Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

Having things under control has never really been my specialty, nor has self-preservation. Feeling too much all at once until the dam bursts is much more my speed.

me

Her hair is down today, thick and straight with fringe dripping from behind her ear that has my fist closing to prevent myself from reaching out and tucking it back.

oh he's a YEARNER

There’s a quiet stillness to the music—soothing and just repetitive enough to drown out the mass of older panic taking over my brain. Like the sound coming from the bud in my left ear is enough to overpower everything else. Except for the warmth of her beside me. Somehow, that’s more.

“Is this helping?” I ask as José González’s gentle strums echo in our ears. Rhys nods, his eyes flickering over me in a little pattern—eyes, mouth, the grasp of my hand in his. Eyes. Mouth. Hands. “You’re helping,” he blurts, cheeks red from embarrassment or exertion.

He smiles and it makes me pause. Two matching dimple imprints form in his otherwise chiseled cheeks, a little bit of light bleeding into his usually saddened brown eyes. I want to stand in that smile like a flower preening in the sun.

But I’m in her orbit now, and she’s becoming my goddamn center of gravity. Whether she realizes it or not.

No deal needed—if she keeps looking at me like this, I’ll do anything she says.

She stops there, but the unspoken words are just as loud. The look in her eyes says I wanted to help, and this is all I have and I see you.

I want to stay just like this with her forever.

I wonder if I could convince her to She’s the Man herself onto the men’s hockey team so I never have to be on the ice without her.

god he wants her SO BAD

“Three things you can see.” Her red-tinged eyes open again, but only a few tears escape. “You.” I can’t help the smile that slips out. “Try to be specific.” “Your dimples when you smile.

And without thinking, I drop a kiss to her forehead and pick up my gear bag, turning to leave the room before I can consider how ridiculous that move might have been.

OH IM GIGGLING

She’s so beautiful; dark lips and thick lashes over her darting, intense eyes. That little patch of freckles that I want to touch almost constantly. Brown hair that I imagine would feel just like silk if I ran my fingers through it.

I love breakfast food.” “I thought you liked savory over sweet.” “I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses, and my heart clenches.

The next morning, before I can even consider what I’ll do to get back my own car, I step outside to see my Jeep is in the driveway, freshly detailed. It starts without any complaint.

But I did feel something with her—something real and warm that chased every scrap of darkened shadows away from me while I focused on her. Just her.

This won’t be enough for her, and I understand it. There’s barely enough of me left to make a complete human. Why would I be able to hold her together when she’s becoming the one keeping me intact?

I think I like what the aftermath of Sadie Gray looks like on me.

As many times as I’ve seen her, Sadie’s only really smiled at me twice. But this smile—this is different. It’s so big, her pillowy, faded-red lips stretching, the apples of her sharp cheeks softening and creasing the collection of freckles beneath her eyes that I’m just as desperate to touch as I am to get close enough to count them.

The girl can read chapter-long filthy sex scenes without a flinch, but tell her a boy thinks she’s pretty and she turns into a tomato.

LMAO MEEEEE

“Not the get-coffee-together kind of girl, huh?” Rhys teases, no hint of his hesitation or unease from last night present in his expression now. “Just the serve-it-with-a-smile kind,” I quip. He smiles more genuinely, the indent of one dimple showing. “For some reason, I doubt the ‘smile’ part. I don’t remember that from the last time you served me coffee.”

“I, uh… I had my first practice back this morning.” “Yeah?” I have the urge to grab his hand and hold it. “And? All good?” The idea of him panicked and alone makes my stomach hurt. I can’t explain it, but I feel an intense protectiveness over his pain.

It’s easier this way: to pretend to be who I was before that game, to be the same team player and leader who earned the C on my jersey sophomore year. It’s who I am, who I should be—just lost beneath the dark cloud insistent on following me everywhere.

Just the thought of her settles me immediately, the image burned into my mind of her hovering over me in the locker room like a queen atop a throne. Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?

Because I crave Sadie like an addiction.

It’s more than that. It’s everything. It’s a piece of me that only she holds the key to. It’s the acceptance of me as I am, by the only person that matters right now.

A laugh bursts from me and I slide it on immediately. “It’s a joke.” Not to me, I want to say. I’ll never take it off.

“I love that,” he says. “What?” “When you get that little wrinkle in your eyebrows. Like you’re thinking really hard about something.” “About you.” I roll my eyes. I drop my phone to point at the ceiling, hiding the blush, and kick my feet.

Sadie is ingrained in my body and mind; going even a day without her makes me anxious to be near her. I want more than just her hands on my skin in dim light. I want her everywhere—her hair all over my room, her voice in the noise at my games, her toothbrush in my bathroom—and

“I think I’m in love with her.” I hear Rhys tell Bennett, but his voice doesn’t lower even a notch. “And she won’t let me in.”

ohhh my god

“Sade doesn’t think I’m a golden boy, Ben.” Rhys smiles, but it’s all wrong. “I don’t have to pretend now that she’s here. She knows I’m broken.” He lets out a huffed laugh. “Rhys… you’re not broken.” Bennett sounds as distraught as I feel behind the hard mental wall of steel I have raised in a last-ditch effort to protect myself. “I am, Ben. And she’s the only one who sees it.”

“You’ll still be here when I wake up?”

OHH IM GONNA CRYY

Because I’ve begun to think of him as mine, I realize as I pull away from their nice little house. He deserves so much more. He’s temporarily broken—there’s no fixing me.

Bennett hadn’t been willing to let it go, so I told him. Everything. About the initial pain, the self-inflicted sleep deprivation, the panic attacks, Sadie… everything. He looked angry the entire time, but that’s a usual expression for the controlled goalie. But then, he hugged me. Tight. Loving. His eyes were wet with tears as he looked at me and said, “If you’d told us, told me, we could’ve helped. Things would’ve been different.”

“I’m not okay,” I shove through my lips. “Vchistuyu,” he whispers, a sad smile stretching across his face. It’s a word I don’t recognize from my partial, limited Russian. “I don’t know that.” I shake my head, my throat catching. “Finally.” He smiles but it’s watery.

“It means finally, Rhys. You’re going to tell me what’s going on now. What is hurting you?”

“I know I am not your mother.” He raises his hand to silence my protests. “But along with her, you are the most important thing in my life. I would bleed myself dry if it meant I could take your pain for you. Now, tell me.”

OH IM SOBBING

So I chose to keep everything to myself. Because I love my dad, and I never wanted to hear him like that again.

“Still. This”—he gestures widely—“this life we have, it’s nothing without you safe and happy. That is all I want. I love you, son.”

For the time being, I am waiting on her and making myself worthy of her. A week back in therapy isn’t enough, but it’s a start. Sadie can’t be my crutch if I want her to be mine. I won’t put that on her ever again.

“Kelley’s not normal.

I KNEW ITT

“I don’t want you to keep me away, okay? I want to be part of your life.” “No,” she chokes out. “You don’t, Rhys. It’s messy and way too complicated.” “I don’t care.” “Rhys.” “Sadie, if you told me you were joining the Witness Protection Program, I’d ask, ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘Can I pull off a beard?’ ”

“Hey, hotshot.” “Hey, Gray,”

“And then.” He stretches out the word and kisses my nose. “This little punk figure skater grabbed my wrist and told me not to touch her, and I felt something. I was scared I’d never see her again.”

“It’s not,” he cuts me off. But he smiles lightly, and continues, “I’m back in therapy. I shouldn’t have stopped—and I should not have used you like that.”

“Being with you—hell, just being around you, was the only time I felt anything for a long time.”

He loops an arm around me, kisses the top of my head, and continues his game conversation with the boys in the kitchen. He doesn’t stop talking, even as he lifts me to sit on the barstool in front of him and rests his arms on the counter, caging me in between them.

men who aren't nonchalant>>>>

“Yeah,” I say, trying to ignore the pinch of discomfort when they both go silent. “I’m his girlfriend.”

“What’s this?” “It’s… ah, latte foam art. It’s supposed to be a flower.” He says it sheepishly, quiet. “I love it.”

LIKE HIS DAD DOES FOR HIS MOM IM GONNA CRYYYY

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier, Gray,” he whispers. Another kiss to the corner of my mouth. “My girl.”