#MeantToBe Page 5

  I was about to say that maybe we should just not see each other for a little while, but he interrupted me.

  “I’ve done so much for you, Brooklyn,” he said, his voice loud as he stood back up.” That’s what you have to say to me right now?”

  I couldn’t look at him. Not when he was like this. I was pretty sure the neighbors could hear us, but all I wanted was to get out of there.

  “Please just take me home,” I said. Because this wasn’t going anywhere good.

  “Fine,” he shrugged, grabbing his keys from the counter. “Consider us over.”

  I clutched my bag to my chest the entire way home.

  We didn’t speak.

  Had three years just gone down the drain?

  Shelley patted my shoulder. “Hey, why don’t we go out a bit? Get some fresh air?”

  I was on the futon in our room, a blanket up to my waist. I hadn’t felt like doing much for the past couple of days, only leaving the room to eat and go to class.

  As soon as I’d come home the other night, Shelley had noticed that something was wrong.

  I’d told her what had happened, that me and Ethan were officially broken up.

  She’d given me a sympathetic sigh but not been surprised to say the least. Ethan and I had broken up before.

  But not really, not like this.

  Ethan and I had gotten into fights and stormed off and not talked for days. But we’d never actually said the words. We’d never actually broken up.

  It hit me that night after I came home, and when I saw the look on Shelley’s face, I completely broke down. I sobbed uncontrollably, covering up my face with my hands as Shelley wrapped me in a hug.

  Looking at her now, I shrugged. That was all I had the energy and willpower to do.

  Ethan hadn’t said one word to me since that night, and I was starting to think that maybe this was it and we were over for good.

  I’d wondered before how much a couple could take before you couldn’t put the pieces back together again.

  Something told me we’d reached that point. Or maybe it was the fog inside my head. I couldn’t think clearly at all.

  Nothing around me felt real or quite right. As if someone had taken the lens of my life and turned it sideways.

  I almost couldn’t remember what it was like to be without Ethan in my life.

  He had been right the other day.

  He had done a lot for me. Ever since we were in high school, and I needed rides and my mom couldn’t do it because she was always working and I didn’t have a car. And my older sister had left for college.

  He would give me rides to school and from school. He would pick me up from volleyball practice and games and take me out to eat on top of that.

  Before, I would always be stuck at home with nothing to do.

  Like now.

  Then he’d come swooping into my life, with his perfect smile and kind eyes.

  Shelley kneeled down in front of me. “Come on. Let’s go take a walk. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

  I kept staring at the wall in front of me.

  After a minute, Shelley left and went over to my closet. She pulled out a couple of things. Then she threw them on the futon beside me. “Put that on. We’re going outside.” She grabbed some clothes too and started changing.

  Not sure I had the energy to keep telling her no, I got up slowly. My eyes were swollen from all the crying from the past two days, and I was sure I looked terrible.

  I sighed as she picked out clothes for me. I wasn’t sure if I felt like wearing skinny jeans and a fitted top right now, or anything other than yoga pants and a T-shirt.

  “If you’d rather go like that, by all means,” she said with a teasing grin.

  I stared down at my outfit. There were ice cream stains on my shirt plus a tiny hole in the shoulder. Surely it didn’t smell great either.

  So I put on a fresh T-shirt but kept the yoga pants. Maybe after this walk, I’d have the energy to shower.

  I grabbed some tennis shoes and looked up at her. “Just for a few minutes.”

  She nodded.

  We made it down to the lobby, something on the bulletin board catching Shelley’s eye.

  I reluctantly followed her, already wishing I’d pretended to be asleep instead of deciding to venture outside. I got that she wanted me to feel better, but I just wanted to wallow in my own self-pity for a while. Do some thinking. Feel sorry for myself. I didn’t really care.

  “Hey, look at this,” she said. She pointed to one of the flyers. “Didn’t you use to play volleyball in high school?”

  I took a step closer, getting a better look at the poster.

  It had information about an intramural volleyball team on campus.

  Shelly pointed to a line at the bottom. “Look, it starts in like twenty minutes. We should go. It’s not far from here, and I think it would be fun, don’t you think?” There she went being all hopeful and optimistic.

  I blew out a breath. Just the thought of talking to people really made me want to go back up to our room. “I don’t really feel like going, Shelley.” I said. “You can go if you want. I agreed to a walk and then I’m going back to bed. I kind of just want to take a nap.”

  She took my hands. “Come on, I’ve always wanted to learn how to play volleyball. You can teach me.”

  She pulled me toward the double doors.

  As soon as we were outside, she let go of my hand, and I closed my eyes as the warm rays of sun hit my face.

  I let it warm me for a few seconds, and the corners of my mouth turning up ever so slightly.

  We found the volleyball game a few blocks away. There were a bunch of people sitting on the grass, some with laptops or books out. Some people were actually taking a nap out there.

  But there was also a big patch of sand with a volleyball net and several people gathered around it. It looked like they already had teams ready.

  A few people practiced their overhand serves, and something pulled inside my chest.

  It’d been a long time since I’d played.

  I forgot how much I loved it. Just looking at them warm up reminded me of what it was like to play in high school last year.

  I played varsity volleyball for three years, and I loved every minute of it. I wasn’t good enough to play for this school, but intramural looked like it could be fun.

  Shelley was right, as usual. I felt a lot better just being outside.

  As we approached everyone, Shelley yelled out, “Hey, can we play?”

  A guy who’d already abandoned his shirt turned around and waved. “Yeah! We actually need a couple more people so this is perfect,” he said. He was kind of tall and lean with brown hair.

  He came over, and we shook hands.

  “I’m Nate,” he said with a wide smile. “You can join our team.”

  “Yay!” Shelley said, clapping. “Come on.”

  Each team gathered in a huddle.

  We joined the rest of our team, and Nate introduced us. Shelley said hi to everyone, but I just nodded my head.

  I recognized a familiar face across from me. That dirty blonde hair, the kind blue eyes. It was my math tutor, and I realized in that moment that I’d never asked him his name. He’d worn a badge that said tutor on it, but that had been it.

  He gave me a small smile. I smiled back before he turned back to Nate.

  Whatever his name was, he sure looked different in his gym shorts and T-shirt. Good different.

  A few minutes later, the game began. And other than a couple people, it was pretty clear that most of the people here had never really played volleyball before.

  The team had been immediately impressed with my overhand serve. I was one of the few here who could do it, and the other team wasn’t very good at handling them.

  I hit the ball hard, and it smacked into the sand right in between two people on the opposite side.

  Ace.

  Nate looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “I
played varsity in high school,” I explained.

  I glanced at my math tutor before someone threw me the ball. I served again.

  Another ace.

  We got ahead by five points like this before I finally went easy on the other team and gave them an easy serve. They finally got it up in the air and struck it back at us.

  Nate wasn’t bad either. I could tell he’d played before, and between the both of us, we got the ball back over the net. He had a pretty good strike. And I was pretty good at defense, so we held the team together.

  The other team wasn’t bad either once they got going, and we ended up almost tied before making a comeback.

  We ended up winning by a couple points, just enough to snag the win. After the game was over, the entire team clapped me on the back, cheering and screaming.

  A guy named Austin gave me a huge hug. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without you. We’re lucky you showed up today.”

  Shelley gave me me a wink, and I smiled for real for the first time in days. “Thanks,” I replied. “This was a lot of fun. It’s been a while since I played.”

  Everybody began going their own way, and I walked over to my math tutor.

  “Hey, good job out there,” he said with a grin. “I didn’t know you played.“

  “I didn’t know you played either,” I replied. I glanced around for Shelley, but she was already talking to somebody else. I looked back at my math tutor.

  He went on. “Not really. I just met Austin and Nate the other day in class, and they invited me to the game today. I’m actually here with my friend.”

  He pointed over to a girl sitting at the bench, and she gave us a small wave.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize—” I began, but he waved me off.

  “Contrary to popular belief, she’s not my girlfriend,” he said with a laugh.

  She walked over, phone in hand.

  He introduced her. “This is my friend, Sara. We went to the same high school,” he said. “This is Brooklyn, from tutoring.”

  “I suck at calculus,” I said with a friendly wave.

  She laughed. “Who doesn’t? How do you think he became such a good tutor?” She pointed at herself.

  I liked her.

  She looked back at my math tutor. “I’ll see you later. Brian is waiting on me.”

  He nodded, and I noticed a certain something in his eyes.

  Was it me or…

  He looked at me.

  “I realized today I’ve never even asked you your name,” I said. “Isn’t that horrible?”

  He smiled and extended his hand. “Adam. Nice to meet you,” he said.

  I shook it with a grin. “I guess I was just so eager to finally get some help that day we first met.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he replied, his eyes meeting mine.

  Austin jogged up to us. “Hey, you guys want to go grab something to eat with the rest of us?” he asked. The rest of the team looked like they were ready to go.

  I glanced at Shelley, who had been walking over, and she said, “Yeah!”

  “Why not?” I said.

  Once we began to walk over to the dining hall, Austin said to me, “Hey, just in case you didn’t notice, you’re officially part of the team now.” The rest of us laughed.

  “I wasn’t joking,” he said.

  He noticed Shelley. “Oh, you too, Shelley.”

  She rolled her eyes but grinned. “Thanks. I was about to say, we’re a package deal.”

  Nine

  The next time I saw Brooklyn at tutoring, she made a point of saying, “Hey, Adam.”

  “Hey,” I replied with a grin.

  We sat down, and Brooklyn got out her calculus stuff.

  She didn’t look like she’d been crying anymore. That had been the first thing I’d noticed on Saturday when I saw her at volleyball.

  It was a big campus, so I didn’t expect to see her there. She looked different with her hair up and workout-type clothes. But she’d helped us win the game, so that had been cool.

  And seeing her strength, seeing her eyes light up every time she hit that ball? Really cool. “So although your talent isn’t calculus, you’re pretty good at volleyball,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she replied, her eyes lighting up again. “Good to know I’m good at something, I guess.”

  Her smiles weren’t quite the same today. They didn’t reach her eyes.

  It was easy enough to guess what was wrong.

  It had to be trouble with her boyfriend. Had to be.

  I didn’t mention it, though.

  We worked on calculus problems all evening and went over everything her class had learned so far.

  I looked over her work, pleased. “I think you’re finally starting to get the hang of this. That’s three problems right in a row.”

  She grinned. “At this rate, I may actually pass the first quiz and maybe I won’t have to retake this class again next semester.” She exhaled. “You’ve been a lifesaver.”

  “Just doing my job, ma’am,” I teased.

  I couldn’t help but smile myself when I saw her smile get just a little bit wider than it had been so far.

  She’d come in late again today, so it was past ten o’clock before we both got up to leave. She was the last student left, so we walked out together. I said bye to Matt and Heather.

  Matt ignored me as usual as he typed away at his dissertation, but Heather waved goodbye with a grin.

  Brooklyn and I headed to the bus stop and sat down together.

  Right away, she looked down, and her entire demeanor changed. She put her hands in her jacket pockets, and she sat there, staring out into the night.

  It was quiet out there, and I liked it.

  I liked the buzz of a busy campus too, but at the end of the day, I enjoyed how quiet the world got.

  We waited for the bus together, and I tried to make small talk, but she wasn’t saying much.

  It was obvious then that Brooklyn and her boyfriend were having issues because he didn’t show up like last time.

  Maybe that was on her mind because she looked upset. I bit the inside of my lip, feeling kind of bad for her.

  Glancing between her and the night sky, I wondered if I should say anything. “He doesn’t deserve you, you know,” I blurted out.

  And I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth.

  They made me sound like a real jerk and feel like one too.

  What was I thinking? I had no idea what I was talking about.

  Brooklyn turned to look at me, clearly upset. I had messed up.

  I opened my mouth to say sorry when she opened her mouth too and then closed it.

  “Sorry, it’s none of my business,” I said.

  Instead of responding, she went back to staring out into the open night.

  I stared at my feet.

  Why did I have to go and say that?

  “Almost three years,” she whispered. “We were together for almost three years.”

  She turned to me again. “Have you ever been with anyone for three years, Adam?”

  I shook my head, not sure what else to say. “Do you think it’s over for good?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Probably.”

  A few minutes later, she said, “I don’t know that it’s about deserving anyone to be honest. I certainly didn’t deserve him in the beginning. But I don’t know. I guess people change.”

  “People do change,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve never been in a relationship that long. I’ve never really been in a relationship at all. But I have loved somebody for that long. Longer, actually.”

  She looked at me again. “Your friend?”

  “That obvious?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A girl can tell.” Then, “She seems nice.”

  “She’s kind of perfect, actually,” I replied. “We’ve been best friends since the eighth grade, and I was in love with her the whole time, but she fell in love with somebody else.”

&n
bsp; Now it was my turn to shrug.

  “I’m sorry,” Brooklyn said.

  I didn’t know why I had just told her that. I’d never said that out loud to anybody before.

  “You’re a good guy,” she went on. “Don’t settle.”

  “Ditto,” I said.

  She smiled. But her eyes were still sad.

  A few days later, Austin texted everyone on the team, and we met up for volleyball practice.

  My schedule was packed, but something made me walk away from my pile of homework and go anyway.

  When I got there, Austin was tossing a volleyball back and forth in his hands. “I don’t want us to lose our winning streak,” he said with a proud look on his face.

  Brooklyn’s roommate, Shelley, raised her hand. “One game won isn’t a streak, but okay.”

  Brooklyn and I smiled at that, but Austin practically looked offended.

  Once practice got started, Austin had Brooklyn teach the rest of us how to play a decent game of volleyball.

  Apparently, it wasn’t just about hitting the ball over the net. There were techniques and strategies and stuff.

  I learned how to serve using the palm of my hand. Brooklyn stood to the side, watching me toss the ball into the air and swat it hard. The ball sailed over the net and landed on the opposite side.

  “There you go. You got it,” she said in approval.

  “Nice,” Nate called out. He was busy helping Shelley learn how to pass.

  That was what Brooklyn helped me with next, but it wasn’t as easy as just hitting the ball in a serve.

  The ball bounced off my outstretched arms and I barely managed to turn my head away in time to avoid getting hit in the face. Only to land on my butt.

  Brooklyn laughed out loud. “Good thing you got the book smarts,” she teased.

  “Are you telling me I suck at sports?” I asked, getting back up.

  “You can’t deny cold, hard facts,” she joked.

  And it was true. I was okay at the overhand serve, but I kind of sucked everywhere else.

  When I messed up another play, I said, “So this is how you feel doing calculus, huh?”

  “For sure,” she replied.

  She still seemed kind of sad, likely over whatever was going on with her boyfriend, but I liked seeing this side of her too. Turned out she was a little competitive.