“I—” She stops. I’m right, and she knows it. I don’t know why we’re having this fight, or if it really even is a fight and not both of us just desperately needing to vent, but there’s something under the surface here. I’m not sure what it is yet, but it’s simmering there, biding its time, a gator with its eyes peeping out of the swamp. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Never have the words I’m sorry landed like a punch to the gut the way they do now, but I want her to take them back. “Are you?”

“Yes.” She tugs on the hem of her shirt. “No. I don’t know.”

“Okay.” It’s not okay. “Okay. Can we start again?”

She looks so tired all of a sudden. “What’s the point?”

I sigh and sink back into her chair. “Look, I know you had a simpler life before I came along, but you are the only good thing for me here outside of the game. I broke my family apart. I left my best friends behind. I play with guys who hate me for a school that hates me. But you literally send me, like, one stupid smiley-face emoji and it turns my entire day around. I don’t want to put something huge on you that you don’t want, but I think you might be the only reason I can stick it out here. I’m not sure sheer stubbornness is enough anymore.”

“That is so sad.”

“So it is.” And I guess that’s it. I start to walk past her toward the door and out of her room, her house, her life, but a hand grabs my sleeve and pulls me back.

“What I mean is, it shouldn’t be that way, for a million reasons. But also, honestly? It’s not that simple for me. I can’t date anyone because everyone thinks I’m taken. I’ve pinned so much on this captainship, this one thing, and part of it is because I have nothing else to fight for. Amazing grades are out of my grasp, and until now, a real relationship has been too. And yeah, it’s hard to see all that work go off track, but it’s … not the worst that it’s because I’ve found something else I actually want to focus on.”

“Not the worst, huh?” My fingers lace with hers.

“Uh-uh.” She strokes the rough skin of my palm with her thumb. “But I don’t want to give up what I’ve worked so hard on, either. Which means I need you to respect it, and at least try to understand it.”

“That’s fair.”