Big Shot | ✓

31 | reid's comet

"Will you just go home already?"

Mara's words came out slightly garbled before she pulled a tissue from the newly opened box on my desk and blew her nose. She sounded even worse than I did, and that was the second box of tissues I'd gone through since this morning. Derek sat in the chair across from my desk, his nose red and his eyes watery.

"You two can go," I shooed them away.

"Come on, you are literally the last person here," Derek chirped up, his voice raspy. "We're all sick, okay? Nobody's gonna judge you for cutting out early. Half the team didn't even come in today."

The moment we'd all come back from Notre Dame, it was as if the plague had descended upon the football complex. By Monday, we were all suffering the consequences of running around in the cold and the rain with reckless abandon for a victory, and so all activities had been made voluntary for the day while everyone recovered.

I halfheartedly nodded, still fixated on the edited files from the weekend's game I was moving to my hard drive. I hadn't seen Reid since we returned to Clemson, and I couldn't stop myself from wondering if he was holed up sick in his room recovering, or busying himself here like I was to avoid being alone with our thoughts.

"He's downstairs getting his knee taped, in case you were wondering," Derek responded to the thoughts ricocheting in my brain as if they were cartoonish, dizzying stars circling my head.

"I didn't ask," I replied curtly, hyper-fixating on the blue downloading bar on my screen as it inched its way to completion.

"Can you just do us all a favor and try talking to him?" Mara chimed in after blowing her nose again. "It's painful watching you two basically reenacting Romeo and Juliet, pining and longing for each other across football fields of forbidden desire."

I shot her a deadpanned look over my laptop. "I know you've taken basic English Lit so I don't feel like I need to remind you how Romeo and Juliet ends."

"Exactly!" She threw her hands up. "Except I might be the one that tragically passes if I have to watch any more of this."

"Don't be dramatic," I huffed. "Derek, tell her."

"Don't look at me." Derek held up his hands and shook his head. "This is girl talk. I'm not involved. And I hated English Lit."

Mara put her hand on Derek's shoulder, and even though it was such an innocent, simple gesture, I couldn't bear to look at it for more than a moment. These were my friends, and I wanted them to be happy, but all it did was remind me of my own shortcomings.

"Just...don't stay here too long," Mara offered me a soft smile. "I know maybe you feel like you need to punish yourself or something, but you don't."

I returned her smile. "I know. I'm fine, really. Feel better guys."

Derek got up out of the chair with a groan. "I'll take care of her, don't worry."

"You better," I warned him. "I need my wingwoman in full form by this weekend."

Mara giggled through all her coughs and sniffles all the way out the door as Derek led her away, and it forced me to shake away any resentment. Their happiness did make me happy, and I had to remind myself that that mattered.

Eventually, I did as Mara told me to and stopped punishing myself, even if it was only because I had nothing left to do. I took the box of tissues with me, feeling like my brain was basically leaking out of my skull through my nose. I made it down to the lobby without seeing anyone else, and I breathed out a sigh of relief as I made it to the doors.