Rumor Has It I'm Dating the Football Captain

Chapter 81: Chapter 81: The Art of Moving On

The journalism office was entirely quiet. The only sound was the fast, rhythmic clicking of keyboard keys.

Audrey stared at her laptop screen. She was editing a feature on the track and field team, but the letters were starting to blur together. Her eyes burned with pure exhaustion. She reached for her paper coffee cup, took a sip, and instantly grimaced. The coffee was freezing cold and bitter.

A heavy sigh echoed from the other side of the room.

Audrey looked up.

Daisy was sitting at her desk. Her chin rested in her hands. She was staring blankly at her dark monitor. Her camera bag was dropped carelessly on the floor.

"I deleted them," Daisy announced. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Audrey blinked. "Deleted what? The tennis photos? Ben is going to have a heart attack."

"No," Daisy said softly. She spun her rolling chair around to face Audrey. "I deleted all the photos of Leo."

Audrey stopped typing. Her hands slowly fell to her lap.

"Every single one," Daisy continued. She pulled her oversized yellow cardigan tighter around her shoulders. "The action shots. The candid ones by the water coolers. I dragged them all to the digital trash bin and hit empty."

Audrey looked at the sweet, curly-haired freshman. She remembered how completely heartbroken Daisy had looked yesterday.

"Are you okay?" Audrey asked gently.

"I am getting there," Daisy said. She offered a small, brave smile. "I saw them yesterday. Leo and Chloe. They were sitting in the courtyard."

Audrey winced. "Oh, Daisy. You didn’t have to watch that."

"I didn’t watch for long," Daisy admitted. She looked down at her sneakers. "But it was long enough. I saw the way he looked at her. And I realized something entirely ugly about myself."

"You are not ugly," Audrey insisted.

"My thoughts were," Daisy argued lightly. "I was secretly hoping they would break up again. I was hoping Chloe would be mean to him so he would finally give up. It was a really selfish hope. I do not want to be that kind of person, Audrey."

Audrey felt a sharp, tight ache in her chest. She understood exactly what Daisy was feeling.

"Hope makes people do crazy things," Audrey said softly.

"Which is why I have to kill it," Daisy stated firmly. She sat up straighter. "I cannot sit around waiting for a guy who is completely in love with someone else. I need to erase him from my brain entirely."

Audrey stared at her.

The words echoed loudly in the quiet office.

I need to erase him from my brain entirely.

A heavy, suffocating weight dropped directly onto Audrey’s heart.

Daisy was right. Holding onto a dead hope was just a slow form of torture. Daisy was letting go of Leo because he belonged to Chloe.

Audrey needed to do the exact same thing. She needed to let go of Mason.

Her mind instantly flashed to the bright, glossy photograph from the sports blog. The image burned fiercely behind her eyes.

Mason in a tailored black suit. His dyed black hair was styled perfectly. Elena in a stunning red dress, her hands wrapped tightly around his arm. Walking out of an expensive Miami restaurant like they owned the entire world.

He was a top-tier academy prospect now. He was going to sign a massive transfer deal with a European club in the WFA. He was living in a wealthy, high-stakes professional world. Elena was the perfect girl to stand right next to him in the spotlight.

Audrey was just a college journalism intern in a baggy sweater.

I sent the breakup text, Audrey reminded herself bitterly. I told him it wasn’t working. I told him to focus on the camp.

And he did. He did exactly what she asked. He did not fight for her. He just replaced her and moved on.

Why was she still waiting? Why was she still wearing his massive black jersey to sleep every night? It was pathetic.

"You are absolutely right, Daisy," Audrey whispered. Her voice trembled slightly, but she locked her jaw. "It is the smartest thing you can do. You have to cut the hope off before it destroys you."

Daisy nodded slowly. "So. How do I do it?"

"Do what?"

"Forget about a giant, incredibly sweet defender," Daisy said. She let out a frustrated breath. "He is everywhere on campus. He is literally on the posters for the athletic department. How do I move on?"

Audrey forced a supportive smile onto her face. She shoved her own heartbreak deep down into a locked box.

"You find a distraction," Audrey advised. "You find a new hobby. Or you find a new guy. Someone who is the exact opposite of Leo. Someone quiet. Someone who doesn’t play sports."

Daisy tapped her chin thoughtfully. Her honey-colored eyes scanned the empty journalism office.

"Someone who doesn’t play sports," Daisy murmured to herself.

She looked over at the massive layout desk in the corner of the room. It was covered in scattered papers, empty coffee cups, and red pushpins.

Daisy slowly looked back at Audrey.

"What about Ben?" Daisy asked.

Audrey was taking a sip of her cold coffee. She literally choked.

She coughed violently. She slapped her hand against her chest. Some of the coffee spilled directly onto her desk.

"Excuse me?!" Audrey wheezed. She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Ben? Our Ben?"

"Yes," Daisy said. She crossed her arms, suddenly looking a little defensive. "Why not?"

Audrey stared at the freshman in absolute shock. She waited for Daisy to laugh. She waited for the punchline.

Daisy did not laugh. She was completely serious.

"Daisy," Audrey said, her voice rising in sheer disbelief. "Ben is an absolute menace. He yelled at a printer for ten minutes straight yesterday because it ran out of cyan ink."

"He is very passionate about his work," Daisy reasoned.

"He eats cold ravioli out of a can while staring at formatting margins!" Audrey argued.

"He has nice hair," Daisy countered stubbornly. "When he is not pulling it out in chunks."

Audrey covered her face with both hands. A loud, entirely genuine laugh ripped out of her chest. It felt incredibly good to laugh after spending the last two days drowning in misery.

"You cannot be serious," Audrey giggled. She lowered her hands. "You want to date Ben? The guy who is oblivious to emotions...well most emotions l?"

"He noticed!" Daisy pointed out proudly. "And he gave me a tissue! It was covered in pocket lint, but it was the thought that counts. He even bought me a terrible coffee from the vending machine."

"Daisy, he bought you a coffee so you would stop ruining his layout sheets with your tears," Audrey laughed.

"He is single," Daisy stated logically. "He does not play football. He does not know what a slide tackle is. He is exactly what you just told me to look for."

Audrey shook her head, still grinning widely. "Ben does not know what a date is. If you ask him out to dinner, he is going to bring a red pen and edit the restaurant menu."

"I think it is cute," Daisy mumbled. Her cheeks turned a very bright shade of pink.

Before Audrey could make another joke about their chaotic senior editor, the heavy wooden doors of the office violently banged open.

Ben sprinted into the room.

He looked like a complete disaster. His tie was loose. His hair was sticking up in three different directions. He was clutching a stack of freshly printed test pages to his chest like they were pure gold.

"It is a disaster!" Ben screamed at the ceiling.

Audrey and Daisy both jumped in their chairs.

"Ben, what is wrong?" Daisy asked, her eyes going wide with concern.

Ben marched over to his layout desk and slammed the papers down.

"The printing room changed the default font!" Ben yelled frantically. He waved his hands in the air. "They changed it from Times New Roman to Arial! Arial! Do they think this is a middle school newsletter?! We are a highly respectable publication!"

Audrey looked over at Daisy. She raised her eyebrows significantly.

Daisy just bit her lower lip, trying very hard not to smile.

"I am going to march down to the administration office tomorrow morning," Ben ranted. He paced back and forth across the carpet. "I am going to demand a formal apology. Arial takes up entirely too much page space! It ruins the entire aesthetic flow of the sports section!"

He stopped pacing. He looked over at Audrey and Daisy.

"Why are you two just sitting there?" Ben demanded loudly. "This is a crisis! Audrey, I need you to shorten the track and field article by fifty words to compensate for the new font margins!"

"I am already editing it, Ben," Audrey sighed. She turned her chair back to her laptop.

"Daisy!" Ben barked, pointing a finger at the freshman. "I need the photos cropped tighter! Less background, more action! The margins demand sacrifices!"

"I am on it, Ben," Daisy said quickly. She immediately opened her photo editing software.

Ben let out a loud, stressed groan. He collapsed into his rolling chair and rubbed his face aggressively with both hands. "I am surrounded by incompetence. This newspaper is going to send me to an early grave."

Audrey started typing. She glanced over at Daisy’s desk.

Daisy was staring at her computer screen. Her hands moved quickly across the keyboard. But there was a small, unmistakable smile playing on her lips. She looked completely entertained by Ben’s absolute panic.

Audrey shook her head, smiling to herself.

Maybe Ben was exactly the kind of ridiculous distraction Daisy needed.

Audrey looked back at her own screen. The smile slowly faded. The quiet, heavy reality settled back into her chest. Daisy had a plan to move on. She had a distraction.

Audrey just had a broken heart and a blank page.

She locked her jaw. She forced her fingers to keep typing. She was going to erase Mason Calloway from her mind, even if it took her the rest of her life to do it.