A frustrated hand rakes through short blond strands. “You’re a lot more than that to me… but I can’t figure out what I am to you. If I’m anything to you.”

Once again, I’m wholly unprepared for his response. “I—I don’t know,” I manage.

Beck nods once. “Fine.” He turns and starts walking away.

“Wait. Where are you going?” I call after him.

He spins back around but doesn’t diminish any of the distance he just put between us. “I’m leaving,” he replies matter-of-factly. “I have practice tomorrow. My plane leaves in an hour.”

“You’re… leaving?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t just show up here, tell me you want a relationship, and then take off, Beck!”

“I told you how I feel, and you did the same. Doesn’t seem like there’s anything left to discuss.”

“I told you I don’t know how I feel! You just dropped this on me out of nowhere. I haven’t even had time to think about it!”

“You shouldn’t need time to think about it, Saylor. Do you need twenty minutes to decide if you’re going to go for a goal?”

“The reactions aren’t comparable! You waited until an hour before your plane leaves to have this conversation?”

“You asked me to keep things professional,” he snaps, before letting out a long string of German. For once, I’m glad I don’t know what he’s saying. I doubt it’s complementary. Sure enough, when he switches back to English, it’s to say, “You’re absolutely infuriating. First you lecture me for coming and tell me not to talk to you about anything but football, and now that I have, you tell me I should have brought it up sooner?”

“Fine. When you put it that way, I can see why you’re annoyed,” I acquiesce. “But how was I supposed to know this is what you wanted to talk to me about?”

Beck scoffs. “Just forget I said anything.”

“I thought—I thought we were just having fun before…”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” The words are inscrutable. Sarcastic? Genuine? Angry? He’s giving me nothing.

He turns and strides away, leaving me standing here. Baffled. Irritated. Befuddled. I think I should call out after him, but I don’t know what to say. So, I watch him walk away, left with the sneaking suspicion that I just made a cataclysmically stupid mistake.

The nagging feeling stays with me. Every time I make a decision on the field for the rest of the day, I recall Beck’s words.

I ask Cassidy Jones, a senior at a school in California who’s done the same circuit of camps Lancaster has for the past three years, the question Emma would have a field day with as we’re paired off for a passing drill in the afternoon.

“Have you ever been in love?”