“You—but you—what?”
“I let you think I had on purpose. The whole…the only reason I ever went out with any of them was to make you jealous.” I duck my head. “But I could never…go all the way with them.”
“God, Ben, that’s—”
“Fucked up, I know.” I sigh and tilt my head to look up at the ceiling rather than at her. “That’s not true, though. Making you jealous was the primary reason. It was also a half-assed attempt to try to move on. To force myself to get over you.”
“Get over me by getting under someone else, huh?”
I shrug. “That was the idea, but I couldn’t do it. I’d get close and end up thinking about you, and—I’d have to stop.”
“But you let me think the worst anyway.”
“At that point, when I told you that…I don’t think I cared, honestly. Nothing mattered but how I felt like you’d been stolen from me.”
“That’s kind of a dick move,” Kylie says. “Letting me think you’d fucked all these other girls and then getting pissed at me for falling in love with someone and wanting to be with him.”
“I know,” I admit. “I know. And I’m sorry for that, too.”
She just blinks at me, and I still know her well enough to see the anger in her expression. “That pisses me off all over again. Like, that’s so many layers of deception, Ben.”
“I know.”
“Any other lies you need to clean up?”
“I was a virgin. When I left Nashville, I mean. You want the whole truth, there it is.”
She looks stunned. “No shit. Really?”
“Really.”
Her eyes narrow. “But you’re not anymore.”
“No.” I carefully keep my gaze away from hers.
“So, who is she?”
I’m really, really not sure that’s something I can talk about with her. “I…don’t know if we’re there yet, Ky.”
She nods. “Fair enough.” But she can’t let it go, though. “Is it serious? Did you just come back to talk to me, or…”
“No, I’m back for good.”
“You didn’t answer my—”
“Kylie,” I cut in, my voice firm. “I can’t talk about it with you. I want to fix things with you. I want us to be friends. I loved you as a best friend for seventeen years, above and beyond anything else. I’m here talking to you because I want that back. I know I fucked up in a lot of ways, and I’ve apologized for it. But…I just…I cannot talk about Echo right now.”
Immediately, Kylie’s expression goes far too carefully neutral. “Echo. Echo Leveaux?”
I lean back in the chair and cover my face with both hands. “Of course you know her.”
“She’s…incredible.” Her voice takes on a note of awe. “I’ve heard her sing at school and with her band, and…Ben, she’s—legit, she’s the most amazing vocalist I’ve ever heard.”
I rear back in shock. “What?” I knew she had to be good to study at Belmont, but coming from Kylie, this kind of raving is like the Pope calling you holy. Kylie knows music and she knows talent, so I respect her opinion on this topic more than just about anyone else’s.
“How could you not know?”
“I didn’t meet her in Nashville. I met her in San Antonio. I’ve never heard her sing.”
Kylie considers her response carefully. “Let’s go back a bit. The cane, the limp. What happened? The last thing your parents told me was that you were playing semi-pro football in Texas.”
“Not semi-pro, actually. It was an experimental minor league. A way to keep an eye on upcoming talent other than the NCAA. A lot of the experts are saying college ball is increasingly broken as a path to the pros.” I wave my hand. “Whatever. Not important. Yeah, that’s what I was doing. I was on the verge of getting drafted. Another season or two in San Antonio and I’d have been picked up, no contest. But I got hurt. Took a nasty hit to my knee and it just…shattered.”
“Will you be okay?”
I tilt my head from side to side. “Okay? Yeah. I’ll lose the cane in few months, hopefully. But I’ll never play ball again.”
“Oh…Ben.” She knows exactly how much football meant to me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. But…it is what it is, and I just have to deal with it.”
“It is what it is,” Kylie repeats. “I hate that phrase. It’s a cop-out excuse to explain away what you can’t accept.”
“What am I supposed to do, Kylie? It’s a medical fact that I will never play competitive football ever again. The surgeon in San Antonio told me that, and Doc Petersen told me that not even two hours ago. I’m done. My football career is over. It’s a fact.”
“You’re more than a football player, Ben,” Kylie says.
I lean my head back and sigh. “God, I fucking know that. I’ve been told that a hundred times already. Cheyenne told me that. Echo told me that. Dad told me that. Dr. Petersen told me that. I fucking know there’s more to life than fucking football!”
“Cheyenne?” she says, by way of avoiding my outburst.
“My physical therapist in San Antonio. And Echo’s mom, incidentally.”
“Ah. I see.”
I laugh bitterly. “No, you know what? You really couldn’t even begin to see.”
“So, tell me, Ben.” She leans forward and touches my knee. “We’re friends, right? Best friends? Best friends tell each other things. And I sense you need to talk about this.”
I shake my head. “It’s too long a story, too fucked up, too difficult. And yeah, we’re friends, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. I’m not sure I’m there yet, at least.”
“All right, then.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, or—that I don’t want to talk about it.” I groan and sit forward. “But I don’t. I do, but I don’t. I don’t know. I’m just so mixed up about everything right now. You, this, us? It’s still not easy. Part of me sees you and everything comes back all over again. But then there’s all the shit with Echo, and losing football, and—everything. So it’s not you, it’s just…everything is too much.”