Big Shot | ✓

30 | end of the world

Reid and I weren't speaking. At least, not in the way we had been.

Two weeks went by of painfully, forcefully civil interactions, and nothing past that. He didn't even sit next to me on the plane ride to South Bend for the game that weekend, so I had plenty of time to sit and marinate in my poor decision making. It was almost a distraction from my usual bout of flying anxiety.

After I'd left Reid's the day after Halloween, I realized something - the gut twisting look of dejection on Reid's face was eerily similar to the look on JJ's face when I'd found out Kayla broke off whatever had been going on with them. I had to wonder if they sat on their couch that morning and played Xbox while commiserating on their taste in girls that willingly hurt them. 

I thought about reaching out to Kayla. It wasn't like she hadn't been giving me sound life/career advice since I'd known her. Kayla and I clicked from the moment we met because we were always aligned - everything from our goals, our priorities, and our taste in stylish trainers.

But asking Kayla for advice would also mean actually acknowledging what happened between Reid and I out loud, and part of me was convinced that if I pretended it didn't happen, everything about it would go away, including the way my heart would seize every time Reid looked in my direction. I knew what she'd tell me anyway, because she'd already done it.

I was also fully aware that I'd done this to myself - that whole you made your bed now lay in it shit, except laying in someone else's bed was what got me into this mess.

"The weather is going to be shit this weekend," Mara said to me as we made it to our hotel room just off Notre Dame's campus. "It's supposed to pour all day tomorrow."

"Great," I grumbled, dropping my weekend bag at the foot of my bed. "It's already jarring enough for my body going from 68 degrees to 45. Adding rain to that might put me into hypothermic shock."

Mara just shook her head with a sigh.

She knew my mood was going to match the weather this weekend. I hadn't explicitly said anything to her about what had happened between Reid and I, but she knew I'd left with him on Halloween night, and she knew since then I'd been a less than ideal partner. I'd kept my office door shut most days, and I didn't hang around the complex the way I had been. She was perceptive enough to put it together.

We'd arrived pretty late on Friday, so for the most part everyone just went to their hotel rooms and went to sleep. Even Mara had resigned herself to a night in, and she laid in the other queen sized bed, silently scrolling through her phone.

But not me. I'd been sitting on the floor of our room in front of my open camera bag, prepping some of the equipment for the impending weather tomorrow. I wrapped and re-wrapped my camera in its protective vinyl jacket, then didn't like how the plastic sat on the viewfinder, so I did it again.

"Okay I love you, but you stop." Mara was still laying down, but she'd given me a sideways glance away from her phone screen. "The camera is fine."

"I know," I admitted dryly. "I'm just very awake. The Dramamine's worn off."

"Go for a walk," she shrugged. "Get a candy bar from the vending machine or something. That's what I do."

I nodded as I rose to my feet with a faint groan. "Yeah, guess some chocolate wouldn't hurt."

I slipped on my New Balances on the way out of our hotel room and walked into a silent hallway. Even my steps were muted against the geometric-patterned carpet as I trudged past what felt like miles of closed doors, trying not to guess which one Reid was in.

When I made it to the little room at the end of the hallway, I threw my shoulder against the swinging door and nearly slipped on the linoleum flooring at the unexpected sight of Reid standing in front of the vending machine, his head dipped down and illuminated by the pale fluorescents. The hum of the ice maker filled the otherwise painful silence, hoping he couldn't hear the way I gulped at the sight of a trail of bruises down his neck far too similar to the ones I had after Halloween.