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“I’m a Dodger now, and I need to think about my future.”
“Okay.” “My future doesn’t include you.”
“I’ve got a job to do now. I need to concentrate on me, and I can’t do it with you around. You’re too needy, Marnie. You’re clingy and you suffocate me until I can’t breathe.”
“It’s becoming embarrassing. Everyone at school’s been talking and I can’t bring this with me.” My heart ached from the lies I was spewing. “I don’t have time for a relationship. I don’t have time for you.”
“We’re done for good. And when I pick a girlfriend, it won’t be you.”
“I don’t love you.” It could have been a sharp intake of breath I heard, or it could have been the final crack of my heart, of my chest breaking open until its contents spilled out onto the ground.
“Okay. Well, I came to tell you that I’m going to make it right between us. I want you back, Star.”
“What we were to each other?! You dumped me for being clingy the day you got drafted. Not girlfriend material. Embarrassing. That’s what we were to each other, Jupiter.”
To the casual observer; namely every girl I’d slept with, most of my teammates, and anyone else who’d cared to ask, it was a shadow, a cloud, a swirling smudge of light and dark tinged in blue.
Because as much as I liked that I was her first everything, she wasn’t mine.
I’d had some experience during my teenage years so far; fooled around with a handful of girls, had sex with another handful.
“Let’s go boxing and you can tell me about this frustration you need to get out. I’m assuming it’s big and covered in tattoos?”
So much has happened. I got married…” I added, quietly. His eyes bulged wider than I’d ever seen them, hot with a rage that had me stepping back, “What? You’re fucking married?”
I pulled on the ends of my hair, again. “I can’t believe she got married.” “Um, dude, you’ve slept with hundreds of women.” “I didn’t want to marry any of them. I didn’t pledge
my undying love to someone else.” “Sounds like it did die though. She got divorced.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for hurting you. This week, when we were kids… every single time.”
I didn’t need to make it last. It belonged to me, had always belonged to
me, and I was finally taking it back.
“I’m gonna do more than kiss
you, Marn, and you have to forgive me in advance.” “What for?” “Because I’m about to fuck you like I need to make up for the past fourteen years, and I have no plans to be gentle. Then I’m going to do it again.”
“We’re not teenagers anymore, Marn. Spread your legs. I want to see what I’ve been missing.”
“Tell me who your pussy belongs to. Who it’s always belonged to.” “You, Jupiter… always you.” “Mine is going to be the only name you ever scream again. Understand?”
That boy I loved was now all man; possessive, controlling and unapologetic.
“I know I broke your heart, Marn, but I broke mine, too. Believe me I did.”
Or, as my throat became scratchy with the threat of tears, that I wouldn’t do the same for her.
If it came down to it right this second, would I give up the chance to play for The Dodgers? No.
“I’m worried that if I say I love you… if I say it, then everything will backfire and I’ll lose you again; that you’ll
leave me again,” a loud sob caught in her throat. “The last few weeks have been amazing, and I didn’t want them to end.”
“You left me on the porch.” “We were kids, Marn.”
“Fourteen years, three months, and thirteen days, Marnie. That's how many days I've loved you, and you've been my first and last thought for every single fucking one.
When I reached the elevator and glanced up, her face had dropped into her hands, her chest heaving like she couldn’t breathe. I watched until the doors closed, and
for the second time in my life, I left Marnie Matthews on her doorstep, holding my heart while I walked away.
