SOPHIE BROOKS:
Party, hook-up, hangover, repeat.
I don't do rules, responsibility, or monogamy.
So when the chance to sleep with the hottest Olympian swimmer in the country presents itself, you can be damn sure I take it.
And sneak out before he wa...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I push the weight bar up with a little too much force. It's my seventh rep, and if anyone were spotting me, they'd tell me to slow down.
But no one is because no one is particularly interested in being near me right now. Not that I blame them. I'm acting like a dick.
It's been four days since I talked to Jen at the hospital. Four days since I turned around and walked out.
Sophie called the day after. I sat there, staring at her nickname on the screen, my thumb hovering just above the accept button, trying to pull together enough courage to press it.
I didn't.
When it went to voicemail, I wanted to toss the phone across the room and watch it shatter.
I know I should have picked up. But then she would have told me she was hurt, and I would have gone running to her side. The second I heard her voice, I would be on my way. And I should do that because that's what you do.
So why the hell am I still sitting here three days later?
She texted the next day, asking me to call her back when I could. That was the last time I heard from her. Then Jen started texting. The last one delivered right before practice still makes the guilt churn in my stomach.
Jen: I told you to give her space, not drop off the face of the planet. Where are you?!
It's the closest I've ever come to imagining Jen yelling.
I release the bar, breathing in deep. I shouldn't push myself this far. Then I begin on the eighth rep.
Because physical exertion is the only thing that has a slight chance of driving away the image of Sophie's face in my mind.
The one that pops up every few seconds, so annoyingly clear, every single inch of her features seared into my mind forever. And every time it does, my heart stutters, and I want to hit myself over the head with the weights hanging off this bar.
I'm a coward. A scared idiot of a coward who can't even go hold his girlfriend's hand when she really needs it.
Sophie's always been the one to run. The one who's turned her back when things got scary, and I've coaxed her to open up to me again, little by little.
So the one time she reaches out, allows herself to be vulnerable, I can't fucking be there for her.
Who the fuck does that?
Sophie thinks she's the broken one. That because she can't have kids, there's something wrong with her, something lesser about her.
But she's wrong. Because even though she went through something horrible, she's still breathing. And she's still evolving every single day, opening herself up just a little bit more. She's so resilient; it's incredible. And there's nothing broken about her.
