CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEIGH
"Leigh! Wait!" Heath calls over the crowds, his voice threading through the brass and cheers along Northgate.
If I close my eyes, it's easy to pretend I can't even hear him. After everything that I've heard from his stupid fat mouth today, it's what I want more than almost anything. I'd love to rewind the clock and take it all back. Pretend I don't know any of it.
"Please!" He catches up in the quiet parking lot across the street and grabs for my hand, but my mace is already out and ready for him. "Holy shit. What is that for?"
"It's what I use when I'm being stalked in dark places." I shove it in his face. It suddenly feels like the first night at Antonio’s, and that memory burns a hole within me. "So maybe you should back the hell up and leave me alone."
"I've been looking for you all night. Why would I want to leave you alone?"
"I don't give a shit what you want, Heath." The words feel almost as heavy in my mouth as they do on my heart. "I don't want to stand here and talk to you. I don't want to hear what that serpentine tongue of yours has to say. And I sure as fuck don't want to look at you ever again. So excuse me."
"Can I please explain?" He tries to cut me off in front of another car, tentatively bobbing around the mace can, but I get the impression he doesn't actually think I'll use it. "Look, I've already told you I can say some stupid shit—”
"Here's the thing about stupid shit you say, Heath." I don't relent the can of mace, even though I'm not sure I'll be able to use it, either. "I know drunk people. People don't say or do things they haven't thought about when they are drunk. Sobriety keeps people decent but inebriation opens them up to all the channels they've thought about in the past. This is shit you've thought about, things you've wanted to say. Being a decent goddamn person kept you from saying them before. That's all. Remember this fun little speech? I’ve already had to tell you this shit once."
"No!" He tries to reach for me, but the look of sheer hatred radiating out from me stops him. "That's not fair. I don't date, okay? I don't do women. This is something that I have talked about for months, years, before you ever came into my life. I'm not drunk, Leigh. I mean, I've had some drinks, but I'm not a stumbling buffoon."
"Wanna rewind the tape there, champ, and remember what the fuck you just said back there? Lord Davis?" I can't bring myself to repeat the rest because I'm busy willing my brain to scratch it out, bury in the back of my mind where I'll never find it. "That's even worse. You just said it because you meant it confirmed. Great."
"No, that's not what I meant." He looks exasperated and it makes me want to punch him in the stupid face. "I thought you were blowing me off and so—"
"Because you couldn't find me in the middle of a crowd of thousands, you decided I wasn't worth your time anymore? I'm just some expendable piece of ass that also happens to keep you from ruining any chance at obtaining this shitty dream of yours?"
"Shitty dream? That's where you're going to take this?"
"You've already hauled it down there, asshole." That familiar feeling of utter panic every time I get confrontational grips my chest. My ears ring, my breath shortens, and I have to focus on his stupid maroon shirt logo to keep from falling over. "Other fun things you should know: I heard you in the locker room today. I know what you think of me and I have no interest in speaking to you ever again. Good luck not failing out of fucking college."
"What did I say?" He chases me back down the lot. Every way I turn, he's there, arms outstretched. "What did I say in the locker room?"
"Enough." I say through clenched teeth. "Even if you're trying to talk big in front of your friends, Heath Davis, I'm worth more than you pretending I don't exist. I'm so tired of people like you. You fill up this whole goddamn town and steal all the air, you know that?"
"I never meant—"
"I don't care!" Everything inside burns. "Don't you understand? You mean nothing to me."
"Oh yeah?" His whole demeanor flips like a light switch. "Sounds like you were the one using me."
My jaw drops. He's got to be drunker than I thought, because there is no way in hell this is a rational argument. "Excuse me?"
"Oh yeah! The nerdy girl who catches shit all the time at her job is suddenly there when the star ball player needs help? Think you can slide into my life and stir the fucking pot so you can attain a better status on campus than the shit one you've got now? Sounds about fucking right."
"You think I suffered through trying to teach you simple math for status? You're an imbecile. You're an ignorant, arrogant, piece of College Station trash, Heath Davis. And if you somehow miraculously pull off getting out of here, you're going to be so brain damaged by the time you turn 40, you'll be a waste of flesh."
"The fuck are you even talking about?" He pulls at his hair and his voice elevates an octave. Like I'm the crazy one whose pushed him to the edge instead of the other way around. "Brain damaged? Are you dense? Think because you're in smarter classes than me you know everything?"
"It's a scientifically proven fact football players obtain a fuckton of brain injuries while playing, dumbass."
"Oh, a fuckton? Is that the official scientific term?"
"It is now, you ignoramus."
"You know what I think happened? I think you fell in love with me and got scared and decided to make all this shit up so you could run away like the coward you are."
"What?" My arms flail around to match his, like two insane people in a cage match. "Do you not understand how freaking insane that sounds? God, you are so self-centered and conceited. I spent all these weeks thinking you were somehow different, but nope! Fooled ol' Leigh, didn't you? Silly little girl thinks this piece of trash is going to be better than the others, when really y'all are all cut from the same fucking cloth."
"Oh, look who’s talking! Trying to act like you're so above this town and this college and all the people in it. All this 'woe is me' bullshit about one fucking asshole in class acting like you don't belong, like you're somehow the only person in the whole universe who ever had someone say something mean to them. And yet who is the one who talks shit about football players? Who is the one who says I'll end up brain damaged—"
"It's fucking science!"
"—who walks around like she's better than me because she's using a different part of her body for her career? You're a fucking hypocrite. That's what you are. Leigh Samworth, fucking hypocrite."
The ringing takes a sharp upturn in my ears and everything feels like too much. He's too close, the air is too warm, my shirt is too tight. I have to get away from him before the entire planet explodes.
"Go fuck yourself." I manage to say without completely falling apart. "Don't ever talk to me again."
I cut across the nearest row of cars and walk home. Heath still screams and rants behind me, but I can't discern his words anymore and I don't care to. My throat is scratchy, my eyes burn, and my heart feels like a grenade just detonated in the middle.