On The Rebound (Steinbeck U #1) - L.A. Cotton Page 0,98
had was nothing more than a childhood crush.” Sadness coiled around my heart. Zach had spent all this time hating me, wanting to hurt me because of a simple case of crossed wires. He’d walked into half a conversation at the wrong time and not stuck around to listen to the rest.
“I told him that I didn’t imagine a future with you or hope we’d survive a long-distance relationship if you left for college... I looked your dad in the eye and told him that I didn’t just love you, I understood you. I told him that I trusted you more than anyone else in the world. And if you’d have a stuck around to hear the entire conversation, you would have heard me tell him that one day I was going to marry you, because that’s how much I believed in us.”
I’d forgotten half of that conversation with Mr. Messiah, the awkward silence that had followed my rather startling confession. But he’d made me so angry, the way he constantly dismissed Zach and his feelings, his relationship with me. We were young, yes, but we shared something most people didn’t. We shared a deep sense of disappointment and abandonment toward the people we called family.
Those experiences tethered us. But it was more than that. We’d opened ourselves up and allowed someone else inside, so when Zach cut me out of his life without so much as an explanation, I was crushed.
“I can’t believe you did that.” He stared at me with awe glittering in his eyes, but it was tarnished with regret.
“I loved you, Zach, and I believed in us. I believed in you.” The words got stuck over the ball of emotion lodged in my throat. “Seeing you step up at that pep rally, watching the principal announce you as the new captain of the Vipers was one of the worst days of my life.” Tears rolled down my cheek as the dam inside me broke wide open.
He shot up and climbed off the bed, standing rigid.
“Zach?” My voice trembled at the anger radiating off him.
“All this time I thought... and he never said anything. He never said a fucking word.”
I was hardly surprised that his dad had left out the part where I tried to fight for his son. He shared the title of world’s shittiest father right alongside mine.
Gingerly climbing off the bed, I went to Zach, taking his hands in mine. “It’s okay,” I said. The truth was finally out, and I already felt lighter. Did I wish things had gone differently? Of course I did. We’d wasted so much time hating one another, hating ourselves. But part of me got it. If I’d have walked in on Zach having a similar conversation, I would have felt the same without all the facts.
I just wished he’d have tried to talk to me first before jumping to conclusions.
“Nothing about this is okay, Calli. I spent an entire year hating you... I gave into his demands because I thought you didn’t care... I thought you...” The fight drained from Zach’s eyes as he dropped down onto the edge of the bed. “Fuck.” He raked a hand through his hair, tugging the ends in frustration. “It was all my fault. All of it.”
“Zach, let’s not—”
“I fucked up.” He stared at me with such intensity, such hopelessness, I felt winded.
I wound my arms around his neck, moving into the space between his legs. “We both messed up. I should have pushed you harder.”
“And I should have given you a chance to explain... fuck, Calli. We wasted all of this time.”
“Maybe it was always supposed to be this way? Maybe we had to go through all the hurt and anger and pain to realize it was real?”
Because it was.
I loved Zach.
Part of me never stopped.
He pulled me down onto his thigh, and buried his face in the crook of my neck, breathing me in. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Hey, hey...” I eased back, sliding my face against his cheek, my tears wet between us. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not, nothing about this is okay. But I won’t mess up again, Calli. You’re mine, sweet pea, every single inch of you.”
Warmth spread through me at his bold words. I wanted that—I wanted it so much. It was all I’d ever wanted.
“But what about the team?” I didn’t want to ask the question, but we couldn’t ignore the fact he was a Scorpion… he played basketball with my brother.