she’s giving up, letting them down. Jordan might think she’s doing the noble thing here, making the mature decision that will leave me better off, but it sure doesn’t feel that way to the rest of us. Hell, it reminds me of how I was trying so hard to stay away from her and deny my feelings for her, thinking I was being the good guy.
Moses breaks the depressing silence. “She’s eighteen, right? Girl has been through a lot since she started college out here and met all of you. I read the Skate Wave article, I’ve heard the talk. No one knew who she was, and now she’s the talk of the skateboarding world. At first it was about her skateboarding, and looked like she was handling that attention just fine. But it shifted to her personal life real quick, and damn, girls got heated and mean.” Moses points a finger between Griff and me. “You two might not see it clearly because you’ve been in it awhile. But that kind of attention, good or bad, it’s a lot to take for anyone.”
Naomi grumbles, “It just seemed like she went from being totally okay with all of it, to ending all of it.” She snaps her fingers. “Just like that.”
Summer turns to look at her friend. “Remember though, she didn’t want to even rep Brazen or compete a few months ago?”
“But she’s so good at it!” Naomi practically wails. I feel like I’m supposed to be comforting Naomi, who’s taking this break-up nearly as hard as I am.
“I bet that crash scared her,” Moses says quietly.
“Not the crash, the messages,” I clarify. “One girl said she hopes Jordan breaks her legs. Another was following her, took a picture of her outside our place and said to