We're not good for each other. It's the only thing I can think about for these 3 weeks. When I first heard them, something inside me snapped. I've told her things, I've opened myself up and that's not enough? The problem is being in the closet? Really? Do you think I care? Sure, it's chill to be able to hold hands in public, but that's more of a bonus.
At home I immediately ran upstairs and locked myself in my room to avoid questions from my mother. Sunday was exactly the same. Mom stopped asking when I kept ignoring her. I hadn't told her about the kiss. Fuck, that fucking kiss that's in my head. I can only think about her lips, how good she made me feel.
Jay is different, she changed in her behavior. That Monday she was quieter than usual and moved a bit stiffly. I let it go at that point and knew she didn't want to talk to me anyway. And believe me when I say I've tried, I tried to talk to her. She immediately interrupted me or started talking about something else. Most of the time she just made sure to be with the boys. I keep wondering what I did wrong.
Now I have withdrawn myself more, I no longer know what to do with myself, I even get panic attacks at school, which I never had before. With music I try to keep myself calm, I grab my guitar and play the first song that comes to mind. Or I am away on my motorcycle for hours, I keep driving in circles until I am calm.
I feel like I have lost myself a bit in these 3 weeks. At parties I pour so much alcohol in my body that I don't even remember what I've been up to the next day. I found that alcohol was a better medicine than sleeping with other girls. It's okay until we kiss, I can only think about Jay, what it was like to kiss her and then in foreplay I can't take it anymore and I'm usually already gone. She infiltrates my mind as if she is claiming me and it drives me crazy. She doesn't want me, that's okay, but can she leave my damn head alone?
With all the anger I feel I hit the ball and watch it fall behind the fences.
Coach Lewis claps. "I want to see those kinds of balls in the game, keep it up Davis." At least that made me feel a little bit better. Coach Lewis has always been like a father to me. Keith doesn't like him that much, but I can always turn to him, it's a kind of safety.
"For everyone else, this training sucks, I'm offended by everyone." Coach yells.
What is annoying is that I still have partner training with her, she says almost nothing to me and it drives me crazy.
She seems quieter than usual today, maybe it's because the guys forced her yesterday to go to a movie in the evening or because she really hates me so much. It's one of those two because she's pitching badly today.
"Is there something bothering you?" I ask if I pick up the ball she missed.
She waves her arm a few times and then answers. "I'm having a little bit of trouble with my arm, that's all." She throws again, just as badly as last time. When she throws again, I can see that she barely moves her upper body.
"Jay."
"What?" She turns furiously at me, throwing the ball with such force that I have to bend under it. That was a good ball, but looking at her it hurted.
"Why does it hurt so much?" I walk over to her, but as soon as I get too close she steps away from me. "I just want to help you."
"Don't you understand that I don't want your help?" Her mouth opens and closes again, but this time no sound comes out.
"That's it for today guys, I'll see you tomorrow." Coach Lewis disappears from the field with his assistant coach right behind him.
"You're in pain." Jay slaps my hand away as I reach for her arm. She turns around with a grunt and walks over to her bag. When she bends down to hit her bat off the ground, her shirt rises, my eyes just almost fall out of my head when I see the bruise. What the fuck.
Jay grunts again when I suddenly stand next to her and have my hand clasped around her arm. "Charlie," she hisses.
"Someone is grumpy today." Jay ignores Jake, who grins and puts his things in his bag.
I force Jay to look at me, she sees nothing more than anger and concern in my eyes. "Dressing room, now!"
"Oh, oh, you're in trouble," Andrew jokes, pausing when I look at him with so much rage inside me, that he quickly looks away.
"Go, fuck, yourself." I stare after her for a moment as she shakes my hand off her arm and walks away.
Jake chuckles. "Yup, she's really not having her day." I ignore them, assholes.
"Jay." I walk next to her and drag her along with me without saying anything else, hear how she swears and swears and especially says that I must let her go, but I only do that when she is in the dressing room.
"Let me go home!" That almost sounds panicky.
"Stop!" I scream above her screams. She is immediately silent and looks at me. "Where does that bruise come from?" Her eyes almost pop out of her head before she regains herself.
"What bruise?" Now she's going to play stupid.
"On your fucking side, Jay." I walk up to her, my hands are too fast and I pull up her shirt, only to find out she has a lot more bruises. She throws my hands away and turns away from me. "Jay..."
"Just stop." Her voice is thick with held back tears. "Don't get involved in this, Charlie."
"How did they get there?" I will continue.
"That doesn't matter." Jay sinks onto a bench with her back to me and puts her head in her hands.
Without words I walked over to her and after some doubts I put my hand on her shoulder. She cringes for a moment. "Is someone hurting you?" She immediately gets up and walks away from me. "Jay..."
"Don't!" When she turns to me I see tears running down her cheeks. I feel a sting in my chest. Seeing her like this does something to me. "Please don't."
I'm not stopping, with everything I have in me I have to protect her, be there for her. "Jay, is he hurting you?" I don't even have to say who. Her legs give way and I can just catch her. She leans against me crying. I bring us to the ground and pull her into my arms. She immediately clings to me.
"Don't leave me alone," she mutters. "Please, do not leave me alone."
And I don't, I don't say anything, I just hold her. Let her cry. It seems like she's not going to stop, so eventually I pull back to put my hands on her cheeks, wiping away some tears with my thumbs.
"Take a breath, in... out..." She joins me until she calms down, then her head falls against my shoulder again. I still don't say anything, I don't want to force her to say anything. I have a hard time swallowing when she moves away from me, for a moment I'm afraid she's going to shut me out again, but then she pulls her shirt over her head.
All the bruises are now visible, I also see a handprint on her shoulder, where he grabbed her. A trembling sigh escapes from her mouth and a soft scream in pain as I gently put my hands on her sides.
"Charlie..."
"Am I hurting you?" I start to pull my hands away, only she stops me. She shakes her head, I relax a bit, pull her back towards me. She sighs once she is in my arms. To relax her, I draw circles on her arm with my finger.
"It started when mom was admitted and he lost his job," she begins.
"Jay you don't have to—"
"He sought support in the alcohol," she interrupts. "When he drinks, he is someone else, he gets loose and swears a lot, or he cries." She takes a slow breath. "He punishes me for everything I do wrong, coming home late, homework that's not done, my hair." My eyes slide to her haircut. "That's why I don't have the balls to come out," she says softly.
I lift her chin and let her look at me. "I'll wait for you until you are ready." Her eyes fill with tears and before I can do anything about it, she presses her lips against mine.
"God, couldn't you do that 3 weeks ago," she giggles as I take her face in my hands and kiss her. "In case you haven't figured it out yet," I say in between kisses. "I like you a lot, Jay."
I can feel her smiling on my lips. "Yeah, I noticed, Charlie Davis."
I lift her chin up again so that she looks at me. "I'm sorry I made you feel overwhelmed."
She shakes her head at me. "I'm sorry I pushed you away." Man that feels good to hear, she'll just stop me before I can kiss her again. She giggles when she sees my gaze. "Keith can't know."
I let our fingers intertwine and then look at her again. "I know." I let my free hand gently run over her back, my fingers gliding so lightly over her skin that she should barely feel it. "May I kiss you now?" She grins and nods. Finally I press my lips on hers. I feel everything explode inside me. It has never felt better to kiss someone, to long for this feeling, to long for someone like this.
My forehead rests against hers and I slowly open my eyes. "How about ... ice cream?" She opens her eyes with a chuckle and I melt away as her eyes stare straight into mine. For a moment I only see a green forest, a green forest where she stands, I want nothing more than to walk towards her.
"And the boys, we both know they're waiting for us." I hear her giggle again when I let my head hang back with a groan. I swallow when I feel her hands on my shoulders and she turns, now she sits on her knees between my legs and looks at me. "Now you can show me that you can hold back."
"Is that a challenge?" With a grin, I run my finger over her collarbone and watch her body shiver, see how she swallows.
"Perhaps." Her voice is hoarse. Fuck, this girl is driving me crazy. I pull her face towards me, brush our lips together, but wait just yet. "Charlie..."
"Challenge accepted, Raven Jayden Miller." She pulls her head back and frowns. Shit.
"How do you know my first name?" I want to caress her cheek, but she moves her head away. "Charlie, how do you know that?" She takes my hand to keep me from grabbing her face.
"Team form, as captain I keep an eye on my team." She turns her head away from me. "Jay." I can finally put my hand under her chin to make sure she looks at me. "What's wrong?"
"I hate that name," she mutters, still not looking at me.
"Raven." Now she does look at me, her jaws are set. "Raven, Raven, Raven—"
"Charlie, stop."
"Raven, Raven, Raven, Raven—" Her lips interrupt me, I shiver as she presses her body against me and I feel the cold wall of the dressing room in my back. "Raven," I tease between kisses.
With a grunt she breaks away from me and wants to get up and walk away from me, but I pull her back and put my arms around her to stop her.
"Charlie, let me get up." She doesn't seem to like it.
I stare into her eyes. "It's a nice name." She shakes her head. "Look in my eyes." After some conviction, she looks into my eyes. "Raven is a beautiful name."
"Please don't call me that anymore." She bites her lip, she seems frustrated and although I want to show her that there is nothing wrong with her name, I also know that I have to stop talking about this now.
"Okay." I stroke her cheek again. "I'll stop, I won't say it's a nice name again." I grin when she rolls her eyes. "Jayden." She looks back at me. My lips find hers and I kiss her one last time before we get up. I know it won't be long now for one of the guys to kick in the door because they have to wait too long.
"Bet they're going to ask 182 questions about why it took so long." She smiles and pulls a clean shirt over her head. I can't help but put my arms around her waist, she sighs softly as I press my body against hers. It feels so familiar when I hold her, on the other hand, she feels so fragile in my arms, she is much smaller than I am and all I want to do when I see her is put my arms around her.
"I don't really care," I whisper, putting my chin on her shoulder so I can whisper in her ear. "I'll make something up."
"Charlie..." It's a whisper. "We really have to get dressed." God why is it so hard to leave her alone? "Or can you not keep up to the challenge." The bitch.
With difficulty I step away from her. On my way to my bag, I run my hands through my hair, take a few breaths. "Easy," I finally answer. I can't think of more words, I just can't think straight when I get close to her.
I jumped up from banging on the door. "Anyone dead?" I hear Andrew ask.
"Charlie, is Jay still alive?" I roll my eyes at Jake's ridiculous comment. "I don't feel like hiding a corpse."
I just look at Jay to see if she's done, she just got off her pants and doesn't seem to care that much, okay. I throw my bag over my shoulder and walk to the door, which is now going back and forth with thumping.
"Open the door!" I hear Keith scream now, almost panicking. What a loser. Slowly I open the door and look at the boys with a raised eyebrow.
"What are you doing?" Keith pounds past me, with a grin I wait. I hear Jay scream and Keith comes back even faster than he ran inside. "Why do you think I didn't open the door sooner," I say now, crossing my arms.
"She's still alive." Keith is almost Minnie Mouse, Jesus.
"Who do you think I am? Can't I discuss anything with a teammate?" The boys all look at me the same.
"You looked like you could kill someone before you pulled her after you." I roll my eyes again.
"What did you talk about?" Uhm, shit. I haven't thought about it at all.
"Girl stuff," I hear Jay say behind me. I have to suppress a grin when she steps up next to me. "Are we going to stand here and gawk at Charlie or are we going to get ice cream?"
"Ice cream!" Jake's eyes light up, he fishes Keith's keys out of his back pocket and runs to the parking lot.
"Jake! Give me my keys back!" Keith runs after him. Really how much Jake likes ice cream, it's abnormal.
I feel a hand in mine and the touch warms me up. "Are you coming?" I look aside. Jay looks at me, her eyes warm. I have to suppress the urge to slam the door shut and push her against it.
"I'm right behind you." I let go of her hand as she passed me.
"Should I get scared?"
I grin. "Perhaps." Jay is gonna kill me.
--------
With a sigh, I toss my bag on the stairs and make my way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge. A scream almost escapes from my mouth when I see my mother slamming the door.
"Did you know that you can do that much softer?" I release a sigh and walk to the living room. "How was Dr. Johnson?"
"Fine, Mom." It was not fine at all, during the session, I had a minor mental breakdown. I don't know how she does it but Lexa always gets everything out of me. From the smallest thing to the biggest problem I have. Today I yelled at her and sadly cried. I just broke. For weeks I bottle everything up, especially after the thing with Jay, it just all came out.
As a tracking dog, she knew there was more, so I told her about Jay. I have always denied it or changed the subject until today. I've never had feelings for anyone in the 18 years I've been here.
"Define fine." I roll my eyes, I hate that my mom is a therapist and knows Dr. Johnson well. It's that Lexa can't talk about her patients or Mom would already know everything. "Did you tell her about the nightmares?" My eyes darted to her.
"How did you know that?"
"What? Waking up screaming in the middle of the night, the trips on your motorcycle at 4 am and not going to bed afterwards?" I sigh. "Charlotte, I'm your mother, I can tell if you're not doing well." I sigh and let myself be pulled towards her. I put my head on her chest, I'm too tired to tell her not to call me that. "Is it getting worse?"
"A little." I do not wanna talk about it. "The panic attacks are back," I say softly.
"Charlie..." Mom runs her fingers through my hair. "Are you taking your medication?"
I gently shake my head. "It makes me tired and dull, I can't play baseball when I can't keep my head together."
"Then you take a break." I sat up again, did she really say that?
"You know that's my only outlet, right? You know it helps me." Mom looks at me for a moment.
"You have your music, Char." I shake my head, that doesn't help. "Maybe a break would be just as good."
I get up. "If you want me to get back into that black hole, yes I'll take that break." Mom takes my hand to keep me from walking away, but I don't look at her, I don't want her to see me crying.
"How's Jay?" I swallow, I'm pulled back onto the couch. "I saw Monday's smile." She pulls me back to her and strokes my hair. I had hoped she wouldn't see that 3 days ago, but of course she did.
"Fine," I mumble, not wanting to talk about it.
"Char..."
I roll my eyes and smile as she presses into my side. "We talked,"
"Mm-hm," Mum mumbles, making me look at her. "Oh no, I believe you." I roll my eyes again.
"Fine, we kissed." I say it is almost too soft to understand. When Mom doesn't say anything, I look up again, see her smiling. "What?"
"I've never seen you like this." I frown.
"Like what?" Sometimes this woman really speaks in Chinese.
Mom wipes away some tears from my face. "So happy." How am I happy? With all this misery. "I've never seen you in love." I choke on my own spit and scramble coughing to my feet. In love? What a joke.
"Woah," I say, raising my hand to her. "Point 1, we only kissed and point 2, I AM NOT IN LOVE!"
"Who's in love?" I look up at Keith, he's wearing his work clothes.
"Nobody," I say quickly before Mom can say anything. I know she wants me to tell him, but I can't, I promised Jay.
"Mm."
"Just go to work!" I walk back to the kitchen with a sigh. What a hassle.
"Be ready before 9:00." I raise my middle finger to him and lower myself onto a bar stool. Tonight we have another '' Meeting ''. On the one hand, I'm looking forward to seeing Jay, but on the other, I don't feel like socializing at all, I really just want to lie in my bed, these team meetings are really total bullshit.
Jay and I haven't seen or kissed each other after Monday. We were always with the boys, which annoyed me to death and Jay knew that, I saw her grin. When we were alone, we were actually too busy either laughing or talking and we didn't have enough time. And god how hard it is to get her out of my mind. What I didn't realize is that a smile appeared on my face again.
"Look, I mean that smile." I put my hands on my face and hear Mom laugh. I genuinely want to die, I hate this.