Hard Facts by Penny Clarke

32

Grayson

Ispend Thanksgiving break alone. Natalie offers to stay behind. Even Morris looks like he might put in a call to his coach, with an excuse that his knee’s acting up and he can’t actually play at the upcoming game. But in the end, I tell them to go. I’ll be fine. And I am.

I drop my car off at a mechanic. Pay for all the repairs. Walk home in the bitter cold.

On Thanksgiving, I order takeout and read through five chapters of my bioinfo textbook. In my uncannily quiet house.

For my birthday, I answer calls from each of my friends. Then clear out all of Morris’s things from my room, now that his is completely dry again. Without all the water bottles, it feels strangely empty. Too big.

I clean. I study. I use Morris’s stadium pass to work out in the athletes’ gym. I read over my internship acceptance letter probably over a thousand times. I complete every homework assignment on every syllabus for every class until there’s nothing left. I finish my work for the rest of the semester.

All of that… None of it works to distract me.

From Summer’s face. Her pain. Her crying. The tremor of her voice, the moment she told me she would’ve given me everything. Each and every time she told me those three words. Each and every time I never said it back.

So I throw myself into work. Notes and figures and facts. I work so hard, my stomach begins to cramp, but I ignore it because if I remember—fuck, if I close my eyes one more time and see Summer’s face—So I push on. Keep my head in my books. In my laptop. My work. All my hard work. I don’t notice the sun set. The moon rise. That ache in my gut. The one in my chest. I work, and I work, and I work, until there is no more work, so I find some more.

I don’t notice when Natalie and Morris arrive back home, early. Not until I hear their voices, talking. About me.

“—don’t think he’s been eating—”

“—just needs time, Nat—”

My hands stall on my keyboard.

“—but it was fake. It was all fake, shouldn’t he—”

“That fight looked pretty real to me.”

They’re talking about Summer. My fingers crack and snap as they clench.

“Did you really… with…”

“It wasn’t like that.”

I push out of my chair. Slam open my door. Cross my arms over my chest and glare at the both of them. “You two suck at whispering. Also, you do realize you’re right outside my door, right?”

“Gray!” Natalie chirps. “Are you hungry? Do you want pizza? Did you see all the snow? Look!”

But I ignore the finger she points to the window. Turn my scowl onto one blond head. Morris frowns back, but he doesn’t say anything. Grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter, he nods to the front door. “Come on, let’s pick up your car.”

He heads outside, not even bothering to see if I follow. You heard the captain. That’s an order. Natalie grabs my jacket from my usual arm chair, as I grumpily shove on my shoes. When I step out on the front porch after him—

White. It’s all white. Blankets of snow, covering the whole expanse of our yard, the street, the trees.

And fuck, I see all that white, and it makes me think of Summer. Her quiet, peaceful apartment. A blank canvas, brought to life with a collection of bright, beautiful flowers everywhere you turn. Summer, right in the middle of it all. Smiling over each bouquet. I love that you buy me flowers.

I see that image in my mind. I see the golden head trudging through the snow before me. I see Summer’s crying face. And I see that golden fucking head.

I don’t think.

I run after Morris.

And I shove him in the back. Hard.

“Gray—What the fuck—”

He spins around, and I shove him again. Over and over. “What was it like, Morris? Why don’t you fucking tell me what it was like with her? Come on. Give me all the fucking facts.”

His hands shoot out. I come at him harder. Fiercer. Curl my hand into a fist. Punch at his face. Miss. He pushes back at my shoulders. Pushes me far away. With a growl, I come back. Tackle him. We both go down. Right into the snow.

It’s a mess. Flying fists and grunts and snarls. Knocking the wind out of him. From the porch, Natalie calls for us to stop. But I throw my whole weight on top of him. Hitting and missing and punching and laying every ounce of my insecurities into my throws. I even land a few good strikes. Fuck, he pisses me off. When he already has it so easy. So fucking perfect. And still, fucking still, he comes to my rescue. Plays the damn fucking hero.

“You should have fucking told me. You didn’t fucking tell me.”

Because if he did… If I’d have known… Then would I—I wouldn’t have let myself get so close to her. I could’ve just ignored her. I never would have—She never would have left me. I would never have seen her walk away.

I falter. Morris sees his moment and shoves me off him. Wipes melting snow out from where it had fallen under his jacket collar, breathing heavy.

Collecting my own breath, I narrow my gaze at him. Only he’s blurred. My glasses fell off.

He takes one last sharp breath, and I wait for him to speak.

“Thumb goes over your fingers. If you’re gonna fucking punch me, at least do it so you don’t break your own fucking hand.”

And I lose it. Collapse back in the snow with loud, boisterous bursts of laughter. Of course. Of fucking course he would coach me in the correct way to beat him up.

Suddenly, all my anger, my annoyance, it dissipates. Melts right along with the snow under us.

I’m not mad at Morris. I don’t care that he and Summer slept together.

Because I bought her flowers. I made her smile.

More images flash through my mind. Memories and reminders. Summer, teasing me about my shirts. My crappy car. My glasses. How much of a nerd I am. Blonde curls falling in her face, as she delves into her chemistry textbook. Her perfect bow of a mouth, chewing on a pen while she solves a statistics problem. Pewter eyes lit up from receiving a good grade. Sharing facts about bees and volcanoes with me. On the couch, giggling over stupid killer shark movies. Summer under a sky of fake stars. A night of real ones. Summer, in my arms, right where she belongs. Telling me that she loves me.

Those are the memories I should have been thinking about, in that conference room with Nolan Prescott.

I’ve been so fucking stupid.

I’m pissed at myself. I did this. She left because of what I did. Because I’d been so sure that I would lose her. That we couldn’t last. Not for real. And why should I have taken a gamble on that bet, when I could avoid any risk at all? Take the internship. Go after what I always planned. What I always worked for. And leave behind the girl who made all my hard effort worth it.

I was wrong. Fuck, I was so wrong.

And I stellarly fucked it all up.

Squinting, I see him pick something up from the snow. My glasses. Which he dusts off and hands back. There’s a crack in one lens, and I snort. All the times they’d fallen off or been dropped… and a pillow of snow’s what did them in.

“I…” Morris’s halting voice makes me lift my head. “I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I didn’t want to upset you. And I thought… You two were so different. It’ll end on its own. But then you made that bet. And the longer you stayed together, the more… The more it seemed like you really liked her. So I really didn’t know how to tell you then. If I had known from the start, Gray, that it wasn’t real—”

“You can’t protect me all the time, Morris,” I tell him.

“I know, I just…” And he stares at the snow. Rubs at his injured knee.

That’s just how he is. That’s Morris. Taking responsibility for his whole team. And not just the ones playing on the field.

“Just like you can’t keep protecting Natalie.”

His head snaps up, eyebrows raising before quickly falling again in understanding. “Summer told you.”

We look to the porch, where Natalie stands, hugging herself to preserve warmth as she watches on. Morris waves a hand. Shows her that we’re fine. When he turns back to me, he says, “Look, Gray, I feel like shit for not telling you about what happened between me and Summer. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Our bet’s null and void. Has been from the start. But…” And I look to Natalie again, bouncing on the balls of her feet to stave off the cold. “You can fulfill your end of it.”

“I’d rather you punched me again.”

“Tell her, Morris,” I add steel to my voice. “What you did. Why you did it. How you fucking feel about her.”

“It’s not that simple.” When I open my mouth, he confronts me with a solid metal wall of his own. “Anything else, Gray. I won’t budge on this. But I’ll help you, with whatever you want, however I can.”

He stands, brushing snow from the damp patches on his jeans. Checking his pockets. Then he reaches out a hand to me. I take it, and when he lets go, there’s a slim piece of paper in my palm.

I unfold it, as he says, “Starting with that.”

Thatis a lot of fucking zeroes.

Seeing I’m about to protest, Morris cuts me off. “It’s not charity. The Sergeant paid for the house upfront, for three years, when we signed the lease agreement. So it’s yours. Every last cent of rent you paid since we moved in. And before you complain, I did the same for Levi and Spencer. Nat, too, when she lived with us that one semester. I was gonna give it to you before you bought your car. But you had to be an arrogant little shit and get it on your own.”

“Theo, did you give him the check?” Natalie calls out.

He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “If I hadn’t, then you just spoiled the surprise.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me. If you’re done with your little bromantic quarrel, then kiss and make up so we can go back inside. We can get Gray’s car later.” She makes a show of shivering, bracelets jingling. “I am freezing my nips off. How do you guys even still feel your dicks?”

Morris groans, but his shoulders shake with fond laughter. Turning towards the porch, he gestures me to come along. But instead, I look between him and Natalie, and I grab his shoulder.

“You have to tell her, Morris.” When he still looks adamant, when he shakes his head and silently decides to keep his secrets, I show him my game face again. “Tell her, or I will. Soon. But we both know that it shouldn’t come from me.”

At that, finally, he gives one swift, microscopic, barely noticeable, nod.

Releasing a breath, I glance back at that check in my hands. All those zeroes. All mine. From the very beginning. So I pocket them, and I turn back to Morris. “In the mean time… you can help me get Summer back.”