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A KNOCKING ON MY DOOR startled me out of sleep and into a state of complete confusion.
Why was I on the couch, curled up like I was napping at home, when I was clearly in a hotel? What time was it? Why hadn’t my alarm gone off to wake me up? Who the hell was knocking on my door?
Where was Gavin?
That last one got to me, and the rest of the night whooshed into my memory like a freight train. Suddenly, I remembered why I had ended up on the couch playing the saddest game of solitaire I had ever played. I remembered my eyes getting heavy as the sun rose and turning the television down so it was barely above a whisper. How I pulled the hoodie up and over my eyes so I couldn’t see the light streaming in from the window.
And how I had wished Gavin had stayed the entire night. And how I wasn’t sure I could have trusted myself if he had.
The knocks paused for a few moments and then started again. They were light, like someone was simultaneously trying to wake me up and let me sleep. It had the effect of someone very gently tapping out the drum part for a rock song instead.
“Just a second,” I said.
No voice greeted me from the other side, and a sudden thought entered my mind. What if that was Gavin out there? It would make sense for him to come check on me, as much as I had convinced myself that he was going to try to avoid me the rest of the week.
Stumbling to my feet, I wondered if I looked even remotely presentable. I mean, he saw me last night, right? I had to look worse then. I certainly felt worse then. I could probably go play today if I wanted to push myself.
One step toward the door threw that thought into serious question.
The woozy walk to the door was peppered with flails at my hair and an attempt to make myself look like I wasn’t a hideous troll monster, all while doing everything I could to convince myself that I was only doing that out of vanity and totally not because I wanted to look good specifically because it might be Gavin on the other side of the door.
I took a deep breath and turned the handle, trying out a smile to see if it made a difference. When the door revealed a very dressed, very perky Sara on the other side, I knew I faltered a little, but not enough that her face should be scrunching up like that. Or make her take a half step back.
“Oh, babe, you look like shit,” Sara said, her thick New York accent cutting through the bullshit of Southern Charm and getting right to the point.
“Thanks,” I said, letting the rest of my façade smile melt away into nothingness.
“I mean, I’m sorry, you just look terrible,” she said, not helping matters at all, but looking like she thought she had. “I came to check on you and see if you were coming to practice, but, uhh...”
“I guess I don’t look like it, huh?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just figured if you were up, I’d be able to chat with you. Um. So, I’ll just tell Coach you’ll take today off?”
“I suppose,” I said. “I mean, I could probably push it...”
“Nah,” she said, waving me off with her catcher’s mitt-sized hand. For such a short girl, Sara had awfully big hands, which one would think would make her an ideal backstop. Instead, she was dead-set on playing shortstop, and somehow made it work. “I’ll tell Coach I saw you and I know for a fact you ain’t faking it.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, wondering if she could recognize the deadness of my voice and realizing she, much like Star, was completely oblivious to it.
“Cool. So just get some rest, okay? We need you for the games.”
“Will do,” I said, closing the door slowly.
As the door clicked shut, I shook my head.
I felt good enough to play, but it was probably for the best for me to rest. I didn’t sleep much, that was for sure, and usually when I felt fine after being sick, it tended to mean I still needed a day of taking it easy before I was at a hundred percent. Otherwise, I might make myself sick again.
My head felt like it was full of mush, too. The dizziness had gone away once I got moving, but I didn’t really feel like I could think straight. Part of it was the frustration that every time I let myself zone out at all, my mind went to Gavin and then to how absolutely, infuriatingly stupid it was to do that. But it had felt so natural falling asleep on his shoulder. I couldn’t get over how natural it felt.
How right.
Enough was enough. I needed to nip this in the bud and bring a cold dash of water to my perspective. I needed to just get into contact with Star and let my own over-developed sense of guilt drive the thoughts of Gavin out of my mind.
Also, another shower would probably be good. Something warmer this time and soothing. Something I could take my time in and really enjoy. And get my hair clean.
One of the great mysteries of the morning was solved when I went to pick my phone up from the charger. It had stayed turned off, power charging through the night. It meant my alarm never sounded, but at least it was at full power.
Turning it on, I waited for the apps to boot up before I pulled open my texts. I almost expected to see a couple of new ones once it generated, one from Star checking in and maybe one from Gavin. I wondered which one I would click first if they were both there. My brain wanted to say Star, but I had my doubts.
But when the messages loaded, there was nothing new. I even pulled down to refresh the screen and nothing popped up. Not even spam messages.
I opened up Star’s messages and paused before I typed. What exactly was I going to say? That I technically, but totally not in the way you think, slept with your boyfriend last night? Or would it be better to just say I cuddled her boyfriend most of the night? Neither of those sounded like they would go over very well and would probably be misinterpreted rather quickly. Even by Star, who generally didn’t care to read the lines, much less what was between them.
Instead, I just texted her a good morning message. Something to get the conversation going. I could eventually laugh my way into a conversation with her that began with ‘You’re going to think this is funny, just wait until the end. Last night...’
I waited expectantly for a few minutes, and then realized the time difference probably meant she was busy. It would be almost three in the afternoon there, and if her routine in Georgia was any indication, Star was likely having a long lunch and drawing something about right now. I shrugged and put the phone down on the bed. Technically it was the kind of phone that was supposed to be able to get wet, but I didn’t trust that. I’d rather it stay in another room entirely.
As I started the shower, I let my hair down and made sure I had the shampoo and conditioner from home in the tub. I let the water get nice and hot before I stepped in and took a few deep breaths as I adjusted to it. I got my hair wet first, and immediately put in shampoo so I felt accomplished.
But as the shampoo rolled down my neck and over my collarbones, I felt my body coming alive. My thoughts raced, and suddenly I found myself zoning out again, blankly staring at the wall as one hand moved up my side toward my nipple, soap dangling precariously off the hardened tip, while the other began to move down and in toward my center.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not doing that. Not when I was literally waiting on Star to text me back.
I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, mumbling at myself in frustration. I tried to let my mind think of something else. Anything. Softball. Trigonometry. Bob Newhart. Something.
I put the conditioner on my hair and stepped out of the direct line of water enough to not rinse it out immediately, turning my chest toward the beating shower. It was one of the upsides of this hotel, for sure. The hotel’s water pressure was fantastic.
Maybe I could turn today into one of those days like when I was in elementary school and randomly got a day off. I could run down to the lobby and get a bowl of cereal and bring it up to my room. I could watch The Price is Right and check out a bunch of sub-Reddits that I had been meaning to fall down the rabbit hole of. I could make the day something fun, nap a bunch, and by the time tomorrow came, I’d be ready to put my fingers across the seam of a softball and fire it over the plate.
A ding went off in the bedroom, and I nearly fell out of the shower trying to get out. I was mutually excited about the prospect that Gavin could be texting me as I was that Star had responded. Maybe I should wrap a towel around myself. In case it was Gavin.
What a silly thought. It wasn’t like he could see me.
But I would know. I would know I was naked, wet, and dripping while looking at words he wrote me.
Oh, dammit all to hell, I needed to get over it already.
Picking up the phone, I swiped up and saw that the message was actually from Star. Breathing a sigh of relief, mixed with disappointment, I opened it up. Then I got weirdly angry.
It was a picture.
Star, standing in the center of the frame, clearly holding the phone out to take the selfie, was wearing a bikini. A rather tiny one by the looks of it, but that was Star. She was either in a full, weird hippie dress or barely any clothes at all. But that wasn’t what bothered me.
It was the three other people in the photo. One girl, who I recognized as one of Star’s long-time friends, and two boys. Neither of them looked familiar, but they both looked like they did a lot of crunches. They were the skinny type, a type I had never found very attractive but Star had gone for before. The loose, finely curated ‘I don’t care’ look of their hair, swooping down over one eye as if they just simply didn’t need depth perception. The shorts hung low to show off a ‘v’ shape on their washboard stomachs. Spindly legs that looked like they had never been used to lift anything more than the weight of a video game controller or a surfboard, in that order.
They were her type.
And she was clearly having fun with them.
I was jealous on Gavin’s behalf, and it was really weird. Especially considering that he had no room to talk, having spent the night in another girl’s hotel room.
Frustrated, and completely confused as to how to feel, I took the phone with me into the bathroom but left the door open. I needed to get the conditioner out, and I decided that no one would mind if I blasted music since everyone on the floor was at practice by now. Turning the volume up, I stepped back in the shower and started rinsing out my hair, trying desperately not to think about Gavin or Star.
