“Get off your high horse. I’m the one who fucking earned it!”

“Exactly!” he shouts, his voice echoing in my ears. “You earned it, Josh, and you can’t just throw it away over some girl!”

I step to him. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

“This is bullshit,” he murmurs.

“Why are you even here, then?”

“Because as much as you don’t want to believe it right now, I’m your fucking friend.”

“Yeah, well you’re not being my friend right now. You’re being my agent.”

“No. Right now I’m being both.”

I shove his chest. “What the fuck is your point, Chris?”

His jaw sets, but he doesn’t push back. He seems to take a calming breath, or ten, all while the frustration and anger settle in the pit of my stomach. He says, “My point is that if her being here is going to push you off track again, then let me know. If I need to cancel your commitments for the next few weeks, then I’d rather do it now, so I can get us prepared to lose another major sponsor, maybe even drop a couple world ranks like last time.”

“Fuck you.” I don’t wait for a response; I simply open the door and prepare to walk out on him. But I can’t. I don’t get further than a step because Becca’s standing just outside the door, her eyes wide, and her hand raised in a fist. Her mouth opens, closes, and then opens again, and with each second that passes, her tears build, and I know she heard everything. Everything. “Becca,” I say through a sigh.

She drops her gaze and points down the driveway where Chaz’s friends are currently moving toward us.

“Becca,” I say again, and she looks up. Not at me, but at Chris behind me.

“It’s nothing personal,” Chris tells her. “It’s just business, Becca.”

8

—Becca—

My dad spends hundreds of dollars a month on the best speech therapist in St. Louis. He and my therapist were the only people who’d been able to reap the rewards of his hard earned cash. Until I was in Josh’s arms and for a moment, the safety in his touch outweighed my fear, and I gave him a piece of me I’d been saving for a moment worthy of it. And it was. The look on his face was completely worth it. Until Chris showed up and spat my name like I was trash. I was confused, at first, but then I saw Grams’s friends show up and when I went to knock on Josh’s door, everything became clear. A little too clear. I guess the guilt Dawn had pushed me to rid myself of was justified. And, somehow, I had to find a way to spend not only my time here, but the rest of my life, dealing with it. I remind myself that seeing him when he was in St. Louis was on The List, and that it had to be done. Because at some point, or so Dad keeps telling me, I have to put myself first. But at what cost?

I did my best to keep my chin up and not let it bother me. Grams’s reaction to her surprise party helped a lot, but the feeling was still there. Still in the back of my mind, in the ache of my chest, in the turning of my stomach, eating away at my thoughts. It wasn’t until she and her friends were clearly drunk on what they called “Jesus Juice” that some of those thoughts faded. It helped that they did everything in their power to tease Josh in ways that had him blushing like I’d only seen when we first got together.

I’d watched interview after interview, promo tape after promo tape of him, and not once did he seem as embarrassed as he did when Mavis, one of Grams’s oldest friends, asked him to take his shirt off so she could sell it on eBay. The teasing was relentless. At one point, Mavis asked Grams if she remembered all those times she’d come over here when Josh first moved in under the pretense she wanted to make sure the young punk wasn’t taking advantage of Grams… turns out she was here just to watch Josh skate shirtless out in the driveway.

“I was seventeen!” Josh yelled, his eyes wide.

“Heck yeah, you were!” was Mavis’s response, followed by a bunch of drunken old lady high fives and continued banter. The entire afternoon went on like that, until it got to the point where Mavis passed out drunk under the arbor with an empty cheese platter on her face. Josh, always the gentleman, took her home and made sure she got in bed, but not without another crack from Mavis. “You can take me to bed any time you want, handsome.”

That was the last I heard from Josh. I assume that by the time he got home, the party was over.

As the day neared to an end and the joy from the party faded away, I was left with the weight of guilt pushing down on my shoulders. But not just that, I was left with a resounding amount of disappointment. I sat on the porch while Aaron caught up on his studies, and Dad caught up with Grams inside, watching the sun set over the horizon, and I longed for a boy, a little boy whose smile was just like his father’s.