MADDIE
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
With my thighs pressed together, I sprinted like a maniac out of the stadium and toward the restrooms. A drip of pee rolled down my inner thigh.
Why did I drink so freaking much before the game?!
After pushing open the women’s restroom door, I slammed a stall open, covered the seat with toilet paper, and collapsed down to pee. The pressure subsided in my lower abdomen, and I slumped my shoulders forward, sighing in relief.
Maybe I should’ve not waited until intermission to use the bathroom.
The person in the stall next to me groaned. I wiped and scrunched my nose, really not wanting to listen to another woman grunt and groan as she shit. I already had enough of that at home when the hockey team came over.
Once I finished my business, I exited the stall and washed my hands. When the grunt came again, I glanced over at the stall to see a man’s sweater sticking out from underneath the wall. I furrowed my brow and walked over to it, gently knocking. They were sitting on the ground in the restroom.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine.”
I pushed the unlocked door open and spotted Alec Wolfe with his head in the toilet. He grasped his stomach, as if he was going to puke, and dry-heaved. A clump of thick brown hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.
“Alec,” I whispered, “this is the women’s bathroom.”
“I want to go home,” he cried, clutching on to the toilet seat with his bare hand. “Please.”
“It’s intermission. Are you sure that your coach would—”
“I want to go home. There’re too many people here.”
My eyes widened because I had never once seen him like this. He loved hockey, loved training, loved when everyone watched. He put on a fucking performance on the ice. Why had he been acting so weird lately? He looked how I had felt during my entire relationship with Spencer.
I crouched down behind him and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go then.”
He pulled his head out of the toilet and glanced back at me. “You …”
“What?” I asked.
While I might’ve been stupid as hell to show him any sympathy after what he had done to me this morning, I didn’t want anyone to feel the way I had with Spencer. But I didn’t know where this was coming from, didn’t know if this was all some sort of twisted game or not.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
He stared at me for a few moments, his eyes glossy, but his mouth closed. I wanted him to say something, anything. At least he could tell me what was wrong. But he didn’t say a word more.
So, I slipped my hands underneath his arms and pulled him up with all my strength. When he was on both his feet, he turned away from me, like he had this morning, and placed both hands on the white brick wall, smashing his fist into it and splitting the skin.
“Sorry,” he gritted out. “You don’t have to stay with me.”
“Come on,” I said, knowing if he apologized once more for Friday night and for this morning, I wouldn’t want to be so nice, because I didn’t want to feel all these damn emotions that I had for him anymore. “I’m taking you home.”
“You don’t have to,” he said quietly. “Go back to the game.”
I crossed my arms. “No.”
“Maddie,” he growled, “please.”
Because I could be a stubborn and stupid bitch sometimes, I wrapped my hand around his bicep, yanked him away from the wall, and dragged him to the exit of the restroom. “No,” I said through my teeth. “I’m bringing you home.”
To my surprise, he didn’t try to argue.
With Alec Wolfe in tow, I marched down the hall and to my car parked in the student lot. I shoved him into the passenger seat, not caring that he was perfectly capable of driving himself home in his own car, and slipped into the car beside him.
“You don’t have to do this, Maddie,” he said. “I’ve been a dick to you.”
“Yeah,” I said, backing out of the spot. “You have been.”
He stayed quiet for half the ride, his body becoming tenser and tenser by the second. I glanced over at him to see hives had broken out on his neck, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek near his hairline.
What the hell is going on with him? I had asked him before, but he wouldn’t tell me.
Once I pulled up to his house and shut off my car, he stared with trembling eyes through the windshield. His balled fists were pressed against his thighs, his jaw tight. For a moment, his shoulders bucked forward.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, tears bursting from his eyes. “I didn’t mean it.”
My eyes widened, my breath catching. Alec Wolfe didn’t cry about anything. Rarely showed any emotion other than his flirtatious eyes and smirk, throwing them to any pretty girl he saw in the stadium, in the halls at Redwood.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Because there were a couple of incidents I wished he’d apologize for.
He pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle another sob and squeezed his eyes closed. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have been drinking so much. I shouldn’t have come up to your bedroom and left angry. I shouldn’t … I shouldn’t have been at the party. I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, Alec,” I whispered. “Please, settle down.”
While I had wanted him to be apologetic, this was … a bit too much. I mean, he was sobbing in my car, had thrown up in the women’s restroom, and looked like he was in the middle of a panic attack, all because I had been angry that he—Redwood’s player—had slept with another girl after being with me.
“N-no, you don’t understand,” he whispered, suddenly quiet. “Nobody understands.”