Can't Help Who I Fall For

“What the hell are you doing out there, son?!” coach yelled as I trudged my way to the bench. I’d tackled Oli ‘by accident,’ and the referee had thought that it’d be the best for me to sit out for the rest of the second quarter. “You’re our best player, Gaskarth! We can’t afford to have you out there taking down our own team!”

I sighed before muttering an, “I’m sorry, coach.” I wasn’t, though. It wasn’t my fault at all—he deserved it completely. If Jack hadn’t been there… if he hadn’t gone out of his way to lean himself over the railing in front of the bleachers to kiss Oli after the first quarter ended…

“Boy, if you don’t get your act together real damn quick, your ass is gonna be on the bench for the rest of the season,” coach threatened. I knew he wasn’t joking, but I couldn’t bring myself to do much more than give a short nod.

When I was finally able to sit, I all but tore my helmet off the top of my head to throw it onto the ground next to my foot. The pain of my hair being yanked from my skull wasn’t even my main focus, not when I could feel people staring at me.

They were all probably whispering, making up rumors as to what could’ve been the cause of my meltdown. Maybe they’d seen Jack and Oli’s kiss and had put two and two together, or maybe they’d—

“You okay, dude?” Dawson said as he sat next to me. He’d been told by coach to sit out for one reason or another before the game had even started, so there was no way he hadn’t seen what had happened. Unless he was talking to that one cheerleader girl, Candice… or was it Caroline?

“Fucking peachy,” I muttered back when I realized that his kinda girlfriend was one of the least of my worries. It may’ve been selfish, but he had someone to be happy with, and the only person I wanted to be happy with was locking lips with the one person I couldn’t stand. My problems were bigger than whatever he had going on.

“You saw them then, huh?” he said. I could hear the material of his pants scraping against the bench, and I could only assume it was so that he could send a look back to my ex. “Look, dude, I’m not really sure what, uh… what ever happened with the locker thing with the flowers? Jack said something about how you haven’t really been trying to make things better, and… I don’t know, I guess maybe something happened that wasn’t according to plan?”

“Fucking… I don’t even know, dude,” I replied with a groan. My head dropped forward and my eyes closed as I tried to make a little more sense of those events in my mind. Obviously he hadn’t known they’d come from me (I should’ve put a fucking note or something with them, I really should have), and he must’ve thought they came from Oli, but surely he should’ve known that Oli of all people wouldn’t have gone out of his way to do something so stupidly romantic. “I just know it didn’t help me at all.”

“Well, listen, I know that Jack seems really happy, and he is, but I don’t know how much longer this thing with Oli is gonna last. I’ve seen what he’s done to other people in the past, but I know that Jack won’t listen to me or Zack if we try and tell him. He already got ticked off at me the other day for even just implying that Oli isn’t right for him,” Rian said. The weight of his arm around my neck pushed my head down a little further, but then he was pulling me into his side.

“I don’t know what else to do anymore,” I said before a sigh pushed from my throat. “The flowers didn’t work, I learned guitar and tried to sing a love song for him, and now I’m just completely out of ideas. Should I even be trying anymore? What good has anything done me? I just look pathetic to anyone that sees me—and, of course, it’s always been Oli. The only things I’m accomplishing are hurting myself and satisfying the one person who honestly doesn’t need it.”

“I wouldn’t really say you’re satisfying him or anything,” Rian argued. I could feel him shrug his shoulders. “It’s more like… you’re making things easier for him. Like, sure, with the other people you dated that he got a hold on, you got pissed off, but I don’t think it ever really tore you up too much or anything. If he knows it’s getting to you, it’s just making everything more entertaining. He’s gonna keep playing Jack because he knows he’s playing you, too.”

“It’s more different than that this time around, though,” I disagreed with a shake of the head. I glanced up at around that moment and saw everyone jogging into position on the field, Oli even sending a grin and wave to the stands.

“Well, yeah, because you actually—”

“No,” I interjected, glancing over at him, “it’s not just because I actually care or whatever it is you have to say. I mean, yeah, that is one reason, but it’s different with him this time, too. It’s like… I don’t know, it just seems like he cares. It seems like he’s trying with Jack. It’s been weeks and he hasn’t lost his patience with him or anything. Not that I’ve seen, at least. I think if he did, he wouldn’t have Jack anymore. Maybe it does have to do with me caring, but it just doesn’t feel the same on his end. Am I even making sense about all of this?”

Rian took a moment, probably to process everything I’d spit out, but then he was sighing. “I guess you do. You kinda feel like Oli’s starting to care about Jack, too, right?”

“Basically, yeah. I mean, he’s never actually looked happy when he’s around the other person, but maybe he’s just happy because he knows it’s making my life hell. Maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe everything he’s told me so far has just been talk to get under my skin. I don’t think he’d really derive that much pleasure from watching me suffer.”

“I know he makes Jack happy,” Rian said, and I had to hold in a groan. “I couldn’t tell you what Oli’s plans are or anything like that since we never talk, and I really did think you were good for him—up until the whole lying thing, at least—but, honestly, I just want Jack to be happy no matter who he’s with. As long as I know he’s not being abused or cheated on or whatever, I’m not gonna try and interfere. Not anymore than I’ve tried to already, at least, but you get my point.”

I bit my lip as I deliberated what he’d said. Really, I wanted Jack to be happy, too. More than anything. I wanted it to be me who could make him feel that way, but I’d lost my chance because of a stupid mistake. I did sort of deserve it. It’d probably be best for me to just stop and let things play out however they were going to.

Turning my head, I caught a glimpse of my ex from where he was sat in the stands cheering on his new boyfriend. He had a grin on his lips, his brown eyes shining gleefully under the large lights overhead. I wasn’t paying attention to anything happening on the field in front of me, but he’d jump up from his seat every time something happened. It made me wonder if he actually learned anything about football in the time we’d been apart or if he was just going with what his gut—and the people surrounding him—was telling him to do.

Either way, it had a sad smile slipping onto my own face. Even if he wasn’t my own, he still had my stomach swarming with stupid butterflies.

“I guess you’re right,” I said as I turned back to face forward once more. “When you put it that way, his happiness is the most important thing. Maybe now that Oli’s dating him, he’ll start feeling a little better about things and talk to me again. He’d consider talking to me, right? Him ignoring me completely hurts more than anything.”

“Well, they’re not dating yet, not that I’ve heard, but I think he’ll come around eventually. You’ve just gotta give him more time, y’know? What with his parents and everything. I don’t think I’d let a liar back in after that,” Rian said, his tone casual.

“Shut up,” was all I could mutter back before elbowing him in the side—you tell one lie and suddenly it’s all you’re known for. My mind was stuck on something he’d said, though.

They still weren’t dating. The selfish part of me almost decided that I was still going to put in a little more effort to get my boyfriend back, but it was only there for a fleeting moment before I brushed it away. It’d only be a matter of time, really.

It was going to take a lot out of me, but I was going to have to just get over Jack and move on. I’d moved on from other people plenty of times in the past, but I knew that this was going to be a lot more difficult… if I could even do it at all.

Notes