Page 59 of Catching Feelings

That’s the girl who shakes her head. Whose next words are heartbreakingly quiet, her gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “I gave you so many chances to explain, Tyler. And you didn’t take any of them. I just… I don’t know what to think. I can’t handle this right now. Everything’s falling apart, and I—I just can’t do this again.” She wraps her arms around herself. Her eyes turn glassy and distant, and she clenches her jaw, and I know she’s reliving a thousand moments that aren’t about me. All every cell in my body wants is to step forward to comfort her. But then she whispers, “How am I supposed to trust you now?”

For a moment, we stand motionless while students mill around us, tossing a few curious looks our way. Slowing down like you do when you pass an accident on the freeway.

Seeing her turn away so easily hurts worse than I ever could have imagined. After everything we did. After all the ways I tried to help. After all the ways I showed her I was an honest, aboveboard kind of guy despite my one gigantic secret.

The whole reason I transferred here was to get a fresh start from everyone else’s judgments and assumptions. And I thought she was different. I thought she was the one who would be on my side at least long enough to hear me out.

But she seems content that she knows everything. Has already made her own judgments.

So I draw myself up to my full height. The height that could hurt a guy. That never wanted to. “Fine,” I say coolly. “If you really believe those rumors are true, then you’ve saved me a lot of time. Have a nice life, Sabrina.”

26. SABRINA

The sky has gone dark outside the window of the athletics office, and I’m squinting to read the papers spread before me. The janitor has come and gone in the hallway outside, leaving the scent of lemon Pledge behind, and the clattering of lockers opening and closing has long since faded.

I don’t usually stay this late, but I have a lot to do.

And the last thing I want is to risk a run-in with anyone from the football team after practice. By now they’re probably all home, like I should be. Tyler has caught a ride with Will or Gabe, and he’s back at the Thompsons’. Maybe he and Ryan have figured it out and made up. Or maybe they haven’t. It’s not my problem.

I groan and bang my head against the desk in gentle slow motion. It’s only October, and already this year has gotten so messed up. Not only did I not dodge the drama with Ryan, but I’ve made it even worse by sneaking around. And the guy I’ve been making out with has a secret past that he was lying to me about—that has made him the center of the drama mill at another school?

Let me explain. I’ve had enough of guys lying to me and then telling me they can explain. I don’t need anything to take away my sanctuary. Where I still have control.

But how did I—my heart gives a traitorous flutter—fall head over heels for him?

I know Marissa’s right about there being two sides to every story. But I’m too frazzled and devastated and hurt, bleeding from wounds so deep, I can’t tell what’s fresh and what’s merely a reopened scab.

So, maybe I’ll just stay here. Keep my face planted against the fake wood grain of this desk. Melt into it, and the custodians can clean me up tomorrow morning.

My hair falls in a curtain around my face, cocooning me from anyone passing in the hall, and it just reminds me of how delighted Tyler always was to take it down. I let out a groan of regret, and betrayal, and longing, and—

“Sabrina?” Someone clears their throat in the doorway.

I jolt upright, wincing as blood rushes to my head.

Mr. Lewis frowns at me from the doorway. “You doing okay?”

I consider. Having a full existential crisis, behind on homecoming preparations, dodging my friends’ thoughtful check-ins, heartbroken, and hiding out in an office that smells like disintegrating papers, Axe body spray, and a trash can that contains more than one overripe banana peel.

“Fine,” I say. I pull my laptop toward me. “I just have a lot to take care of today. Ella told me about the flooding at the theater, so I need to find a new venue, and we have so little time! So just trying to get busy!”

Because that’s what I should be doing. I’ve never met a problem I couldn’t run from with a long enough to-do list.

But Mr. Lewis winces, and a feeling of foreboding creeps across my skin. “About homecoming.” He pauses, and I can sense the other shoe about to drop. I hold my breath. “I’m sorry, Sabrina, but at this stage… we need to cancel the dance.”

I blink, my brain struggling to catch up. Flooding with panic at the idea that I messed something up this badly. “But we still have time. I can do more—I have ideas!” Desperation sharpens the edge of each word.

He shakes his head sadly. “You did more than enough for a normal year. But that venue was already almost out of our price range, and there’s no way we’re going to find something else affordable at this rate. I just don’t think we’re going to make it in the next week. I hate to do this, but I need to call it now.”

“No way.” I shake my head. “We can’t just… not make it. There has to be something else we can do. We still have time, right?” The panic builds at his silence. “Don’t we?”

Mr. Lewis’s eyes are too soft. He shakes his head again, slowly this time, and I can tell he wishes he could deliver different news. “We really don’t, Sabrina. It’s way too close to the deadline.”

Of all the disasters that have happened today, this is the one that makes tears burn behind my eyes. “No one’s ever failed to put on homecoming before,” I whisper. The lump in my throat almost makes it impossible to get the words out.

Mr. Lewis smiles kindly, and that makes it worse. The tears press closer to the surface. “But this year’s budget was higher than ever, Sabrina. And unexpected things happen sometimes. You have to cut yourself some slack.”

I shake my head. No. I don’t cut myself slack. I raise the bar. I will not be the Spirit Committee president to fail to raise the homecoming budget and put on the dance of our dreams. My cheeks burn from mortification. “How do we fix it?” Desperation soaks every word.