“We made out freshman year while we were studying. We were sober and wanted to see if there were any feelings there. There weren’t.” I wait for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. So I ask, because it’s only fair, “Did you sleep with Macy?”
He shakes his head, “No. I never touched Macy like that. Never even thought about it.”
“So you didn’t do anything?”
He smirks, cocky asshole. “I bit her fucking neck once trying to prove to her that there was nothing between us.”
I wait to see if he blinks, it’s his tell. When he blinks he’s lying. It never comes.
Kicking my feet up on the bench in front of me I stretch out. I think we’re done but we’re not, probably not even close.
“You had no right to call Madison a whore.” That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say but now I know he’s talked to Macy and I’m not surprised she told him that.
“You’re right. I’m sorry for that too.” And I am and I’ll apologize to Madison at some point too.
“Why couldn’t you see that it wasn’t just you hurting?”
“I’m sorry that I don’t want to feel. Forgive me for being selfish,” I can’t hold back the bitterness that tinges my words. “What I can’t understand is that people can’t see that I’m not doing this for them. I don’t do it to feel this way. I do it to not feel.”
Cash looks at me, really looks at me for the first since the accident. He sees that things will never be the same for any of us, especially for me. He sees the blame I’m holding on my shoulders. “It’s never gonna be the same, man,” I say, then bring the beer to my lips.
“I know.”
Does he really know? Will he ever? I don’t think he’ll ever see it from my point of view. I have Steven’s death on my hands. “Do you?”
I see Cash’s face getting redder. He’s pissed that I’m challenging him. “You have so much goddamn God-given talent but you waste it! You fucking waste it because you’re depressed. Yeah, I get it, I was there too. But the eighty percent you play at is better than most who give one hundred percent. If you put forth the effort you do into forgetting, you could go pro and probably be a number one draft pick.”
I nod because what he said is the truth.
“Earn it. Being like this is a slap in the fucking face to him. He died. You lived. What good did it do that you were saved and you’re living like this? What do you think he’d say about that?”
Steven would be slapping me upside my head every day for giving into the depression, the guilt. He wouldn’t let me give into it. He’d make me fight; he’d make me see it from his side of it. Cash and I both know this but I want to know what he would do.
“What would you do if it was you?” I want to know if it was him acting crazy what he would be doing right here, right now.
“I would do what I do now. Live my life because dwelling on it doesn’t rewrite history. It happened. We can’t take it back.”
Landon thinks about it for a half a second. “Why do you hold on to the past with Madison then?”
“I have no idea,” Cash answers. “I guess I do because I want to.” He looks out to the field. “There are parts of our lives we can’t change, Landon. I know that seems like I’m being hypocritical, but second chances don’t happen often. I’m still holding out for my second chance with her. Hell, I still want to finish my first chance. We were robbed of that opportunity, it was stolen from us.”
“But you’re not together.”
“I know. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting that chance at forever with her again.”
Cash and I stand in complete silence but it’s the good silence. The kind that doesn’t need to be filled. Maybe today is the day that Cash and I can start to be friends again. Maybe one more tragedy is what it has taken to bring us full circle, back to where we all belong.
***
After I finish my beer with Cash I leave him to go Alexa’s house. I know it’s probably bad timing since she told me this morning she hated me but what I have to say can’t wait.