It’s Thanksgiving Day and after a three-hour morning practice, we’re free until Saturday. In past years, we’ve stayed on campus and I’ve orchestrated a Thanksgiving meal with the girls on the team. It’s not enough time to go home for the holiday, even if most of campus is gone. Today, I’m ditching festivities with the team to join Jack and his family.

As I pull up outside his house and see him sitting on the swinging bench out front, waiting for me, my stomach churns. I’m more nervous than I was for summer nationals. It’s been over a month since I saw him in L.A. and things have been weird. I didn’t tell him about my freak-out at my first meet, and I haven’t really shared much of anything with him as I work through it all. I’ve been talking a lot to my girls, Shay, Bea, and Coco.

I’ve finally realized I have to tell him about Nolan. The girls helped me see that if he really loves me like he says, then I can trust him with this piece of me. And as I’ve watched things deteriorate, our relationship go backward instead of forward the last few weeks, I see that if I don’t open up, we’re going to blow up anyway. I can choose to break things off with Jack because I’m scared, or tell him and hope it makes us stronger, that he understands.

I’ve been going back and forth, thinking maybe I would rather have him love part of me than see all of me and walk away, but now that I look at him in the flesh, I know what I have to do. As I get out of the car and walk toward him, his gaze on me isn’t welcoming, and that makes me slow my pace. He gives me a tight smile, but his eyes don’t soak me in with the adoration and curiosity I’ve grown to revel in. No, he’s downright distant.

Shit. Maybe the last few weeks we’ve grown further apart than I realized.

He doesn’t get up to wrap me in a hug or kiss me. He just looks at me warily.

“Jack?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“You look really fucking serious,” he tells me. “And scared. You’ve never looked scared before. And now I’m fucking terrified you’re about to do something I really don’t want you to do.”

I pause a few feet away from him. “You think I’m going to break up with you?” I ask. After not returning text messages or calls the past few days, except to arrange to meet today, it dawns on me that he might think this. The truth is, I did actually think about it. Mainly because I thought it might be less painful than telling him about Nolan. But I wouldn’t be able to do it. I could never walk away from Jack. He’d have to be the one pushing me out.

“You said it,” he says, voice totally monotone. “We’ve hardly spoken since L.A. Fireball. I miss you so bad it hurts, and I feel like you’re not there with me. I know this is still new, that relationships are new for you, that you’ve got a whole life at college and can’t come to all my shows. I don’t expect you to. But I feel you pulling away. I want to pull you back. I’ll be home and around from Christmas until summer. But now you’re looking at me like something terrible is about to happen and I’m not sure you’ll give me that time with you, no matter how bad I want it.”

Before I can chicken out, I say, “I’m not breaking up with you. But I have something to tell you.”

Jack tilts his head. “Okay.”

I remain standing, too wound up to sit. “It’s about Nolan.” I take a deep breath. “I met him a couple weeks after I met you.”

Jack pushes off the bench, fists clenched. “Stop. I don’t want to hear it. Nolan already told me.”

“What?” The blood drains from my face.

“Nolan told me you met up with him in the alley after the show and you guys hooked up. If that’s what you’re going to tell me, I really don’t want to hear about it.” He sounds pissed. Maybe even a little disgusted, though it’s hard to tell because I’ve never heard Jack so upset.

“But Jack, it wasn’t what you think,” I start to tell him.

He cuts me off. “It’s okay, Fireball. We weren’t together then. When we first met back then, you made it perfectly clear what you wanted from me, okay? I get it.”

Now he definitely sounds disgusted. I try to recover from the shock and hurt and attempt to explain what really happened with Nolan but he just cuts me off again. I know I wouldn’t want to hear about him hooking up with one of my teammates either, but can’t he see I’m trying here?

“Can I just explain – ” I try again, but he interrupts me again.

“Have you been with anyone else since StageFest?” The harsh question has my throat closing up. How could he ask me that? Does he really think I would cheat on him?

Afraid I’ll cry if I try to speak, I just shake my head.

“Then we’re good, okay? You don’t have to explain shit that happened before that.”

I blink a few times, my heart wound so tight I don’t think words would come out if I tried.

Jack, on the other hand, seems ready to move past the blow he’s just hit me with. I thought I was the one who was going to deliver a punch, but he beat me to it.

“Look, I don’t want to ruin Thanksgiving. Mom’s got the turkey in the oven and we’ve got a lot of sides to cook. You said you were bringing a bunch of groceries to cook stuff, right?” He starts walking to my car, opens the trunk and pulls out a couple of paper bags filled with food for cooking the sides I’ve planned for Thanksgiving dinner.

I can’t move. My feet are glued to the front porch. My stomach twisted in knots. A cold hand wraps around my heart and clenches with a maniacal laugh. Black spots popping in and out of my vision. I should be running after him, smacking him in the face for being an asshole. Yet I understand his reaction. If Nolan told him we hooked up, he’s not going to want to hear any details from me. He doesn’t know what I’m trying to tell him. Jack thinks I’m just trying to explain it. He doesn’t want to be reminded of my slutty ways, that I used to sleep around before I met him. If I haven’t been cheating, then he doesn’t want to hear about what happened in the past with Nolan.

Holding on to the rails as my body sways and that fuzziness threatens to suffocate me again, I’m able to stop another fainting or panic attack by sitting down before it overtakes me.

Jack’s bare feet come into my line of vision. “I’ll just bring these in and be right back.”

I hear the front screen door open and shut, but even as my vision clears, the tightness in my chest remains.

I find myself standing on shaky legs and walking slowly to my car, slightly dizzy as I open it and slide into the driver’s seat. What was I thinking? Jack isn’t going to want to hear about that night. God, I’m so stupid. I keep thinking about how I used to pretend to fall in love. Maybe that’s what Jack was doing with me.

Sometimes I feel like a shiny toy. It’s exciting when it’s new but after a few times playing with it, the novelty wears off and can’t hold the kid’s attention anymore. You know the kind of toys that are so durable and interesting that kids never stop playing with them? Yeah, that’s not me. And Jack’s finally figured it out, he’s just too nice to turn me away on Thanksgiving Day.

I turn on the ignition and pull away, glancing in my rearview mirror to see Jack standing there, hands at his sides, watching me go. I feel bad I’ll let down Gracie and won’t get to apologize, but this is for the best. I never should have hoped it could turn out differently.