Please let this be worth it, is all I can think as I trudge along after Crystal. Please, please, please let her forgive me.

-JACK-

Okay, so I feel the tiniest bit guilty about Amber getting reamed for cheering for me. It would’ve been cool as hell if I could’ve gone right up to her afterward and given her a huge, obnoxious kiss like I’m sure countless quarterback/cheerleader pairings have done in the past. But we are so fucking far from that scenario, it’s not even funny, and I’m done trying to be with someone who has no interest in changing that. For all I know, and certainly for all everyone else knows, those flips were every bit as much about showing off her skills in her campaign for captain as for cheering me on, if not more so.

Who the fuck knows if it was about me at all, at this point?

Still doesn’t stop the guys from making their shitty jokes about it as we chow down before the game. “Careful, Santiago,” Sanchez says to Miguel, gnawing the last scraps of barbecue chicken off the bone. “You see that cheer your girl had for Walsh? I thought she only cheered like that for you. Something we should know?”

I suck in a breath, but Miguel barely even blinks. He’s no stranger to this shit. “If you think that was something, you should see how we both cheer for your mom, Sanchez. You’d lose your fucking mind.”

The rest of the guys crack up and talk shit, their mouths full of the chicken, rice, green beans, and corn bread cooked by the Student Athlete Moms Association. Objectively, the food is at least as good as anything my mom cooks, but it may as well be dirt for all I can enjoy it.

What would it feel like to say, “Yeah, fuckers, there is something you should know—she tastes like peach lip gloss, has the softest skin I’ve ever felt in my entire life, and can bend in ways you can’t even imagine”? What would it feel like to admit that I can’t stop turning that cheer over and over in my head, letting myself feel like it was at least a little bit about me, and that it feels surreal to have someone that talented in my corner?

What would it feel like to just … tell the truth? To live the truth?

Guess I’ll never know.

I do know what it feels like to stab the shit out of a pile of green beans, but it’s not as satisfying as you might think.