False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,92

failed date with Blake. From the beginning, Carson had told me he didn’t deserve me, and it had only grown from there. I’d brushed his comments off, not realizing how deeply they’d taken root in him, not realizing that he’d been poisoned by them.

But I knew him well enough to know there was nothing I could say to change his thoughts. Deep down, I also knew that would only be slapping a Band-Aid on a gaping, festering wound.

Until he accepted himself, he couldn’t be with me. And that was something I couldn’t help him with. It was a paradox, really. Maybe later, I would laugh about the absurdity of it. But now the final shard had been shoved so deeply into my heart that it was on the cusp of breaking.

Though I knew it was fruitless, I needed to throw a Hail Mary. “What if your love is enough for me, Carson? That’s all I want from you.”

His left hand clenched into a fist at his side, and his expression grew even more pained. “You deserve more. I can’t let you settle for me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to keep breathing as my heart broke. I’d loved Carson as a boy, and I loved the man he’d become, the man who stood before me. But I couldn’t be with him, not like this. Anyway, he wasn’t giving me much of a choice.

But I would give him one. “I love you, Carson, but I can’t wait for you forever. I’ve already spent half my life waiting for you. I hope you’ll stop believing the lies you’ve been telling yourself. If you do, you know where to find me.”

Then I turned and walked out the door, using all the strength I had not to look back.

CHAPTER 23

Becca

NICOLE PUT HER hand on her hip and eyed me. “What do you mean you’re not going to the game? You always go to the games.”

I was suddenly regretting talking her into going with me to the middle school’s robotics club meeting. I’d wanted to check it out myself before I asked WIE members to donate their time. I was blown away. The kids were so smart that they’d already taught me a few things about programming. At first, I’d felt awkward because, as a volunteer, I was supposed to be helping them, but it didn’t take me long to realize that they liked showing off what they knew.

But Nicole was seriously driving me crazy.

“I told you,” I muttered. “Carson and I aren’t together anymore. I don’t want to go.”

She sighed. “I wish you’d tell me what happened.”

Shaking my head, I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to talk about it. It just makes it worse.” My cure for heartache was staying busy. That meant attending every WIE study hall and volunteering at the middle school. Hell, I’d even run some lines from Othello with Lucy. Yeah, I was that desperate. In related news, if a career in the biomedical field didn’t work out, at least I knew theater wasn’t an option. Thanks, Lucy. Maybe now she would finally stop asking me to rehearse with her.

“Boys! Boys!” Miss Hinchey yelled, giving a pair of kids a stern look. “Robot components are not swords. Please keep the make-believe out of the technology lab, okay?”

A group of girls snickered, and the two boys in question turned bright red. They returned what looked like metal arms to the workstation. Peer pressure at its best.

“But we always go to the games together,” Nicole whined. “It won’t be the same.”

I sighed. Nicole was awesome, except when she wasn’t. “Evan will be there.”

She pursed her lips. “Carson needs to apologize so you can go to the games again. You love going to the games.”

I did love going to the games, but one of the main reasons was because I liked watching Carson play. He wouldn’t be playing, but even if he were, I still didn’t know if I would go. Trying to cut Carson out of my life had been nearly impossible before when we’d just been friends. Now that we’d been more than friends, I’d succeeded. But damn, it was so hard. Just last night, I’d had to stop myself from texting him to ask if he had any assignments he needed help with before I remembered we were no longer speaking.

I missed him. I missed him so much it hurt. But I loved him enough to let him go. I just hoped