Rumor Has It I'm Dating the Football Captain

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: We Wanted Space, Not Goodbye

The Florida sun felt like a heavy weight pressing down on the training pitch.

Mason stood on the bright green turf. He ran a taped hand through his dyed black hair. The dark strands stuck to his forehead with sweat. His chest heaved rapidly. The air was thick with humidity, making it hard to breathe. But the physical exhaustion was nothing compared to the absolute silence in his head.

Forty-eight hours.

It had been exactly two days since he sent that desperate text message to Audrey. He had stared at his phone until his vision blurred. He waited for her name to flash across the screen. He waited for her to call and say it was all a stupid misunderstanding.

She never answered.

She left him completely on read.

"Calloway!" Director Hayes shouted from the touchline. "We have a live training match! The scouts from the European leagues are in the upper bleachers. Show them why you belong in Tier One!"

Mason did not look up at the bleachers. He did not care about the men in the expensive suits holding clipboards. He just stared straight ahead at the opposing attackers.

A cold shift happened inside his chest. The frantic panic and the desperate need to check his phone completely burned out. It was replaced by a sharp, freezing anger. Not at Audrey, but at the entire situation. He was stuck here. She was pushing him away. He had absolutely no control.

The whistle blew loudly.

The opposing striker caught the ball and sprinted down the center of the pitch. He was incredibly fast, dodging two midfielders with ease.

Mason did not hesitate. He did not overthink his footing. He completely detached his emotions from his body.

He closed the distance in three fast strides. He dropped his shoulder and hit the striker with a clean, hard slide tackle. The impact echoed loudly across the empty stadium. The ball flew out of bounds. The striker hit the grass with a heavy thud, completely dispossessed.

Director Hayes clapped his hands loudly. "That is what I want to see! Flawless execution, Calloway! No hesitation!"

Up in the bleachers, two scouts leaned over and wrote something down on their clipboards.

Mason slowly stood up. He wiped the sweat from his jawline. He offered a hand to the striker on the ground, pulling him up effortlessly, but his eyes were completely dead.

He played the rest of the two-hour training match like an absolute machine. He was brutal. He was fast. He did not make a single mistake. He completely shut down the entire attacking third.

When the final whistle blew, the rest of the players collapsed onto the grass in total exhaustion.

Mason just walked straight off the pitch. He ignored the approving nods from the coaching staff. He pushed through the heavy metal doors of the dressing room and walked over to his assigned cubby.

He unzipped his heavy black kit bag. He pulled out his phone.

The screen was completely blank. No missed calls. No new messages.

Mason stared at the black glass. The hollow ache in his chest was almost unbearable. He had fought so hard to break down her walls. He proved he was not going to leave. But the second things got difficult, she locked the door and threw away the key.

Just focus on your camp, Mason.

He tightened his grip on the phone. His jaw locked.

"Fine," Mason whispered to the empty dressing room.

He held down the power button. The screen flashed bright white for a second before fading entirely to black.

He tossed the powered-off phone deep into the bottom of his kit bag and zipped it shut. He was done checking it. He was done waiting. He was going to give her exactly what she asked for.

The campus library was quiet. It smelled heavily of old paper and rain.

Zoya sat at her usual corner table. She had three massive textbooks open in front of her. Her laptop screen glowed brightly. She held a black pen poised over her notebook.

She had been sitting there for three hours. She had not written a single word.

She kept reading the exact same paragraph about corporate litigation over and over again. Her brain absolutely refused to focus.

The heavy wooden doors of the library swung open.

Zoya instinctively looked up.

Jackson walked in. He wore his team sweatpants and a dark hoodie. He carried a backpack over one broad shoulder. Two other players walked right behind him, talking quietly about a math assignment.

Zoya felt her heart do a sudden flutter against her ribs. Her fingers tightened around her pen.

Usually, Jackson would spot her immediately. He would leave his friends, walk directly over to her corner table, and do something annoying. He would steal her highlighters, pull up a chair uninvited, or make a loud joke just to watch her glare at him.

She braced herself. She built up her icy wall, ready to deliver a sharp, sarcastic insult to push him away.

Jackson stopped near the entrance. He looked across the massive room. His dark eyes swept over the tables.

His gaze landed on Zoya.

They locked eyes for exactly one second.

Zoya held her breath.

Jackson’s face remained completely blank. There was no cocky smirk. There was no playful spark in his eyes. He did not look angry, and he did not look hurt. He looked entirely indifferent.

He broke eye contact smoothly. He turned his back to her completely and walked with his teammates toward the opposite side of the library. He sat down at a table far away and pulled a textbook out of his bag. He did not look in her direction again.

Zoya sat perfectly still in her wooden chair.

The pen slipped out of her fingers. It hit the table with a quiet clatter.

The cold shoulder hit her harder than any argument ever could. He was completely ignoring her. He was treating her exactly the way she had treated everyone else her entire life. Like she did not even exist.

She looked down at her blank notebook. Her hands were shaking slightly.

She had pushed him out of her apartment to protect her academic focus. She called him a temporary mistake to protect her pride. She had won the argument.

But sitting in the quiet library, completely ignored by the loudest guy on campus, Zoya felt a terrifying wave of panic. Her perfect, logical life suddenly felt incredibly empty.

The apartment was freezing.

Audrey sat on the living room floor. Her back leaned heavily against the sofa. She wore Mason’s massive black jersey over her leggings. The sleeves swallowed her hands completely.

Chloe sat on the opposite end of the sofa. She wore a thick black sweater. She held a bowl of dry cereal in her lap, but she was not eating it.

They were both staring blindly at the blank television screen across the room.

The silence between them was heavy and miserable.

Chloe slowly set her cereal bowl down on the coffee table. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, tapped the screen, and stared at it for a few seconds. She locked it and dropped it onto the sofa cushions.

"He did not text," Chloe stated into the quiet room. Her voice lacked any of its usual sharp edge. It just sounded terribly tired.

"Leo?" Audrey asked softly.

"Yes," Chloe whispered. She pulled her knees up to her chest. "It has been three days. He has not waited by my classroom. He has not called. I told him not to follow me, and he actually listened."

Audrey looked at her roommate. Chloe’s fierce, independent shield was completely cracked.

"You got what you wanted, Chloe," Audrey pointed out gently.

"I know," Chloe said. A single, silent tear rolled down her pale cheek. She did not bother to wipe it away. "I have total control over my life again. I am completely independent."

She let out a wet, broken breath.

"So why does it feel like I ruined everything?" Chloe asked the empty room.

Audrey swallowed the hard lump in her throat. She looked down at the large, white number four printed on the front of her jersey.

She pulled her own phone out of her pocket and opened her messages with Mason. She stared at her last cold, dismissive text. She stared at his desperate, unanswered plea.

She had not heard from him since yesterday. The silence from Florida was absolutely deafening.

"Because we are idiots," Audrey whispered quietly. "We built massive walls to protect ourselves from getting hurt. And now we are just trapped inside them."

Chloe looked over at her. "Did Mason call you today?"

Audrey shook her head slowly. Her chest ached so badly she could barely breathe.

"No," Audrey confessed. Her voice cracked. "I told him I was too busy to talk. I told him to focus on his camp. And he is doing exactly what I asked."

The two girls sat in the dim light of the living room. They had both fought incredibly hard to protect themselves. They pushed the guys away to keep their lives predictable and safe.

But as the heavy, suffocating silence stretched on into the night, the tension reached an absolute breaking point. They successfully pushed them away, and it was the worst feeling in the entire world.